A Care Crisis in the Nordic Welfare States?
Care Work, Gender Equality and Welfare State Sustainability

11: Postscript: A care crisis in the time of COVID-19

Care research does not take place in a vacuum, especially in the context of a global pandemic that has magnified the care crisis dynamics discussed in this book. Perhaps the COVID-19 crisis will actually give impetus to a more enduring, transformative restructuring of care and justice. And yet there is only limited room to reflect on these developments in the format of academic book chapters written mainly in the pre-COVID-19 period. How then can we make sure to position this book in its time, so that you, the reader engaging with our discussions, get a sense of the unsettling, disruptive context in which it has been finalised?

This postscript brings together a range of vignettes by some of the book’s contributors on dimensions of COVID-19-related developments in their respective context. Taking the care crisis concept as reference point, each vignette describes a concrete moment, development or process that offers reflections on the discussions in the book within the COVID-19 context. Carsten Juul Jensen provides a glimpse from the perspective of a practitioner of care. Birgitte Ljunggren highlights the ambiguities of the impact of policy reactions to COVID-19, where unintended consequences have indeed shown what early childhood care could look like if there was sufficient political will. Carsten Juul Jensen’s poetic rendering of an interview with a nurse volunteering for the COVID-19 unit conveys a feeling of how mundane and at the same time existential hospital care is, on so many levels. Finally, in a reflection on what it means to write and edit a book on the care crisis, Laura Horn highlights the disruptive context of academic work in the time of COVID-19.

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