In 2024 the the 16th ESA Conference was held in Porto (Portugal).
The RESCUPAN’s researchers Isa Nadal Amengual, Marta Luxán Serrano and Carme Vivancos-Sánchez presented the communication “Pandemic And Times Of Care: Changes And Permanencies”, showing how they investigated the articulation of the times before, during and after the pandemic based on the narratives and life stories of 29 women with caregiving responsibilities in the territories of the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, carried out within the framework of the R&D project RESCUPAN (PID2020-118801RB-I00). They paid special attention to families in more critical situations, such as single-parent families, since they experienced more stress, fatigue, family overload, lack of time for self-care and, especially, difficulties to count on community support, from the social or family network that, prior to confinement, could mitigate and improve their realities. In addition, they delved into the changes that the pandemic may have brought about as a possible relevant element for the greater visibility and social recognition of care, approaching in a special way the transformations in the field of norms, values and social imaginaries in relation to care and the uses of time in pandemic and post-pandemic.
Sandra Obiol-Francés, Jordi Bonet Martí and Jokin Azpiazu Carballo also presented the communication “Transformations and continuities in the discourses on care in the context of COVID-19”, proposing a feminist analysis of how the impact of COVID-19 has led to a transformation of discourses on care, especially those that appeal to new ways of understanding and organizing care. The study is based on the sociological analysis of the discourse system of a corpus of 30 in-depth interviews with women with care responsibilities in the home in different parts of Spain. The purpose in these interviews was to find out how they had organized care in their homes before, during, and after the pandemic. The analysis allows them to identify the permanence of the most traditional discourses on the organization of care that coexist – often in conflict – with discursive references to new ways of covering this care, especially in those women with higher cultural capital.
Elisabet Almeda Samaranch, Màrius Dominguez Amorós and Carme Vivancos-Sánchez presented also presented a communication with some of the results of the research on “The Social reorganization of care during the pandemic: welfare, community and gender”. In their work, they analyzed the social impacts of COVID-19 on household care needs, the consequences it has on gender inequalities and on the social reorganization of care work, and the role of community support and solidarity organizations and networks.
