Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 441-459 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Journal of business ethics |
| Volume | 192 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 23 Oct 2023 |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2024 |
Abstract
This paper draws on the ethics of care to investigate how citizens grappled with ethical tensions in the mundane practice of grocery shopping at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. We use this case to address the broader question of what it means ‘to care’ in the context of a crisis. Based on a qualitative longitudinal cross-country interview study, we find that the pandemic transformed ordinary shopping spaces into places fraught with a sense of fear and vulnerability. Being forced to face one’s own vulnerability created an opportunity for individuals to relate to one another as significant others through a sense of “response-ability”, or the capacity of people to respond to ethical demands through situated ethical reasoning. We argue for a practical ethos of care in which seemingly small decisions such as how often to go shopping and how much to buy of a particular product serve as a means to relate to both specified and generalized others—and through this, ‘care with’ society. Our study contributes to displacing the continuing prevalence of an abstract and prescriptive morality in consumption ethics with a situated and affective politics of care. This vocabulary seems better suited to reflect on the myriad of small and unheroic care acts in times of crisis and beyond.
Keywords
- Consumption ethics, Covid-19, Crisis, Ethics of care, Relational ethics, Response-ability, Shopping, Solidarity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business, Management and Accounting(all)
- Business and International Management
- Business, Management and Accounting(all)
- General Business,Management and Accounting
- Arts and Humanities(all)
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)
- Economics and Econometrics
- Social Sciences(all)
- Law
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In: Journal of business ethics, Vol. 192, No. 3, 07.2024, p. 441-459.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Vulnerability and Response‑Ability in the Pandemic Marketplace: Developing an Ethic of Care for Provisioning in Crisis
AU - Geiger, Susi
AU - Galasso, Ilaria
AU - Hangel, Nora
AU - Lucivero, Federica
AU - Watts, Gemma
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2024/7
Y1 - 2024/7
N2 - This paper draws on the ethics of care to investigate how citizens grappled with ethical tensions in the mundane practice of grocery shopping at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. We use this case to address the broader question of what it means ‘to care’ in the context of a crisis. Based on a qualitative longitudinal cross-country interview study, we find that the pandemic transformed ordinary shopping spaces into places fraught with a sense of fear and vulnerability. Being forced to face one’s own vulnerability created an opportunity for individuals to relate to one another as significant others through a sense of “response-ability”, or the capacity of people to respond to ethical demands through situated ethical reasoning. We argue for a practical ethos of care in which seemingly small decisions such as how often to go shopping and how much to buy of a particular product serve as a means to relate to both specified and generalized others—and through this, ‘care with’ society. Our study contributes to displacing the continuing prevalence of an abstract and prescriptive morality in consumption ethics with a situated and affective politics of care. This vocabulary seems better suited to reflect on the myriad of small and unheroic care acts in times of crisis and beyond.
AB - This paper draws on the ethics of care to investigate how citizens grappled with ethical tensions in the mundane practice of grocery shopping at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. We use this case to address the broader question of what it means ‘to care’ in the context of a crisis. Based on a qualitative longitudinal cross-country interview study, we find that the pandemic transformed ordinary shopping spaces into places fraught with a sense of fear and vulnerability. Being forced to face one’s own vulnerability created an opportunity for individuals to relate to one another as significant others through a sense of “response-ability”, or the capacity of people to respond to ethical demands through situated ethical reasoning. We argue for a practical ethos of care in which seemingly small decisions such as how often to go shopping and how much to buy of a particular product serve as a means to relate to both specified and generalized others—and through this, ‘care with’ society. Our study contributes to displacing the continuing prevalence of an abstract and prescriptive morality in consumption ethics with a situated and affective politics of care. This vocabulary seems better suited to reflect on the myriad of small and unheroic care acts in times of crisis and beyond.
KW - Consumption ethics
KW - Covid-19
KW - Crisis
KW - Ethics of care
KW - Relational ethics
KW - Response-ability
KW - Shopping
KW - Solidarity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85174639294&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10551-023-05541-7
DO - 10.1007/s10551-023-05541-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85174639294
VL - 192
SP - 441
EP - 459
JO - Journal of business ethics
JF - Journal of business ethics
SN - 0167-4544
IS - 3
ER -