I want to think ‘care’ as a problem for thought. I want to think care in the wake as a problem for thinking and of and for Black non/being in the world. Put another way, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being is a work that insists and performs that thinking needs care (‘all thought is Black thought’) and that thinking and care need to stay in the wake.
– Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), p.5
Recent political, social, economic and environmental crises have fundamentally changed the way that we perceive and experience care. As a result, the double-edged meaning of the term can be felt more sharply than ever; care encapsulates our attention and concern for someone or something at the same time as it defines our troubles, pains and sorrows. Moreover, taking care with our writing is an ethical and aesthetic imperative.
What does care mean in light of the social injustices and inequalities foregrounded by Black Lives Matter? How has the global pandemic changed care? What does it mean to be charged with the care of animal, vegetal and mineral lifeforms during the sixth mass extinction and the care of the environment in the ongoing climate crisis? Furthermore, how has care, both as a concept and an experience, changed for writers, artists, critics and readers?