Home and Market, Love and Work, Nature and Profession: Controversies regarding the commodification of care work^*

Abstract

Care work can be performed under different conditions: at home or outside domestic spaces; as a professional or a compulsory social relation; in paid or unpaid forms. In this article I depart from these multiple realities in order to develop two main points. First, I argue that care work is a rich domain that can be used to review recent debates regarding the process of commodification of goods and services. Second, I seek to illustrate how the controversies surrounding the moral dimension of care work can be of relevance to scholars studying other markets.

Care; Care Work; Commodification; Moral Contestation