Living care-fully: the potential for an ethics of care in livelihoods approaches

Abstract

This article explores the potential contribution of a feminist ethics of care to livelihoods approaches. Current critiques argue that considerations of material outcomes have been prioritized at the expense of social well-being. I argue that autonomy and independence frame our current approaches to understanding how people support themselves. This has obscured the interdependent and contingent nature of connections that found our social lives and reduced social connections to an instrumental role. The potential for taking a care-full approach to livelihoods is examined through the unfolding negotiations of livelihood strategies between an elderly woman and her daughter-in-law in rural northern Ghana.