Contesting the service model of ‘care’ in disabling capitalism: a Disability Politics perspective

Abstract

Mainstream feminist perspectives on social reproduction often portray non-disabled women as active providers of a service (care) to those assumed to be its passive, agency-less recipients. In response, this article accounts for social reproduction as a key factor in the reproduction of disabling capitalist social relations and argues for an understanding of social reproduction that no longer obscures the contributions of those considered to be ‘cared for’. Alternatives to what is termed here ‘the service model of care’ can be established through mobilising and organising for In(ter)dependent Living through an anti-productivist politics whose social relations prefigure alternatives against and beyond disabling capitalism.