Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the construction of care as a profession among men. By analyzing men´s ideas about care work, we will explore the transformations that they may introduce to the current caregiving culture that naturalizes care provision on the basis of gendered kinship ties.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the construction of care as a profession among men. Care has been traditionally undertaken by families and it has been predominantly a feminine responsibility. This has led to a naturalization of care as feminine and unpaid labour which set the basis for its low social value and difficulties to acknowledge it as work. As a result, it is a highly feminized occupational sector with poor working conditions.

Within the framework of a broader research study on male caregivers carried out in Catalonia (Spain), we have focused our attention on men employed in long-term paid care work. Even though their involvement is not yet mainstream, it is highly significant. We believe these men have established an employment niche that was previously occupied by women, overcoming gender barriers and contributing to the masculinisation of care work, at least to a limited extent.

We consider that the incorporation of men to this occupational sector needs to be further investigated by examining whether it can promote greater recognition for care work and contribute to its professionalization. By analyzing men´s ideas about their involvement in care work, we will explore the transformations that these men may introduce to the current caregiving culture that naturalizes care provision on the basis of gendered kinship ties.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the central role of care in livelihoods in times of austerity. Constituting a basis to social reproduction, care processes strengths kinship relations crosscutting gender roles in family, community and labor.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how care is central in livelihoods in times of austerity. Constituting a basis to social reproduction, care processes strengths kinship relations crosscutting gender roles in family, community and labor.

Approaches to the Portuguese recent crisis (2011 - 2015) are usually centered on its economic and political character. Departing from a discussion on the different dimensions and forms of care, this paper will discuss how people use interpersonal relations of care and support to deal with the precariousness produced by austerity policies to tackle their livelihoods. From an ethnographic research on middle class families in Lisbon I will explore how men and women ensure social reproduction through interpersonal relations of care and support which produce a reinforcement of dependences and mutualities that make kinship ever more important in a state based society. Addressing austerity through multiple forms of care unveils shifts in gender roles in traditional family relations, challenging how we think about the intersections of care, gender and kinship.

Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with the situation of 'left-behind' men within the context of female labour migration in Western Ukraine. Gendered caring practices and local discourses on gender norms thereby contribute significantly to the 'invisibility' of men as providers of care within these networks.

Paper long abstract:

Since the early 2000s, due to increasing poverty and unemployment in connection with a supposed 'care crisis' in the West, more and more women from rural areas in Western Ukraine leave their homes to work as caregivers or domestic aid in central or southern Europe in order to contribute to the livelihood of their families. Frequently, they leave their children and families behind. Based on ethnographic data from fieldwork in a local community in Western Ukraine, the proposed paper deals with the situation of 'left-behind' men and their roles as husbands, fathers, sons, and grandchildren. Previous research on the effects of female labour migration has primarily focused on the absence of women and mothers and the central role ascribed to them regarding emotional and material care for family members 'left behind'. Analytically, I consider this focus on the perspectives of women insofar as problematic, as the 'naturalisation' of motherhood and related care expectations and responsibilities overshadow other actors who might be equally important in the provision of care. Based on current anthropological approaches at the intersection of care, gender and kinship, the paper emphasizes re-arrangements of care practices within the context of female labour migration. The focus thereby lies on men's roles as care givers within complex networks of care and support, suggesting that gendered caring practices and local discourses on gender norms contribute significantly, both to the exclusion of men from different forms of care, and to their 'invisibility' as providers of care within these networks.

Paper short abstract:

The communication explores the new forms of identity that are built around masculinity in relation to new models of paternity and paternal involvement in care. We focus especially on changes, tensions and contradictions of involved fathers in their adaptation to fatherhood.

Paper long abstract:

This communication explores the discourses and narratives of urban middle-class men facing fatherhood for the first time. The data come from a study carried out in Barcelona on fathers who attended a course of seven sessions on preparation for birth between 2015 and 2017. Five discussion groups were held with these men who had attended the course and were already fathers. These men, who define themselves as involved fathers, discussed, among other topics, the meaning of being a father, paternal involvement, changes, tensions and contradictions, between ideals and reality, in their adaptation to paternity.

The communication explores the new forms of identity that are built around masculinity in relation to new models of paternity and paternal involvement in care.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing from my fieldwork on parent-led autism advocacy in Portugal, this paper illustrates fathers' involvement in longterm care of their children with autism and interrogate the gendered division of caregiving by addressing both its dimensions: as bodily practices and as socially expected tasks.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the ways in which fathers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders perform long-term and intensive care as a form of self-making that challenges gendered conceptions of care. My purpose is to show how care labour - understood as a manifold of hands-on practices, emotional thinking, commitment and responsibilities - shows but also calls into question gendered expectations of parenting and care itself, which have been a role in misrepresenting fathers' abilities as carers. Father's experience of the bodily dimension of caring (Ranson, 2015) has important consequences for them as individuals but also for the broader society. I then describe fathers' assertions of their care abilities and emotional relationships with their children with ASDs in order to claim to their role as caregivers. Similarly, since when a child is diagnosed with a disability "kinship, caretaking, and the life course are reconfigured" (Rapp and Ginsburg 2010), I also show fathers' renegotiations and imaginary of kinship practices and duties. By gathering their narratives about what it means to be a father of a child with autism, this paper aims to acknowledge the bodily and emotional capacities that men perform in their fathering practices and caregiving as a form of self-making