Being Cared for in the Context of Crisis: Austerity, COVID-19, and Racialized Politics

Akhter, Shahnaz; Elias, Juanita; Rai, Shirin M.

Abstract

This article presents an investigation into the racialized and gendered dynamics of the intensifying crisis in care for older people in the United Kingdom. Deploying a feminist political economy framework, we reveal how the care crisis is an intersectional crisis of social reproduction worsened by both austerity and COVID-19. We do this through an analysis of a small set of interviews with South Asian older women with care needs, conducted during the first period of UK national lockdown in 2020. This was a pilot study, focusing on the challenges faced in accessing formal and informal care during this period of the pandemic. The experiences, fears, and vulnerabilities that came through in the interviews are located within a broader analysis of the racialized care crisis—one that reveals the long-term harms that austerity, including “austerity Islamophobia,” generated for these older women and their families as they struggled to provide and access un/paid care.

Citation

Akhter, S., Elias, J., & Rai, S. M. (2022). Being Cared for in the Context of Crisis: Austerity, COVID-19, and Racialized Politics. Social Politics, 29(4), 1121-1143. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxac035

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 20, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Oct 11, 2022
• Publication Date: Oct 11, 2022
• Deposit Date: Nov 14, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 14, 2022
• Journal: Social Politics
• Print ISSN: 1072-4745
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-2893
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 1121-1143
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxac035
• Keywords: COVID-19, care, aging, caring, race, Islamophobia, austerity, discrimination, violence
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/sp/article/29/4/1121/6758469