Invisible Yet Indispensable: Unpaid Care, Gendered Governance, and Feminist Transformations In Times of Crisis In the Global South

Unpaid care remains both invisible and indispensable across the Global South, sustaining households, communities, economies, and states amid escalating economic, environmental, political, and health crises. As social protection systems weaken and public institutions come under increasing strain, the responsibility for sustaining life continues to fall disproportionately on women and girls. In this context, unpaid care labour functions as a hidden mechanism through which societies absorb and manage crises, often at significant personal, social, and economic cost.

This session examines unpaid care as a critical site of gendered governance and social reproduction in turbulent times. Drawing on feminist political economy, social reproduction theory, intersectional feminism, and decolonial perspectives, it explores how states, markets, and communities rely on women’s unpaid labour to compensate for deficits in healthcare, education, welfare provision, food security, and environmental sustainability. Particular attention is paid to the differentiated experiences of care across class, age, disability, ethnicity, migration status, and geographical location.

We invite contributions that critically analyze the intersections between unpaid care and contemporary crises while advancing feminist alternatives for transforming care relations. Topics may include care justice, collective responsibility, disability-inclusive approaches, intergenerational solidarity, community-based care systems, and policy innovations aimed at recognizing, reducing, redistributing, and rewarding care work.

By centering unpaid care within broader debates on crisis, governance, and social transformation, this session seeks to advance feminist understandings of care as both a site of inequality and a foundation for more just, sustainable, and inclusive futures.