Care and the pluriverse - with Maggie FitzGerald
How can we make ethical decisions in a world that includes multiple and diverse forms of life, and what can care ethics contribute to developing a pluriversal ethics? What did the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate about the nature of human vulnerability? And can violence ever be justified within an ethic of care?
These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Maggie FitzGerald. Maggie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a specialisation in political economy from St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and a Master of Arts in Political Economy from Carleton University in Ottawa, where she also completed her doctorate in the Department of Political Science.
Maggie's research focuses on the ethics of care, global ethics and international political theory, decolonial ethics, normative and critical international relations theory, and feminist political economy. Her work has appeared in journals such as Ethics and Social Welfare, the Journal of International Political Theory, and the International Journal of Care and Caring. Maggie is the author of the book Care and the Pluriverse: Rethinking Global Ethics, which was published by Bristol University Press in 2022. She is also the co-editor with Sophie Bourgault and Fiona Robinson of the collection Decentering Epistemologies and Challenging Privilege: Critical Care Ethics Perspectives, which was published by Rutgers University Press in 2024.
We discuss the following topics in this episode:
Maggie's professional and academic journey (02:41)
Feminist theorists who have influenced Maggie's thinking (05:38)
The 'pluriverse' as concept (07:29)
Introducing Care and the Pluriverse (08:30)
Using case studies from indigenous contexts (09:45)
Decentering global ethics (12:20)
A critique of modernity (16:12)
Towards a critical, political ethics of care (17:53)
COVID-19, vulnerability and the ethics of care (21:41)
Combining Lacan, Žižek and care ethics(24:20)
Decentering the self, decentering care (26:50)
Violence, trauma, care and repair (33:20)
Love and care (41:43)
Maggie's plans for a new book on care and repair (47:20)
Writers and thinkers mentioned in the episode
Journal articles by Maggie discussed in the episode
'COVID-19, the trauma of the "real" and the political import of vulnerability'
'Violence and Care: Fanon and the Ethics of Care on Harm, Trauma, and Repair'
Other publications mentioned in the episode
Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics
Martin Robb, 'Knowing, loving, caring: some questions, connections and reflections' (Substack post)
Link
Care Ethics Research Consortium
You can download a transcript of this episode by following this link to the Careful Thinking Substack newsletter.
