DA BADANTI A SENZA FISSA DIMORA. Politiche di governo della povertà e distorsioni del principio di cura

The aim of this paper is to present the findings of an ethnographic research, which investigates the relationship between the increasingly crucial role played by care workers in the Italian society and the status of working poor that characterizes care sector workers. In Italy, the transformation of the care sector and the political/economic investment in its professionalization started from the late 1980s and continued until the current economic crisis. However, if on the one hand the transformation of the care economy as well as the political and social construction of care jobs have filled the gaps left in state assistance, on the other they have created an army of insecure workers, who are deeply affected by precarious and often informal labour relationships.