Community Care Infrastructures for Sustaining Life in Barcelona
This precarious situation has led grassroots organizations to come together to democratize care from a local standpoint. Some groups focus on advocating for improved conditions for those engaged in high-intensity caregiving, while others work on building community infrastructures to share everyday care responsibilities. In the neighborhoods, self-management and public resources are mixed to reproduce life, carrying out social tasks that complete and replace deficient or non-existent services (Cavallero and Gago, 2022).
The distribution of these groups is not uniform across the city. The research question driving this work examines which social and urban factors facilitate the development of community care infrastructures.
The distribution of these groups is not homogeneous throughout the city. The research question of this work is what social and urban elements favor the construction of community care infrastructures.
The methodology used in this work has been the case study approach, allowing for the analysis of three different groups: a collective that supports migrant women working in domestic and care roles; a group of mothers caring for children with disabilities; and a food bank in a community center.
The results obtained point to the intrinsic difficulties faced by caregivers in organizing themselves due to the intensity of caregiving work and the need to combine it with wage-earning jobs. Furthermore, the importance of urban configuration for collective organization around care has been confirmed. Physical proximity, being connected by public transport, and having physical spaces to gather, meet, or share care are key factors in building community care infrastructures.