Thinking about the Institutionalization of Care with Hannah Arendt: A Nonsense Filiation?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper approaches the politics of care in Hannah Arendt relating it with the work by Joan Tronto. The author justifies with clarity, breath and lots of bibliography how we can build a politics of care from Arendt's work.

The author knows very well the feminist interpretation's of Hannah Arendt and presents very clearly the problem of talking about care in her work: she made a very clear distinction between the public and the private sphere. How the care (traditionally considered a private practice of women) could be political at all? The author links care (following Tronto) with Arendt's love of the world. I think it is convincing and a very well-done work. Thank you.

line 113: "women claim the freedom to belong or world", is any word left? Should be "work" instead of "world"?

Author Response

We have correct the sentence with the word lacking. 

Reviewer 2 Report

I found this article very interesting, and the main line of argumentation very compelling. The manuscript also would greatly benefit, however, from certain revisions to bring out the most of its potential.

My primary suggestion to the author(s) is to anchor the argument more emphatically to the recent readings of Arendt. While the manuscript begins with a reference to Ella Meyers, most of the discussion relies on older readings. While these (Pitkin, Honig of the 1990s, Benhabib, Elsthain) are still very much relevant, the more recent secondary literature has moved to a new direction that is very much relevant to the argument made here. In addition to a more extensive engagement with Myers (which, of course, can also include criticism) I have in mind several writings highlighting the embeddedness of Arendtian political action in various material dependencies. These works include Honig’s more recent work on “Public Things”, Laura Ephraim’s “Who Speaks for Nature”, Hyvönen’s “Amor Tellus? For a Material Culture of Care”, Ayten Gundogdu’s “Rightlessness in the Age of Righs”, and various essays by Markell, Ziarek and Diprose, and Peg Birmingham.

Adding these works to the discussion would not only bring the essay “up to date” vis-à-vis the secondary literature – it would also help making potentially helpful substantial revisions to the argument. As it currently is, the sections 2.1. and 2.2. take quite a lot of space and at the same time feel a bit dated. Being able to compress these discussions about the social and the private/public distinction would leave the author(s) more room to elaborate the interesting arguments raised towards the end of the essay. Substantially, the more recent readings would also help in moving the article beyond (or at least complicate) the idea that “politics must remain free of the tasks of biological life”. By doing so, this tweak would also help to make the comparison to Tronto even stronger and more substantial.

For me, section four was the most interesting part of the paper. I would urge the author(s) to expand this section a little bit more and try to move even further beyond mere juxtaposition of Arendt and Tronto, towards a deeper fusion of their respective ways of thinking. Again, the previous suggestion regarding the type of reading of Arendt presented can help in this task too. It is worth paying more attention to the fact that Arendt indeed had a notion of care of her own – elaborating its relationship to the idea of care we find from Tronto’s work would be really interesting and helpful. I would also add some reflections about whether their respective concepts of power are in contradiction, can be used for mutual criticism, or whether they actually complement each other.

Finally, in the title, is "institutionalization of care" an apt description of the content, or would a reference to the ethics of care work better?

There are a few typos and odd wordings, e.g.

• The reference to the French translation of the Das Frauenproblem review essay from 1933 is somewhat confusing, given that it was indeed published in 1933 in German, and for most anglophone readers of her, the “canonical version” is the English translation published in Essays in Understanding.
• “Raphaele Varnhagen” ought to be Rahel
• I am not sure Arendt would appreciate being called a “German philosopher”
• On page 8, following Arendt’s usage of masculine pronouns beyond direct quotations should be avoided

All in all, this is an important article and I am looking forward to seeing the revised version in publication.

Author Response

We want to thank the reviewer for his (her) time and his (her) relevant recommandations. We have add some references to highlight the embeddedness of Arendtian political action in different material dependencies: especially  Hyvönen’s “Amor Tellus? For a Material Culture of Care”, and Peg Birmingham.

We did't have time to make substantial revisions to our argument (a week only) by this gave us perspectives for a new paper. 

The sections 2.1. and 2.2. have been reduced in order to compress the discussions about the social and the private/public distinction. 

We have developed the fourth section with the notion of care.

We have corrected typos and odd wordings, e.g.

• The reference to the French translation of the Das Frauenproblem review essay from 1933 is somewhat confusing, given that it was indeed published in 1933 in German, and for most anglophone readers of her, the “canonical version” is the English translation published in Essays in Understanding.
• “Raphaele Varnhagen” ought to be Rahel
• Arendt called as a “German philosopher”
• On page 8, masculine pronouns beyond direct quotations have be avoided