Caring as a girl: a feminist new materialism approach to the learning of care within the family in Finland

Abstract

This study explores the phenomena of gendered care through feminist new materialisms, particularly Karen Barad’s agential realism (2007). The study delves into how materiality, corporeality, and emotion intra-act in the entanglement of the girl-learning-how-to-care within the family in Finland. A Baradian approach guided the methodology, analysing the performative accounts of ten Finnish girls aged 6–12 through an original three-reading method identifying matter, body, emotion, and their entanglement in the learning of care. The study found the girl-learning-how-to-care becomes through her embodied and emotional intra-action with the material world, where matter provides a framework containing the learning process, enabling the occurrence of care and the acquisition of skills; corporeality permits her to receive and give care, and emotions reinforce or produce approval, disapproval, encouragement, or empathy towards care. The study unveils the impact and importance of materiality/corporeality/emotion withholds in girls’ learning of gendered practices such as care.