ABSTRACT
As part of political projects of legibility and recognition, US feminist labor studies tend to make care work the object of study, such that the structures and processes organizing systems of care provision and the distribution of this labor become obscured. This essay discusses the utility of concepts of care work and considers shifting analytic attention to tracing the political processes that (re)produce inequalities, such as claims-making, an activity embedded in struggles over recognition and redistribution of resources in care provision. I conclude that claims grounded in work and work status limit the potential political possibilities for envisioning how the welfare state may address our collective care needs.
