Research Statement | Carlos José Celis
Public Care Infrastructure and Political Economy My research in care infrastructure—such as kitchens, laundromats, and community gardens—studies the relationship between the technologies, knowledges, and practices of daily life and state-making in the Global South. I study this relationship primarily from two perspectives. First, I explore the struggles and mechanisms of the feminist movement and civil society for positioning care, unpaid housework, and emotional labor within the political agenda of the state. Second, I theorize that once care is within the state, it not only proposes a new policy realm but also other moral economies, ways of relating, types of expertise, materialities, and temporalities that radically transform states and democracies. My research in care infrastructures thus contributes to new theories of the state and civil society from the Global South. In recent years, care infrastructure has rapidly moved away from the domestic sphere into the public realm, especially in Latin America. For example, between 2013 and 2017, Uruguay, Perú, México, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Colombia began measuring care time as an indicator of economic activity. Between 2021 and 2025, México, Colombia, and Chile developed nationwide networks of care infrastructure, known as “systems of care,” to reduce, redistribute, and recognize unpaid housework. Between 2019 and 2021, during El Estallido Social (“Social Outburst”), kitchens across Latin American cities were moved from private households to public streets to feed protesters. These “ollas comunitarias” (community pots) became the heart and epicenter of protests and kept them ongoing for weeks, even months. The chant “el estado no me cuida, me cuidan mis amigas” (“the state does not care for me, my girlfriends care for me”) has become a feminist anthem among Latin American social movements. Motivated by these and other case studies, I argue that there has been a care turn in the political economy of states, particularly in the Global South. My research asks how “care” or unpaid housework has become a policy concern. Further, what is this emerging care infrastructure doing not only to its beneficiaries but also to the state? I take an interdisciplinary approach in my research, utilizing policy analysis, environmental design, and feminist science and technology studies (FSTS). My research projects all feature a creative ensemble of mixed methods, such as ethnography, econometrics, geographic information systems (GIS) analysis, and photography. Thanks to the public-interest nature of my research, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with, work with, and present my work to at least 13 different organizations, including government agencies, NGOs, and academic institutions, during my Ph.D.1
1. Care Within the Post-Technocracy I am currently working on a book project titled Disorienting the State: Care Infrastructure and the Post-Technocracy in Bogotá. The project is a one-year multi-site ethnography of a public policy: the Bogotá System of Care led by the Women’s Affairs Office (WAO) of the Bogotá City Hall. This policy aims to dismantle patriarchal culture by reducing, redistributing, and recognizing unpaid housework through laundromats, soup kitchens, and a sui generis school of care for men, among other public care infrastructure. The System of Care is one of the largest social policies in Bogotá, with an investment of over 1 billion USD between 2019 and 2022— about 5% of the city’s budget. Throughout my fieldwork as a volunteer with the WAO, I have followed the 1 I have collaborated with the Women’s Affairs Office of Bogotá, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) in Barcelona, the
New York City Health and Hospitals, the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS). I have presented my work at the International Sociological Association forum in the Urban and Regional Development Committee, the International Conference of Urban Affairs, and the Krueckeberg Doctoral Conference in Urban Studies, Urban Planning, and Public Policy. My research has received funding from the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, the Graduate Institute on Design Ethnography and Social Thought (GIDEST), the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies, and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School. 1