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

Abstract

<p>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.</p>