Infrastructures of Caring Citizenship examines instances of collective struggle and (re)organization of social reproduction against the backdrop of the crisis that followed the international banking crash in 2008. Drawing on a long-term engagement with four grassroots initiatives, a social kitchen, a social clinic, and an accommodation center with refugees and a community center, Gutierrez Sanchez introduces the concept of Infrastructures of Caring Citizenship (ICCs) as a theoretical tool for the examination of spaces of collective resistance where new commons are formed that enable the sustenance of everyday life. Furthermore, the book unpacks how such resistance challenges crisis governmentalities, shedding light on how self-organized groups understand the stakes of their practices and the potential for radical social change embedded in them.

Making a unique contribution to debates connecting care and the commons, this book offers a theoretical framework grounded in a compelling narrative, inspiring insights for a new social imagination and practice beyond the conventional view of chronic crisis.

An examination of the struggle and reorganization of social reproduction during the multifaceted crisis in Greece

About the Author

ISABEL GUTIERREZ SANCHEZis a postdoctoral researcher with a background in architecture and anthropology. She currently works at the Department of Anthropology of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Her work has appeared in the Urban Studies Journal; Environment and Planning: Society and Space; Care and the City: Encounters with Urban Studies; and Urban Informality and the Built Environment: Infrastructure, Exchange and Image.

Reviews

Refusing to get trapped in the vicious circles of current crises, solidarity and mutual care initiatives gesture towards a different future. Learning from the careful study of such initiatives in crisis ridden Athens, Greece, Infrastructures of Caring Citizenship offers us an inspiring exit from the suffocating enclosures that aim at destroying the emancipatory potentialities of urban commoning.

-- Stavros Stavrides * author of Common Spaces in Urban Emancipation *

This book is an important device to help us navigate crises of social reproduction and learn from recent cycles of hardship and struggle for future crises that are sure to come. Building on the experience and knowledge of the Occupy and Anti-Austerity generations, it shows us how care and infrastructure are key in this learning.

-- Manuela Zechner * author of Commoning Care and Collective Power *



Book Information
ISBN 9780820375052
Author Isabel Gutierrez Sanchez
Format Hardback
Page Count 190
Imprint University of Georgia Press
Publisher University of Georgia Press