Vulnerability and Response鈥慉bility in the Pandemic Marketplace: Developing an Ethic of Care for Provisioning in Crisis 鈥� 麻豆官网

Vulnerability and Response鈥慉bility in the Pandemic Marketplace: Developing an Ethic of Care for Provisioning in Crisis

authored by: Susi Geiger, Ilaria Galasso, Nora Hangel, Federica Lucivero, Gemma Watts
Abstract: This paper draws on the ethics of care to investigate how citizens grappled with ethical tensions in the mundane practice of grocery shopping at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. We use this case to address the broader question of what it means 鈥榯o care鈥� in the context of a crisis. Based on a qualitative longitudinal cross-country interview study, we find that the pandemic transformed ordinary shopping spaces into places fraught with a sense of fear and vulnerability. Being forced to face one鈥檚 own vulnerability created an opportunity for individuals to relate to one another as significant others through a sense of 鈥渞esponse-ability鈥�, or the capacity of people to respond to ethical demands through situated ethical reasoning. We argue for a practical ethos of care in which seemingly small decisions such as how often to go shopping and how much to buy of a particular product serve as a means to relate to both specified and generalized others鈥攁nd through this, 鈥榗are with鈥� society. Our study contributes to displacing the continuing prevalence of an abstract and prescriptive morality in consumption ethics with a situated and affective politics of care. This vocabulary seems better suited to reflect on the myriad of small and unheroic care acts in times of crisis and beyond.
Organisation(s): Leibniz Research Centre Science and Society (LCSS)
External Organisation(s): University College Dublin
Technical University of Munich (TUM)
University of Oxford
Type: Article
Journal: Journal of business ethics
Volume: 192
Pages: 441-459
No. of pages: 19
ISSN: 0167-4544
Publication date: 07.2024
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Business and International Management, General Business,Management and Accounting, Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), Economics and Econometrics, Law
Electronic version(s): (Access: Open)
(Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{9fe6428b6938402ba1b0eb47a3ad52fd,
title = "Vulnerability and Response鈥慉bility in the Pandemic Marketplace: Developing an Ethic of Care for Provisioning in Crisis",
abstract = "This paper draws on the ethics of care to investigate how citizens grappled with ethical tensions in the mundane practice of grocery shopping at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. We use this case to address the broader question of what it means {\textquoteleft}to care{\textquoteright} in the context of a crisis. Based on a qualitative longitudinal cross-country interview study, we find that the pandemic transformed ordinary shopping spaces into places fraught with a sense of fear and vulnerability. Being forced to face one{\textquoteright}s own vulnerability created an opportunity for individuals to relate to one another as significant others through a sense of 鈥渞esponse-ability鈥�, or the capacity of people to respond to ethical demands through situated ethical reasoning. We argue for a practical ethos of care in which seemingly small decisions such as how often to go shopping and how much to buy of a particular product serve as a means to relate to both specified and generalized others鈥攁nd through this, {\textquoteleft}care with{\textquoteright} society. Our study contributes to displacing the continuing prevalence of an abstract and prescriptive morality in consumption ethics with a situated and affective politics of care. This vocabulary seems better suited to reflect on the myriad of small and unheroic care acts in times of crisis and beyond.",
keywords = "Consumption ethics, Covid-19, Crisis, Ethics of care, Relational ethics, Response-ability, Shopping, Solidarity",
author = "Susi Geiger and Ilaria Galasso and Nora Hangel and Federica Lucivero and Gemma Watts",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023, The Author(s).",
year = "2024",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1007/s10551-023-05541-7",
language = "English",
volume = "192",
pages = "441--459",
journal = "Journal of business ethics",
issn = "0167-4544",
publisher = "Springer Netherlands",
number = "3",
}