WTMC Autumn Workshop ‘CARE as object and commitment’

From 23 until 24 November 2026, WTMC will organize the next Autumn Workshop: CARE as object and commitment

STS has a long tradition of studying ‘Care’ as an object of research: socially recognized and institutionally organized forms of caring found in settings such as hospitals, nursing homes and public health systems, in which science and technology play an important role. Other approaches work with broader readings and uses of ‘care’. In Caring Democracy, Joan Tronto, building on work with Berenice Fisher, defines care at its most general level as “everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible” (2013, p. 19). Puig de la Bellacasa takes this further still by proposing “to treat matters of fact and sociotechnical assemblages as ‘matters of care’ (2011, p. 85). Care, here, becomes not only something to study, but also a way of attending to what is neglected or devalued, and of reflecting on how research itself participates in the worlds it studies.

In this workshop, we will tease out different ways of thinking about and with care. What changes when care is no longer primarily an object of study, but also a way of engaging with the worlds we study? What questions, approaches and commitments does this make possible? And where might things become more complicated as the concept travels, expands and acquires new meanings and obligations? We will also ask if there are limits to care, for others but also for ourselves: how do we decide which forms of care are ours, as researchers, to take on, which need to be shared, and which should not be demanded in the first place? In short, we will move from thinking about care (as an object of study), to thinking with care (as an ethic and mode of inquiry), and then — with care — back to thinking about care again (as an analytical and normative category).

This training is open to both PhDs and Postdocs, and will take place at Soeterbeeck from Monday 23 November to Tuesday 24 November 2026 and is preceded by site visits to relevant locations. Participants will go to one of the following three locations, and can indicate their preference in the registration form.

Option 1: Urban care farm Daalhoeve in Maastricht, with Klasien Horstman, on November 3.

Option 2: Pauluskerk, diaconal centre and social care institution that provides an unconditional safety net for those who have nowhere else to turn to, in Rotterdam, hosted by volunteers of the initiative, on November 12.

Option 3: Exposition on 125-years of preventive child health care (“consultationbureaus”) in The Hague with Martijn van der Meer, a recent graduate of WTMC, on November 10.

Registration opens on Monday the 28^th of September, and closes on Monday the 12^th of October 2026.

WTMC PhD candidates can register for free. For (external) PhD candidates or Postdocs attending this individual event, the costs are EUR 1800 (or EUR 1500 if they follow their trajectory at an organization that is an institutional member of WTMC). This includes accommodation and meals for the duration of the workshop.

After their acceptance, external participants will receive an invoice or online-payment request.