Caring about Care

Caring about Care is a research project co-led by Elise Klein and Janet Hunt and funded by the Gender Institute. The project focuses on the unpaid care work performed by First Nations women and seeks to address the gap in literature on the subject. Using qualitative research and fieldwork, the project is ongoing and aims to lead into further research, with the researchers submitting an application for ARC funding. Working with First Nations women and organisations, the research seeks to understand how First Nations women themselves conceptualise care work, how they value and experience it, including its challenges, how much of it they do, and how and if policy could better recognise and value it.

The fieldwork for this project has been completed, and the group will further publish two research reports, a workshop report, a working paper, and at least one academic article. The research group is a continuous project which will remain active after publication of these reports, connecting researchers across ANU.

Proposal and Aims

This research aims to provide an understanding of the full scope and nature of unpaid care work performed by First Nations women, the complex realities shaping decisions around unpaid caregiving, and the associated impacts on women.

The project focuses on four questions:

How do First Nations women conceptualise care work, including its scope and nature?
How do First Nations women value and experience care work?
What volume and type/s of care work are First Nations women regularly engaged in?
1. Can and how do women negotiate the volume and type of care they provide?
2. What formal and informal support is available for women undertaking care work?
How might the care work of First Nations women be more formally recognised and valued including through policy?

Research Significance

The social and economic implications of undertaking unpaid care work have long been a subject of academic and policy discussions. However, research on First Nations’ women’s unpaid care roles is extremely sparse. There is an enduring need, therefore, for research that supports First Nations women to share their own stories and experiences of unpaid care, which may include not just care of family and community, but also care of Country and care of culture. This research needs to more deeply understand the multifaceted nature of First Nation women’s care, as well as how different types of care work can intertwine and overlap to produce layered experiences and effects.

Furthermore, there is also limited empirical evidence to make a case for effective policy options. This is partly because the amount of unpaid care work that First Nations women perform remains invisible to scholars and policymakers. The significance of this project is that it will be the first study to expand existing feminist research on care work, by exploring what care work means for First Nations women. The research is intersectional in nature, and is designed to enable First Nations women, led by the Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar, to advocate for effective policy responses.