Academy of Radical Caregivers, 2022. © Sebastian Papoulis
A Caring Ethnography of the ada_kantine in Frankfurt am Main
Susanne Hübl
The crisis-ridden nature of social reproduction necessitates forms of urban care that are currently being discussed as "shadow care infrastructures" (Power et al. 2022) and that take place beyond decidedly state and small-family care contexts. In this article, I explore how care is given and received in the concrete everyday life of a solidarity-based neighborhood canteen, the challenges this entails, and the extent to which hegemonic urban care relations are challenged. Conceptually, the article draws on the academic-activist debate on Caring Cities and connects it with radical care as an analytical perspective. The empirical results are part of a caring ethnographic case study conducted at the ada_kantine in Frankfurt am Main in 2022. Looking ahead, I outline the transgressive potentials for a "caring urbanization" (Strüver 2021) suggested by these care practices.
Published in sub\urban Journal for Critical Urban Research