Social Care I

Abstract

Social care will be critical for recuperation and so much else over the coming years. Papers in this panel aim to explore how and why and what's at stake.
Social care, long term care, aged care and social services provide for millions of people with mental health needs, who are disabled, who are vulnerable or who have long-term needs. Social care enables and empowers, it builds capabilities and sustains community. But it also systematises neglect and shields accountability, at times allowing society look away from those most in need. As covid-19 lingers, policy planners in many countries have promised to reconfigure social care arrangements. Debating who will benefit from changes made and who gets to decide is an issue that is urgent and ongoing.
While STS scholars have made notable contributions on ethics, infrastructures and matters of care, explicit attention to social care is more diffuse. Compared with clinical services and healthcare systems for instance, social care's knowledges, practices and research infrastructures are granted lower status, fewer resources and less sustained intellectual scrutiny.
Papers in this panel address this situation through a diversity of approaches and global situations.

Individual Presentations

• Shifting Practices of Care with Data and Digital Systems: A Case Study from Immigration and Settlement Services in Canada - Saguna Shankar, The University of British Columbia

• The Infrastructure of Last Resort: Logistics and Translation in Homeless Services - Pelle Tracey, University of Michigan; Patricia Garcia, School of Information, University of Michigan

• Accountability and neglect in UK social care innovation - Cian O'Donovan, University College London

Chair

• Cian O'Donovan, University College London

Session Organizer

• Cian O'Donovan, University College London