Organised by Vincent Guermond (Queen Mary University of London), Katherine Brickell (King’s College London) and Nithya Natarajan (King’s College London)
Social reproduction is about how we live, how lives are sustained on a daily and generational basis, and how capitalist society is reproduced. This Symposium aims to replenish geographical thinking in relation to the depletion that is entailed through social reproduction labour, and the wider, structural depletion of social reproduction that is continuing apace in capitalist times.
The Symposium looks to build on existing work on depletion in four ways. Looking firstly to the understanding of depletion as a form of harm, it extends this concept beyond a focus on immediate harms wrought through physical work to explore how commercial debt and ultra-processed foods—two commodities that have flourished in Global South countries under globalisation—forge bodily harm. Secondly, the Symposium extends our thinking to both depletion as a process through, and outcome of, social reproduction, focusing attention on how the erosion of the means through which women socially reproduce the household is itself politically contingent. Thirdly, the Symposium expands thinking on the methodological basis for measuring depletion, highlighting the centrality of qualitative research alongside the originally envisaged quantitative techniques to ensure temporal and subjective aspects of depletion are captured. And fourthly, it exposes the limits of forms of replenishment of depletion within the constraints of markets and accumulation itself.
As a collection, the spatially oriented papers show the value of cross-pollinating feminist political economy and critical geographic ideas to enhance a theoretical exploration of “life’s work” from a Marxist-feminist perspective.
The articles
Replenishing Geographical Thinking on Depletion through and of Social Reproduction – Vincent Guermond, Katherine Brickell and Nithya Natarajan
Depleted by Debt: “Green” Microfinance, Over-Indebtedness, and Social Reproduction in Climate-Vulnerable Cambodia – Vincent Guermond, Dalia Iskander, Sébastien Michiels, Katherine Brickell, Gráinne Fay, Long Ly Vouch, Nithya Natarajan, Laurie Parsons, Fiorella Picchioni and W. Nathan Green
Running on Empty: Depletion and Social Reproduction in Myanmar and Sri Lanka – Jayanthi Thiyaga Lingham and Melissa Johnston
Ultra-Processed Food, Depletion, and Social Reproduction: A Conceptual Intervention – Sara Stevano
The Making of a Business Case for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work in the Global South: New Frontiers of Corporate Social Responsibility? – Catia Gregoratti and Sofie Tornhill
Afterword: Replenishing Geographical Thinking on Depletion through and of Social Reproduction – Shirin M. Rai
Featured image: Photograph by a participant of the “Depleted by Debt?” research project (https://www.debt-climate-health.org/)