Text detail

How to study care practices empirically as normative practices? In this text, I describe three shifts in relation to normativity in empirical research, away from pre-scriptive normativity that provides directives on what to do, as well as from the idea that one can describe the world as it is, thus separating norms from knowledge making. I locate the normativity of research in the active work of ‘re-scribing’ one’s object of research. The first normative shift shows that values are not only part of human motivations and strivings, but are also embedded in socio-material objects such as technologies, social norms, research methods, and regulations. The second shift describes the intimate intertwinement of creating knowledge and normativity in research through the use of methods and concepts that include some things and leave others out. The third normative shift asks how the practices studied can benefit from diligent research work. If one re-scribes practices as attempts to do something good, how might this benefit care practices themselves? In trying to answer this question, I will depict the work of doing good through research as a complex practice in itself.

Translation:

Michal Synek

Biograf themes:

Medicine and health; Anthropology and ethnography; Care and maintenance

Citation:

POLS, J. (2022): Péče coby snaha udělat něco dobrého: Výzkum normativity v praktikách zdravotní péče a výzkumu [Care as an attempt to do something good: Studying normativity in practices of health care and research]. Biograf (75-76): 49 paragraphs. Available at http://www.biograf.org/clanek.html?id=1097 [last access22. 10. 2024]

Acknowledgement:

Text je překladem rané verze kapitoly nazvané „Care as an attempt to do something good“, připravované k vydání coby součást sborníku Traces of care, editovaného Lauren Cubellis a Rebeccou Lester (Cubellis & Lester: forthcoming). Překladatel děkuje autorce a nakladateli za laskavé svolení a pomoc s překladem.