Carelessness

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak

Cognitive psychology

Engineering

Manifesto

Public relations

Computer security

Virology

Psychiatry

Computer science

Anthropology

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Outbreak

CLARION

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Mechanical engineering

Vulnerability (computing)

Psychology

Politics

Political science

Evocation

Work (physics)

Morality

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Internal medicine

Sociology

Reactionary

Medicine

Disease

Media studies

Pathology

Feminist Media Studies

Care, in all its permutations, is the buzzword of the moment, its meanings draining away in its constant evocation. Here, we briefly expand on older and newer meanings of care in the wake of Covid-19. These include the increasingly blurred boundaries between what has been traditionally understood as "care work" versus "essential work"; desperate attempts by corporations to promote themselves as 'caring'; and the adoption of reactionary rather than progressive models of 'care' by populist leaders such as Trump, Johnson, and Bolsonaro. We then argue that we are in urgent need of a politics that recognises our mutual interdependence and vulnerability. Rejecting the extensive carelessness so evident today, our model of 'universal care' calls for inventive forms of collective care at every scale of life. We envisage a world in which genuine care is everywhere —from our most intimate ties to our relationship with the planet itself.

From carewashing to radical care: the discursive explosions of care during Covid-19