Making care count: troubling neoliberal policy frameworks in the childcare and waste management policy areas of Newfoundland and Labrador

O'Brien, Laura (2018) Making care count: troubling neoliberal policy frameworks in the childcare and waste management policy areas of Newfoundland and Labrador. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Since the advent of the political influence of neoliberalism in Canada in the 1970s, the dominant norms of neoliberal policymaking have determined the parameters of political possibility in both provincial and federal policy circles. This framework has compromised policy areas that involve the direct provision of care work due to the incompatibility—both theoretical and practical—of theories analyzing care and neoliberalism. This thesis analyses the universality, the reliance on care work and caring labour, and the longstanding challenges in two policy areas in Newfoundland and Labrador: childcare, and waste management, seeking to identify the utility of a care framework in proposing policy alternatives for both areas. In employing a care framework as an intervention into the policy areas and their neoliberal domination, this study assesses the practicality of care as a policy formulation and implementation framework, determining that meaningful policy change as it pertains to childcare or waste management cannot occur through an adherence to the norms of neoliberalism that currently characterize policy development in both areas. Doing so, this work illuminates the paramount importance of caring labour to society, arguing that an ignorance of this labour in written, regulated policy will continue to prevent significant societal advancement.

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