Crépeau, Alexandre <br/><br/>
Contradictory injunctions in care work: Personal, ethical, and political issues 

 -  2023.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> This paper examines the ways in which contradictory injunctions deteriorate our ability to pay attention, as theorized by French philosopher Simone Weil, and the consequences of this deterioration. Attention, in its Weilian sense, refers to the ability to disregard oneself to receive the Other in their otherness and complexity. In doing so, the subject decenters itself. We focus specifically on contradictory injunctions in the field of care, which derive in part from tensions between the necessities of care—adaptation and attention to the individual—and of the bureaucratic structures that regulate it, which require standardization, anonymity, and schematization. The imposed bureaucratic procedures therefore tend to hinder the high quality care asked of caregivers. Because attention requires certain conditions (physical and psychological wellness, time, and autonomy), contradictory injunctions tend to impede its practice. This causes important psychological pain to the workers while simultaneously degrading care. Beyond the personal level, the loss of the ability to pay attention at work has obvious sociopolitical consequences. Through the practice of attention, the worker learns to relate to the world in a way that avoids the instrumentalization of others. Attention thus forms for Simone Weil one of the bases of the social fabric. To regain our attentional capacities, we must rethink work according to temporal, technical, and organizational conditions.