The political work of emotions: care, pandemic, and protest in Spain

Abstract

We analyse the impact of the pandemic on the care system in Spain.In particular, we focus on the perspective of relatives to illuminate the crisis of theresidential care model that the Covid-19 pandemic brought to light. The pandemichad a major impact on Spanish care homes, with one of the highest mortalityrates in the European Union. This caused suffering, not only for residents, but alsofor relatives, who reacted by mobilising and demanding political accountability.In line with the anthropology of emotions, we analyse the emotional grammarsunderlying the protest to show how the suffering of relatives becomes intelligiblein the framework of a residential care model in crisis, and how it acquires politicalvalue beyond the private and individual sphere in which care is usually understood.Thus, we show the political work of emotions and their analytical potentialin examining the transformations and challenges of the current care system