Abstract

Care is a dirty word for many in our communities. “Caregiving” has become a euphemism for often-indifferent, under-funded labor that is done to our bodies to (barely) enable our continued survival. Care is a dirty word in many of our leftist-feminist communities. Care work is a classification of highly gendered and racialized labor that remains largely unpaid, underpaid, and deeply devalued. Care is a dirty word in our Mad, disability, queer activist communities. “Taken into care” often refers to indefinite confinement, forced extraction from communities and families, and the removal of one’s right to self-determination. Is care even worth reclaiming? In this creative duo-ethnography, a Mad fat femme and a crip ill non-binary queerdo wander through various moments when care has most impacted our lives, our relationships, and our communities. We have each held one another with care on the precipice of dying. Our bodies have shouldered the love-labor of care in the most intimate, exigent, and banal of moments: consensual and playful medication reminders, postsurgery tampon changing, literally squeezing out another’s breath to stay alive—and then repeating—hundreds of times an evening. We have also experienced care that was much too careful, and anything but full of care. We have shared care promiscuously with our crip and Mad (arts) communities in ways that have been life affirming, life changing, sometimes life making, other times life threatening. Through this wandering with ideas, moments, and communities, we reflect upon multiple dimensions of Mad, queer, crip care. Whom is the caring for? What is our care about? And how can our care be given or giving, taken or shared, offered, enabled, and co-created with flourish?

摘要

关怀对我们社区中的许多人来说是一个肮脏的词。“照料”已成为对我们身体所做的经常冷漠、资金不足的劳动的委婉说法，这些劳动（勉强）使我们能够继续生存。在我们的许多左翼女权主义社区中，关怀是一个肮脏的词。护理工作是一种高度性别化和种族化的劳动分类，这些劳动在很大程度上仍然是无偿、低薪和严重贬值的。在我们的疯狂、残疾、酷儿活动家社区，关怀是一个肮脏的词。“照料”通常是指无限期监禁、被迫离开社区和家庭，以及剥夺一个人的自决权。护理甚至值得回收吗？在这个创造性的双人民族志中，一个疯狂的胖女人和一个病态的非二元同性恋者在关怀对我们的生活、我们的关系和我们的社区产生最大影响的各个时刻徘徊。在临终前，我们每个人都小心翼翼地拥抱着彼此。我们的身体在最亲密，最紧迫和最平淡的时刻承担着关爱的劳动：双方自愿且好玩的用药提醒，手术后卫生棉条的改变，挤出别人的呼吸以维持生命，然后每晚重复上百次。我们也经历过过于小心的照顾，但也没有完全的照顾。我们以肯定生活、改变生活、有时创造生活、有时威胁生命的方式与我们的瘸子和疯狂（艺术）社区混杂地分享关怀。通过这种思想、时刻和社区的徘徊，我们反思了疯狂、酷儿、瘸子护理的多个维度。照顾谁？我们关心的是什么？以及如何给予或给予、接受或分享、提供我们的照顾，