2 - "Preloved and to Bless": Care and Digital Citizenship in the Circulation of Plastics

Presentation Abstract
Caregiving comes in many configurations and forms, often involving plastic materials. Caregivers, who are often women, confront the materialities of care through the equipment they may procure to support caregiving needs, such as wheelchairs, disposable gloves, milk bottles, and plastic containers. Plastics are also found in objects meant for sanitisation, such as plastic gloves, diapers and bags. In this presentation, we focus on online communities of mothers and draw on content analysis to understand how, through the circulation and second-hand economy of “baby things”, online communities of mothers enact care and extend care practices through their digital networks. While there is much work on how the internet has mediated motherhood, most focus on the human agent at the centre of their academic inquiry, and do not include non-human, material aspects of motherhood and childcare. We find that the materiality of care is being shaped by changing narratives of environmentalism, including plastic waste generated by households. This has contributed to a growth in the use of various platforms – from forums to social media groups and consumer marketplaces such as Carousell to buy/sell or give away baby items. Additionally, we observe the development of online groups on platforms such as Facebook, Reddit and Carousell by young mothers exercising their digital citizenship to create and maintain care networks where knowledge and baby items are often exchanged. Through this work, we demonstrate how mothers, through their digital citizenship practices engage in the social and political meanings of plastics in the context of care.

Co-Author 1
Neo Yee Win, National University of Singapore