Caring like a State

Politicizing Love, Touch, and Precarious Lives in the Time of COVID-19

Abstract

This essay builds on the COVID-19 pandemic and the ways in which love has been played out politically in relation to migration. In Canada, the pandemic rendered visible the often invisible care work traditionally performed by women, and now increasingly so by women of color and asylum seekers. Building on queer theorist Sara Ahmed’s understanding of immigration policies as a form of ‘conditional love,’ I investigate various processes of (de)politicization that occurred when love and care became politically mobilized. I use the ‘love-body-care’ constellation as working points to tease out some disciplining and transformative possibilities brought about by love. I then examine how the pandemic unexpectedly made visible the politics of touch, love, and care between state-sanctioned hierarchized bodies. I notably unpack the ‘guardian angel’ metaphor that was mobilized to speak of those doing care work, and especially those working as continuing care assistants for the elderly — overwhelmingly asylum seekers and women of color in Quebec. Running through the discussion lie lingering existential, political questions: who cares (in both the practical and emotional understandings of the term), and how do we care about each other — with what political consequences?