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Assignment 10

In the reading “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?” by Arlie Hochschild, Lise Widding Isaksen, and Sambasivan Uma Devi, they mention the term commons. The term commons was first referred to the land of the fifteenth century English villagers where they could freely graze their sheep and cattle, collect firewood, and hunt game. The British then took the land and didn’t let the commoners use it. The word commons could also mean the community of families that people belonged to within the care chain. The purpose of migration was to seek for better paying jobs. The mothers would be more likely to migrate away from their own families including their young children is all due to higher paying jobs. You would think that the commons that are left in their home lands would be against migration but they actually benefited from it. The mothers would send back home  remittances. The third world government capitalized from it as well because they were able to tax  hard currency remittances. Even though the mothers were providing for their children they did face a huge social cost which was shame. Talking about how the mother’s children were doing was a taboo topic, they were sensitive and considered it a private matter. Alexandro Portes defines social capital as the accumulation of “social chits”. In the exchange of social chits, they leave open the time for repayment. Between migrant mother and caring-giving kin, there is an exchange of social chits. This right here would be considered the term care chains. While the mother is off working, either her older daughter, her sister, or any sort of kin would look after her younger children. Even with the conflict of not being there for their children, most migrants saw themselves as using their remittances to better their families, which are the commons.