Reimagining citizenship: Exploring the intersection of ecofeminism and republicanism through political care and compulsory care service

As the world was hit by COVID-19, care workers were once again recognized as key workers in society, whose primary responsibility is to ensure the survival and well-being of people. Care work is defined as a set of "economic activities in the home, market, community, and state that fit loosely under the rubric of human services" (Folbre, 2006, pp. 11–12). Although care work is frequently performed within households as an unpaid form of labor and is not monetized, the pandemic has revealed a shortage of care supplies and an increasing demand for care. Despite its importance, care work remains one of the lowest-paying occupations in the global capitalist economy. Furthermore, recent studies have indicated that women, both in and outside the formal workforce, continue to bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work (Chopra Güney-Frahm, 2020; Power, 2020). Given these complexities and contradictions, this article aims to contribute to the adequate recognition of such an essential and ineliminable form of work. Feminist scholars and care theorists have attempted to reframe care as an explicitly political idea (Held, 2018; Kittay, 1999; Noddings, 1984; Robinson, 2010; Ruddick, 1980; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Tronto, 1993). Previous research about care work has commonly been raised from an enduring critique that the notions of public sphere and citizenship have been plagued by a misogynized democracy deficit. The first section characterizes care work as an essential maintenance activity that stems from human vulnerability. Then the second section shows how both vulnerability and care work are "feminized" and therefore "interiorised" by "imagined invulnerability," a dominant patriarchal mentality, logic, norm, and discipline of liberal capitalism. The third section, however, argues that care should be a collective concern of all citizens, moving it out of the private sphere and into the realm of politics, by interpreting the Arendtian understanding of "the political" and "public life." Not only is care already a political issue, but it should also be developed as a sense of citizenship, which this article shall call political care. This is achieved by combining ecofeminist philosophy with the republican understanding of politics and power, so that care work is no longer gendered but seen as a universal interest for all citizens in society. To this end, the article proposes an institution of compulsory care service, given its emphasis on both degendering care work and fostering active citizenship. First and foremost, as humans, we are inherently vulnerable beings. Vulnerability is a defining aspect of our existence and is an inseparable part of what it means to be human. It stems from our corporeality and mortality and encompasses our universal susceptibility to hunger, thirst, diseases, disabilities, ill health, and death (Mackenzie et al., 2014, p. 7). Our bodily limitations make us prone to various dangers, harms, and hazards, making "precarity," in Butler's terms, an unavoidable part of the human experience (2004). Vulnerability also marks our bodily existence with dependency, as we all require care and assistance from others at some point in our lives to mitigate risks and live a good life. We can both depend on others when we are in need and provide aid to other vulnerable beings. a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our "world" so that we can live in it as well as possible. That would include our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web. (1990, p. 40) The definition of care suggests that giving and receiving care is a collective and public experience, not a one-way or temporary situation. Care is multidimensional and accompanies different temporal and spatial scales throughout our lives. In this way, both vulnerability and care are essential and ineliminable. The connection between vulnerability and care work highlights that vulnerability often motivates us to develop moral obligations, such as the ethics of care, to ensure the well-being and autonomy of those whose lives are interdependent and influenced by the social and ecological environment we all live in. By placing vulnerability at the center of our moral duties and social learning, we can create more politically feasible and justified conditions to achieve social justice, democratic equality, virtuous citizenship, state responsibility and ecological sustainability, which all remind us of "what we owe to one another as citizens" (Mackenzie, 2014, p. 36). Another key aspect is that this life-sustaining and repairing activity acknowledges our constitutive dependency on one another and aims to improve the autonomy and well-being of other people. It is a long-standing ecofeminist view that we are dependent not only on other human beings but also on nonhuman beings and the natural world, comprising the web of life. As relational and vulnerable beings, we live in our community by organizing social norms and ethico-political obligations. If we were absolutely independent, there would be no need to fulfill the moral obligation to care for someone in need or reciprocally, to be in need of care and attention from others. Ecofeminist ethics affirm that the ways in which humans relate to the natural world should be "open-minded and attentive," thereby fostering "an attitude of care and compassion" (Matthews, 1994, p. 159). That is, vulnerability motivates us to take ethical actions based on "care and compassion for human and non-human others" (Barry, 2012, p. 75). To take a further step, ecofeminists employ the notion of "kinship," arguing that the range of family can be extended to our human and nonhuman "relatives" (Mathews, 1994, p. 162). Thus, within the planetary community where human and nonhuman relatives are complicatedly networked with one another, each individual can be kind, caring, and loving without the need for their motivations to be justified by the Kantian notion of rationality, believed to enable moral agency (Donovan, 1990, p. 355). Yet, as I will argue in the next section, care and compassion should not be taken for granted or assumed to be inherently positive experiences but should be adequately revalued first, considering the exploitative conditions that often characterize both unpaid and paid care work in the liberal-capitalist world. Vulnerability is not necessarily negative nor always positive, but is rather "ambivalent" and open-ended, "taking diverse forms in different social situations" (Gilson, 2011, p. 310). The recognition that vulnerability is marked by ambivalence is in parallel with ecofeminist endeavor to deconstruct the human/nature dualism, encompassing other subsequent dualisms dividing reason and emotion, men and women, and so forth (Haraway, 2003; Merchant, 1990; Plumwood, 1993; Strathern, 1980). Within this binary framework, dependency, arising from vulnerability, is typically perceived as a negative and feminized (also, in turn, negatively relegated) trait, with human rationality often more closely associated with independence, masculinity, and thus superior. However, ambivalence is a more accurate reflection of the complexities of the real world—more nuanced and varied than the binary classification misunderstands. For example, MacIntyre (1999) argues that human rationality would not have developed if dependency was not a constitutive part of the human condition. All rational claims, whether spoken or written, are made to be recognized and responded to by others in the end, meaning that having an audience is integral in the process of making rational claims. The process of making rational claims begins to exist in the real world through reactions from others however they are positive or negative, and with the potential to harm or benefit us. The audience, once distinct from the speaker, now becomes part of the discourse as soon as they engage in the conversation. Language connects the speaker to the outside world, bridging the divide between speaker and audience. Note that there is nothing inherently superior about language; it is merely one form, just one way of communication. Furthermore, the rational claim made by the speaker is never entirely "original" or "independent," as the speaker's knowledge that shapes the claim must have been influenced by their previous learning experience. The process of learning, which precedes speaking, requires acquiring a language to convey knowledge and involves the participation of other beings. Hence, it can be said that we are, to a great extent, entirely dependent on others for learning new knowledge. The speaker is dependent on the audience, as speech alone cannot advance the discourse. The audience also takes on an active role, reacting to the claim and providing feedback when necessary, thereby becoming critics now. Here, we can see that "listening" is also associated with "activity" and occurs concurrently with "speaking," challenging the dualism of speech (language)/listening and activity/passivity. Dependency now turns into relationality and sociality, by the time the speaker interacts and communicates with the audience. Therefore, rational claims or such speech acts are not entirely separable from dependency and attentiveness; hence the binary between them is now unclear and meaningless. To summarize, dependency enables relationality, sociality, and communication. Put differently, vulnerability leads us to be open and exposed to change, affections (both affected and affecting), encompassing both passivity and activity. That is, as Gilson (2011) suggests, vulnerability is "a condition of potential that makes possible other conditions" (p. 310). But vulnerability is neither avoidable nor eliminable; it is simply part of what and who we are. While the inherent vulnerability is a fundamental, constitutive part of the human condition, our reactions to changes and instabilities can differ, and we have the potential to respond to these changes and uncertainties "possibly in a generative and not destructive way" (Rushing, 2021, p. 132). However, not everyone is equally vulnerable to social, political, economic, and ecological changes. Thus, we have additional conceptions of vulnerability, such as situational and pathogenic vulnerability. Situational vulnerability refers to a person's temporary or enduring vulnerability that is "caused or exacerbated by social, political, economic or environmental factors" (Mackenzie, 2014, p. 39). Often, situational vulnerability is related to pathogenic vulnerability, where existing unjust social norms, policies, and economic systems may even worsen a person's vulnerability and undermine their well-being. For example, natural disasters may bring a multitude of difficulties, from housing shortages to loss of life. Those affected by natural disasters are situationally vulnerable, and this vulnerability can become even more pronounced if the disaster leads to illness or death. That is, situational vulnerability could upheave our inherent vulnerability. As the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the United States shows, ecological disasters often disproportionately affect individuals based on preexisting socioeconomic inequalities (Zoraster, 2010, p. 75). Low income, financial insecurity, insufficient evacuation means, and fragile housing are all "risk factors" that stem from structural injustice and contribute to what is known as pathogenic vulnerability. Furthermore, failed social policies that unintentionally exacerbate existing structural injustices also contribute to pathogenic vulnerability by "causing or compounding major capability failure, thereby entrenching social inequality and injustice" (Mackenzie, 2014, p. 54). In this sense, Mackenzie argues that inherent vulnerability and situational vulnerability are not exactly "categorical" but rather have intersecting characteristics that can give rise to new forms of vulnerabilities (2014, p. 39). However, vulnerability is reduced to or exaggerated as an inextricably feminine trait that is seen as a "problem" to be "solved," "eliminated," or "ignored." On the other hand, invulnerability, an invented ideology, is perpetuated by the powerful who seek to maintain the status quo through hypermasculinity. Hypermasculinity is an important element of invulnerability, because hypermasculine norms and values function as a false guideline showing how to be an ideal or "real" man. The hypermasculine ideal can be summarized with three characteristics: (1) sexual aggression as an admirable personality trait; (2) risk-taking as a desirable challenge or an exciting entertainment, such as high-risk investments in the stock market and casual sex with strangers, and, in short, openness to risk-taking as a bold, capable "manly" attitude; and (3) violence as an approvable problem-solving behavior (Mosher Simon et al., 2017). The normativity of hypermasculine invulnerability connects vulnerability to weakness, disadvantages, victimhood, immatureness, premodern (closer to nature), and, because these are all gendered, femininity. For example, when a man becomes disabled due to injury or aging, he immediately loses his "masculinity" that was previously assigned to him by society based on his dominant gender status (Vaittinen, 2015, p. 103). When he loses his "independent" body, he requires assistance with daily activities, from eating and bathing to running errands. This neediness causes able-bodied individuals to view him as too weak and not masculine enough to exercise his own autonomous will, making him not a "full" or "complete" citizen of the modern polity. There are numerous examples of the relegation of disabled bodies, for example, the ways in which Korean War veterans were treated so poorly in post-war Korea (Kim, 2012, p. 325). Not only were rehabilitation programs for the veterans absent, but there were also no effective systems for reemployment and education. The disabled veterans were called national heroes, but their bodies had to be hidden from the public sight in the face of reestablishing the ruined state and erasing the nightmare of the war. Likewise, disabled people are historically excluded from the public sphere, which is a political arena for and by "active" participants with "autonomous" bodies. Following gender dichotomies that categorize politics, publicity, and citizenship as maleness, disabled bodies are associated with weakness, passivity, private (hidden from sight), prepolitical, and interchangeably, femininity, and femaleness. However, there are no significant differences in the intrinsic human conditions embodied by able and disabled bodies, except for the different degrees of care each requires. To put this in Butler's terms, precarity is universal, but it could be "allocated differentially" (2004, p. 31). As Vaittinen (2015) summarizes, having to urinate and defecate has nothing to do with determining one's moral disposition, sexuality, socioeconomic status, and so forth. Nevertheless, disabled people who require care assistance are downgraded to the status of inert and passive beings. Hence, we can identify that vulnerability itself is not only denied but also gendered, while the idea of invulnerability, on the other hand, is proliferated as something desirable and necessary to achieve. The bifurcation of vulnerability and invulnerability is a social construction created by patriarchal liberal capitalism. It is a modern creation shaped by Enlightenment thought, which originated from Francis Bacon and Immanuel Kant, and perceives humans as independent, rational, self-centered, and invulnerable individuals (Merchant, 1990). Invulnerability encompasses modern liberal ideals such as self-mastery and rational thinking, which have further evolved into competitive self-interest in the era of neoliberalism. According to this classical and neoliberal logic, homo economicus is believed to be free as long as their economic and other activities are not intervened by external power such as the government. For the government, it is considered virtuous at best not to interfere with the market so that the economy can be "free." However, these moral principles are "imagined" and false because they overlook our inherent vulnerability and dependency, which I shall call "imagined invulnerability" in this article. One key aspect is that the control and mastery (i.e., domination) that is imagined through invulnerability is structural and hegemonic, meaning that it is a cultural hegemony where "consent and force nearly always coexist." This means that domination is not always explicitly oppressive, but it is often accepted as a social norm by the majority of the people (Jackson Lears, 1985, p. 568). Although they may seem acceptable in society, the biases produced by imagined invulnerability have detrimental effects, particularly for marginalized groups of human and nonhuman beings, compared to white, wealthy, heterosexual cisgender men. Imagined invulnerability has its roots in the Promethean faith of the Enlightenment era, which celebrates human progress through science, technology, and domination of the natural world (Dryzek, 2005, pp. 52–53). This classical liberal belief claims that nature itself has only "use values" and is "only serviceable to us" in order to "increase the abundance of production" and make "men richer" (Ricardo, 2001, p. 208). It also believes that any form of natural or social disaster and difficulty can be resolved through modern technology, material prosperity, and economic growth. The invulnerable Promethean belief is now particularly associated with the exacerbating climate crisis, where advanced technologies such as geoengineering are expected to be the solution. Moreover, the imagined invulnerability of the human condition creates a hierarchical ordering between rationality and emotion, the public and private, competition (economic) and altruism (charitable), able-bodied and disabled, and so on (Matthews, 2017, p. 58). As explained in the previous section, this modern dualism is also a gendered device, meaning that invulnerable characteristics are supriorized and attributed to men, while subjects and values associated with vulnerability are inferiorized and considered feminine, as seen in the example of the disabled body (see Table 1). The ecofeminist notion of intersectionality also explains that this gendered division is consolidated in other sites of struggle where power dynamics are oppressive and unjust to marginalized subjects, such as non-Western countries and the people, nonhuman beings, and nature, in comparison to the West, humans, and culture (Davion, 2001; Griffin, 1999; Perkins et al., 2005; Tickner, 1993). To summarize, the false belief in human invulnerability and the resulting hierarchical ordering between invulnerability and vulnerability are at the heart of "masculine" domination over women and nature. This reason/emotion dualism is then extended to the culture/nature (as well as civilization/barbarity, often found in the justification of colonialism) dualism, which embodies a fundamental mentality of human and nonhuman dichotomy. Dichotomies are not harmful in and of themselves, but they become toxic as soon as they develop hierarchical orderings that potentially create tyrannical power relations. Consequently, reason, culture, individual autonomy, masculinity, and growth-oriented economy are seen as vastly superior to emotion, nature, the common good, femininity, and coordinating communitarian economies in liberal conscience. Within this dualistic liberal worldview, care work is wrongly seen as inherently feminine work. Moreover, the public value of care work has also been denied or misconstrued and considered private rather than public action. The division of the public and private spheres is structurally more beneficial to some groups, namely, privileged and able-bodied citizens who are exempt from "privatized" care work. These privileged groups and individuals are exempt from care work due to their socioeconomic status based on gender, racial and ethnic identity, or class (Ahn, 2012; Song, 2013). It represents a form of "privileged irresponsibility," which operates to seek their own needs and achieve their personal autonomy, independence, and imagined invulnerability. This is further normalized by the neoliberal market mechanism in which care services, such as childcare, health care, education, and eldercare, are financialized and commercialized and can only be purchased by those who can afford them, making care a commodity (Ungerson, 1997). For those who cannot afford this neoliberal procurement of care services, care work is reduced to be delivered within the family, with women more likely to bear the burden of this unpaid work. Migrant women, who may work in care as a profession, may not even have formal eligibility, such as the right to vote, and thus cannot take part in decision-making in the society they live in. This highlights the absurdity that our care responsibilities are outsourced even to noncitizens. Furthermore, paid care labor is mostly carried out by low-paid women, in many cases from financially deprived and/or non-Western/white backgrounds. This racialized "global care chain" has created another form of domination over these women hired by upper-middle-class parents and couples who are often located in the Global North (Oksala, 2018, p. 226). Oksala pinpoints ethical problems in outsourcing care responsibility to a third party, suggesting that the social benefits of rearing and caring for children would be disproportionately distributed only to particular people. Paid workers provide skilled labor and taxes to their employers and pensioners, respectively. However, the employers and pensioners are the people who had little to do with care work when the workers were children. By contrast, unpaid and paid care workers, who consequently contribute the most economic value that the workers create, are not even appreciated adequately by market capitalism (Dengler it is the organization of the people as it arises out of acting and speaking together, and its true space lies between people living together for this purpose, no matter where they happen to be. (p. 198) One may critique Arendt on the ground that her notion of politics as performance contributes to privileging publicity over the "private" sphere, and thus, in this understanding of "politics," care work remains undervalued, as it is not within the sphere of "politics" (Benhabib, 1993, p. 105). However, it is questionable if such criticisms also derive from this misunderstanding based on the public/private and paid/unpaid labor dichotomy. Sandilands also suggests that the polis is an ambivalent, unpredictable place that "lacks … a firm foundation" (1999, pp. 160–161). Reinterpreting Arendt, we can see the political discussion has no "inevitable barring of the private" nor "priori definition" of its content (Sandilands, 1999, p. 161). In other words, the political is not confined to a set boundary with a fixed content, but rather it is an enduring, fluid, and never-ending process that is conversation-dependent at all levels. Its uncertainty and unpredictability are inherent to the nature of politics in public life, as it is an artifact of vulnerable human beings who are susceptible to both corruption and the thriving of social and ecological communities. The concepts of uncertainty and unpredictability bring a deeper consideration of republicanism into the discussion. Republicans view politics as being subject to change and stability, which is critical to the success of a republic (Cannavò, 2010, p. 369). Public spiritedness is a driving force behind both transforming a corrupt republic into a flourishing one and maintaining a just republic to prevent corruption. Here, change and stability are not dichotomously separated. It is important to note that the prosperity of a strong republic does not override timelessness, meaning that its prosperity does not guarantee its permanence. Engagement from citizens who prioritize the common good is essential for the flourishing of both social and political communities. This is because participation as a process of democratic politics shapes the dynamics of change and stability. On the other hand, when a republic loses its dynamism, it becomes more vulnerable to corruption. Thus, "preventing the unsustainability of the republic is central to republicanism" (Barry, 2012, p. 227, original emphasis). On this grounded republican notion of public spiritedness, green republicanism—a particular strand of republicanism—emphasizes the importance of "willingness to sacrifice" in changing or stabilizing politics aimed at human flourishing (Cannavò, 2010, p. 369). As referring to communitarian or participatory politics, sacrifice as a civic virtue is better understood as a reciprocal and co-beneficial caring relationship. This new social norm of mutual caring would create a continuous, timeless, and patterned virtuous c