Pushpa Joseph FMM

Paper: Care, Autonomy and Justice: Feminism and the Ethics of Care

Abstract

Care is a fundamental reality of all people’s lives. Relations of care are shaped by social, cultural, political and economic forces and dynamics.  While all of the three generations of care ethicists agree in affirming the significance of care as an ethical necessity they argue that the debate around care should include autonomy and justice within its purview.

The field of aging and care for senior citizens is a much discussed issue in present day India that is witnessing a great change in traditional notions of family.  Scholars of geriatric care highlight that senior citizens in India are a large, diverse, growing and healthy group. Demographic studies and predictions say that by 2050 India will have around 20% of the population as senior citizens.  Medical ethics and geriatric care departments insist that debates on care should be sensitive to the new issues emerging with growing old in a technological and technocratic society. In Karnataka and particularly in the rural areas of Bangalore a new model of care for senior citizens has emerged – the Gramina Hiriyara Kendra Model.  This model is constructed on a different approach to geriatric care and therefore differs from the old age home model.

This presentation makes a feminist analysis of this new model of geriatric care – the Gramina Hiriyara Kendra Model. In the first part of the paper I deal with scholarship centered on care. In the second part the various ramifications of autonomy and justice are analysed.  Questions like How does the new model of care link autonomy and justice to care? What are the advantages of this model? How does it differ from the Old Age Home model? will offer a critical dynamism to the analysis. The paper reaffirms the importance of values like autonomy and justice for the recipients of care.  

Pushpa Joseph, FMM, completed her doctoral studies in the University of Madras and was part of the faculty of the School of Religion and Philosophy in Madras University for nine years.  Her publications include Indian Feminist Hermeneutics: A Critical Reconstruction, and numerous articles in National and International journals and books.