Care during exceptional times: results of the CUIDAR study on the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile

This article presents some results of “CUIDAR; study on times, forms, and spaces of care at home during the pandemic,” a research project that explored how the pandemic and the subsequent policies implemented by the Chilean government transformed and disrupted the spatialities, temporalities, and practices of care within the households. To do so, we designed a web survey that draws inspiration from care theories emerging from the field of Science and Technology Studies or STS. Such an approach allowed thinking about care as a more-than-human affair that goes beyond a particular moral stance and corresponds more with a doing anchored in the entanglements of human and non-human actors. Data gathered revealed the appearance of new actors while stressing that care is much too relevant and complex to only rest upon specific household members–namely women–who are left to their own devices since policies implemented seem to be unable to support them in the tasks of caring for themselves and others.