Vulnerability, Interdependence and Repair. A feminist approach to the pandemic

Abstract

The pandemic has made particularly visible the different conditions of vulnerability that are distributed within society, placing the theme of care and social reproduction at the center of public debate as key areas to be preserved and collectively promoted. All this has been possible thanks to the contribution of feminist thought and practices in recent decades, both at the de-constructive and analytical level and in terms of proposals for a welfare system capable of functioning in a restorative sense in relation to the systemic inequalities that have been sedimented as a result of discriminatory gender and race-based policies. The article offers a survey of feminist theories – of vulnerability, care and social reproduction - and deploys an intersectional and decolonial approach which allows to interpret the global functioning and the social effects of the pandemic and to formulate transformative and restorative public policy solutions to face the crisis.