Comforting a family member or friend, soothing children, providing company for the elderly, ensuring that people feel well enough to work; this is all essential labour. Without it, capitalism would cease to function.
Here, and in her book They Call It Love, Alva Gotby investigates the work that makes a haven in a heartless world, examining who performs this labour, how it is organised, and how it might change.
In her ground-breaking book, Gotby calls this work ’emotional reproduction’, unveiling its inherently political nature. It not only ensures people’s well-being but creates sentimental attachments to social hierarchy and the status quo. Drawing on the thought of the feminist movement Wages for Housework, Gotby demonstrates that emotion is a key element of capitalist reproduction. To improve the way we relate to one another will require a radical restructuring of society.
Alva Gotby is a writer and organiser living in London. She holds a PhD in Media Studies from the University of West London and an MA in Philosophy and Contemporary Critical Theory from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University. She has written on feminist theory, social reproduction, housing, emotions, and family, and is active in struggles to abolish prisons and landlords.
