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Writer's pictureEbube Esor

Student Series: Care Across Scales

By Ebube Esor


Part I: Agency and Freedom

Our freedom is the most important thing we have, it is our right to exist as we see fit. Our freedom gives us identity and makes us who and what we are, chosen of our own accord. Our agency is simply our freedom exercised, the footprint of our freedom everywhere we step. If you pour water out of a bottle it’s free to spread out and run along the surface and everything in its path has been wetted by its agency. Having this autonomy is very crucial to our view on care and how we act on said views. I believe agency and freedom should be as multi-directionally accessible and multi-faceted as possible, otherwise, it becomes detrimental to care. In week 2 of our care seminar we were asked to think of the effects of agency on care and these are my reflections.

I believe agency and freedom should be as multi-directionally accessible and multi-faceted as possible, otherwise, it becomes detrimental to care.

One-directional agency is oftentimes dangerous and creates imbalances in situations of two or more parties. The prime example of this is in dictatorships, the very system is one directionally designed for the flow of power and agency to be handed down from dictator to subject. In North Korea the very lives of citizens are reduced to those of action figures in Kim Jong-un’s playpen, limiting freedoms down to even government-specified haircuts and banning leather jackets so they don’t copy ‘his style’. In such a situation it’s easy to see where the robbing of self and identity begins and ends. In a political context, the freedoms of the people should be ensured by the government care systems otherwise you’re working with a flawed system

However, the line becomes less clear-cut when one-directional agency occurs out of necessity. Say for example a parent-child relationship where the parent is by default expected to take the reins and make the decisions. Parents limit children’s freedoms all the time, for good reason too; teaching manners, avoiding bad habits, teaching productivity, etc. this is seen as parental care. As such, the agency operates mainly from parent to child, but when this controlling factor spirals out of hand and children are given too little freedom over themselves, they start to become excluded from their own lives. This is how we find people who are 40 being miserable because not a single foundational life choice included their input. Parents commonly cut off their children’s aspirations at early ages, restricting them to a cutout box of what they believe is ‘best for them’. They lack the courage to take risks to get what they want out of life and enact this cowardice upon their children. In such a situation backwards agency would do wonders, where the child uses his freedom to empower and ensure his/her parents.

We also concluded that when agency is made available to the caring parties they are able to connect more with those they care for because it was not a forced arrangement and resentment does not become a byproduct of the care. What makes it so hard to combat is the moral dilemma of neither side being completely right nor wrong. People need their freedoms but when it needs to be kept in check or it becomes destructive. In the context of care, I still believe that more pathways for agency to take effect should be opened to build multi-directional care and touch all bases properly. When proper care is enacted, it accommodates all kinds of people that want to do all kinds of things.


Part II: Environment

We are products of our environment whether we like it or not, the things that surround our physical space and the systems in place that support them play huge roles in deciding how we live our lives and the options we available to live out in the first place. The people, what’s acceptable, the interactions, and the sense of community are all factors of our environment. This takes place on several scales, in a neighborhood setting, township, city-wide, state-wide, nationally, and internationally. These scales all influence us in some way as well as us influencing each of these scales. In smaller settings, it’s easier to see yourself reflected in your environment, like having a clean street because you take the time to tidy it up and mow lawns, or having good relationships with your neighbors but we tend to think that beyond personal relations we are of little consequences, which is not true.

As such it is important to consider how we care for our environment and the people and animals in it, which is why we embarked on the investigation of conservation and environmental care during week 9 of the seminar. As the name implies conservation involves conserving nature and its resources for our future generations; a preventive measure against the consequences of unchecked human consumption. It seems like a pure and rosy sentiment, but moral trespasses begin to crop up when the conservationist organizations like the UNDP begin to launch projects in remote locations that bar locals that live off that land from having access to their source of life for the sake of conservation. One such place was The Congo where the Baka people’s way of life was truncated without any offering of an alternative, their source of food, medicine, and other basics was taken from them.

Photo accessed from www.discover-afrika.com

Due to this, their numbers dwindled considerably. I believe conservation is a good thing but really needs to be handled and inserted carefully otherwise it ends up with western ‘saviors’ coming down on less developed rural areas across the oceans to dictate to them why they can’t feed because the land needs to be conserved for generations that aren’t even born yet. All the while these ‘saviors’ that commission these projects have a roof over their heads and a steady supply of food and water.

The second branch we touched upon was that of environmental justice and climate gentrification. To have environmental justice, all the people and communities within the observed region need to have equal protection and enforcement of environmental laws. Because the world is the way it is, no system is ever perfect and those with less money, migrant background, and people of color always get the short end of the stick. Left with the least amount of environmental amenities while bearing the brunt of climate gentrification whenever green infrastructure is introduced into the neighborhood. In a domino effect of changes being made turning into the neighborhood being nice, turning to more visitors, turning to more businesses opening, all of which give landlords cause to increase the rent and drive the low-income residents out because the neighborhood has now become desirable.

Activists block Chicago's The 606 trail in 2016 to protest gentrification and displacement. Photo by Tyler Lariviere. Accessed from https://www.planning.org/planning/2018/dec/scalesofgentrification/

A more caring approach would be to think about how to meet the climate needs without pushing the cost on the people who have the least to begin with. To make environmental care work we have to think of solutions that account for social differences and democratic implementation in order to tackle all the roots of problems instead of creating band-aid solutions or problem exchanges.

To make environmental care work we have to think of solutions that account for social differences and democratic implementation in order to tackle all the roots of problems instead of creating band-aid solutions or problem exchanges.

On a personal scale, it’s our duty to make sure we’re up to date with the environmental plans of our cities and towns and use the systems of democracy to weigh in and create amicable solutions for all parties involved.


Part III: Global/Online Care

Due to technological advancements and the birth of social media the meaning of global care has become heavily affiliated with that of online care. Discrepancies between the two are prevalent once you cut out the ‘intention’ part and leave the application and action part. From that point on the two begin to diverge and form a relationship comparable to that of night and day.

Worldwide Connection by Pixel Point
Due to technological advancements and the birth of social media the meaning of global care has become heavily affiliated with that of online care.

Now technology has many, many contributions to modern life and has done the impossible for accessibility. The further out of physical range, something is, the more we lean toward technology to bridge that gap, which is not a bad thing but can lead to derailed efforts and the cause losing potency due to slacktivism/clicktivism. This is where the importance of the cause has been lost in the overlapping distractions to the point where causes for care being posted online just blend in with everything else and become stories that people post like and share and do nothing more than ‘raise awareness’ for. Social media is a machine that runs on attention, the very basis of it is that people tune in to see what needs their attention or what entertains them, people don’t open their phones to actually DO anything, they open them to receive eye candy and to numb the brain with mindless content. This is what gives slacktivism its foothold in the online care community. Often times messages for help are also phrased in such a way that a clear divide is put between the ‘us’ and ‘them’ factor that can create even a savior-victim dynamic. After a certain amount of support causes are thrown their way, people also get fatigued and lose the ability to react to them, it becomes just another story and very performative in nature.

Accessed from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-picture-that-launched-a-thousand-memes-on-pove/

A more fully realized form of global care is volunteer tourism which is where tourists organize a well, a tour to remote locations in hopes of helping the locals or relieving the struggles the land has been stricken with. Once again it sounds like a good and genuine cause at face value but our activity made us think deeper to see how far the façade goes in terms of fulfilling the intention. Often times these tourists do less volunteering and more touring, and the whole campaign ends up being a short-term solution to long-lasting problems. They go to get their experience, get the pictures with the children, then come home while not having done much of anything, all the while pushing forward the ‘white savior’ narrative. They come underequipped for the job, not speaking the language, and promote an agenda of making things seem worse than they were so they appear to be a bigger solution than they actually are. As a cultural exchange experience it’s a great thing, connecting communities is always positive but to achieve long-term global care, groups of tourists would not be enough to make a difference but rather pillars of society like doctors, engineers, etc. to build a better quality of life in rural locations.


Part IV: Physiological Care

Many of us often forget that care is practical and do not reflect on just how practical it must be for it to be so ingrained in our everyday life that we don’t even have to think of it. Care takes more than feelings to exist most times. Care takes properly organized structures and systems in place to make things function according to our basic physiological needs, every detail that wraps over another ultimately all stemming from our dependencies. In the second week we considered dependency extensively with reflective activities.

Dependencies that we pathologize and ignore the significance of. The more time a person spends being comfortable and privileged, the foggier their dependencies get in their mind. Every human being has needs for shelter, clothing, air, food, and reproduction. And it seems the richer and more privileged people are the more their views on these things become skewed. We reach a paradox where people use their money to outsource a lot of work for the sake of meeting their care needs, all the while being apathetic or shunning those who need these basics the most. Creating scenarios like senators leaving their big and warm homes to enter the office and passing bills that criminalize homelessness all while leaving little to no solution behind for their mess.

The more we advance with privilege the more we take things for granted and do not pay attention to how much of the physical goes into our very own dependencies, we see these things as ‘normal’ because we always grew up with them. 3 meals a day is not a right, and a comfortable double bed and 4 pillows are not a right, and all it takes is for a situation to strip these from you. You don’t know what you need until you’re not suddenly able to get it anymore. We’re all aware of the housing crisis in Guelph as we all try to gain residency off-campus, without adequate structural help I struggled with housing, my friends did too, and so might you. Uncertainty about the physical elements is not a fun thing to face. Other basics that we depend on like healthcare and child-rearing exist too that get overlooked.

I believe the necessary steps are that we need to own up to our head starts in life to become more caring people. After which we need to become less tight-fisted when it comes to assisting and giving to those that don’t share our privilege, the cultivation of these habits of sharing is what leads to tight-knit communities that overcome even the most lackluster settings of care infrastructure. Saying this, I know care is relative and no one person can be asked to do so much, so we need to start at basic levels of empathy to make these things possible. Look out for more than just your own needs, offer your neighbors help, and look after the old people you come across.

You don’t have to be homeless to protest anti-homeless-ness, and you don’t have to be a woman to protest abortion laws, but the more you do these things the better you are able to perceive care...

You don’t have to be homeless to protest anti-homelessness, and you don’t have to be a woman to protest abortion laws, but the more you do these things the better you are able to perceive care and take every opportunity you have to leave a positive impact.



References

Anguelovski, I., Connolly, J. J. T., Pearsall, H., Shokry, G., Checker, M., Maantay, J., Gould, K., Lewis, T., Maroko, A., & Roberts, J. T. (2019). Why green “climate gentrification” threatens poor and vulnerable populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(52), 26139–26143. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920490117

Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Litter, J., & Rottenberg, C. (2020). Chapter 1: Caring Politics. The care manifesto: The politics of interdependence (pp. 21-31 ). Verso Books.

Community Economies. (n.d.). Community Economies. Research and Practice. https://www.communityeconomies.org/about/community-economies-research-and-practice

Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership. (2021, June 21). What are Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs)? [Video] Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR1EeEB2t2I

Freidus, A. (2017).Volunteer tourism: what’s wrong with it and how it can be changed. The Conversation. Accessible at: https://theconversation.com/volunteer-tourism-whats-wrong-with-it-and-how-it-can-be-changed-86701

Hawkins, R. (2018). Breaking Down Barriers of Culture and Geography? Caring-at-a-Distance through Web 2.0. New Political Science, 40(4), 727-743. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2018.1528534

New Internationalist. (2020, March 3). Violence and conservation: Big conservation NGOs are funding human rights abuses. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://newint.org/features/2020/03/03/violence-conservation


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