Caring at the edges: Infrastructures of care and repair in urban deprivation

Abstract

Care is an activity vital to making the world liveable. Alternative infrastructures of care have emerged that re-centre care and repair within everyday life. These infrastructures often require more care to address care deficits and repair the social fabric of society; however, insights are limited as to the implications of demands on people and the places they reside for such extra care. Through an ethnographic study of a community food hub in an area of entrenched deprivation, we examine how an alternative infrastructure of care is built in practice. We demonstrate how care unfolds expansively across people and place to (reactively) repair care deficits and (proactively) generate new care relations. We contribute to the complexity of care theorising by revealing the challenges of care provision that stem from a position of necessity and repair. We offer a critical discussion of alternative infrastructures of care that simultaneously recognises the opportunities for hope, whilst acknowledging their limits.