Caregiver familiari tra carichi di cura, squilibri di genere e ricerca di tutele

Abstract

Issue 3/2025 of Sinappsi, edited by Ignazia Bartholini, addresses care as a fundamental social practice that is nonetheless systematically devalued within contemporary capitalist arrangements. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach, interweaving critical theory, feminist perspectives, normative analysis, and the examination of social and relational implications. It is situated at the crossroads of theoretical reflection, empirical research, and normative claims, moving from an assumption that is at once evident and yet persistently bypassed: care is a constitutive practice of social and political life; and yet it continues to be marginalized within the economic, legal, and symbolic frameworks of contemporary societies. The issue underscores how the lack of a structural and systematic recognition of the care work carried out by family caregivers - predominantly women - has devastating consequences for the social, economic, and cultural fabric of the country. As extensively explored in the contributions that shape the volume, this condition takes the form of systemic invisibility. Such invisibility translates into the widespread privatization of an activity that is foundational to social and familial relations, and into the chronic reproduction of gender inequalities.