Description
The concept of depletion through social reproduction (DSR) (Rai Hoskyns and Thomas 2014) seeks to capture the costs borne individuals, communities and societies when the socially necessary work of social reproduction is undervalued and un supported. Emerging out of feminist IPE work exploring how and why women tend to bear the brunt of economic crises, the DSR concept provides a conceptual language for thinking about how economic restructuring is experienced as a gendered harm, how such harms can be mitigated and also how they can be destabilized as part of feminist struggles against economic injustice. This panel has been formulated to reflect on how feminist IPE work on depletion has developed in the decade following the publication of Rai et al’s article ‘Depletion: The Cost of Social Reproduction’. The roundtable brings together scholars who have engaged with this concept from a range of perspectives and different locations. The panellists are invited to reflect on how the concept has informed their work and the field o feminist IPE more broadly and to reflect on what insights the concepts brings to thinking about contemporary global political and economic transformations and challenges. The panel coincides with the 2024 publication of Shirin M. Rai’s book Depletion: the human costs of caring (OUP) – an important milestone in the development of feminist IPE which this panel also seeks to celebrate.
