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AbstractWithin the liberal political traditions, care is regarded as a private matter, a problem of ethics rather than justice. Social justice is framed as an issue of economics (re/distribution), culture (recognition) and/or politics (representation). The pandemic challenged this liberal patriarchal paradigm; it placed the care relational lives of human beings centre stage in terms of social justice, not only in terms of who did or did not do the caring, who was and was not cared for, but who was capable of caring while balancing paid‐work time with care‐work time. The pandemic also challenged dominant ontological assumptions about the human condition, especially assumptions about invulnerability and autonomy that are so pervasive in a neoliberal capitalist era. The vulnerability of the human body came into sharp relief, especially in Western countries where infectious diseases were assumed to be under control. The autonomy myth was shattered too, as unforeseen and uncontrollable social isolation created emotional and relational vulnerabilities. People learned, often in painful ways how the loss of companionship diminished their sense of who they were. Above all, the pandemic demonstrated that the both the personal and professional care infrastructure of societies is foundational to economic, political, cultural and environmental life. It highlighted how affective equality, that is, equality in the doing and receiving of love care and solidarity, is a key dimension of social justice. Consequently, it taught a lesson on why a care/needs‐based concept of justice is as important as a rights‐based theory and why one is incomplete without the other.

Affective relations are not social derivatives subordinate to economic, political, or cultural relations in matters of social justice. Rather, they are productive, materialist human relations that constitute people mentally, emotionally, physically, and socially. The nurturing work that produces love, care, and solidarity operates under principles of other-centredness, even when it fails in this purpose. Furthermore, neither love nor care are purely personal or intimate matters; care exists as a public practice, be it in terms of health care, environmental care, community care, educational care or public welfare; solidarity can be regarded as the political expression of such public care. Because the relational realities of nurturing (and their counterpoint, neglect) operate as a distinct set of social practices, love, care and solidarity relations are sites of political import that need to be examined separately in social justice terms. The lack of appreciation of affective relations leads to a failure to recognise their pivotal role in generating injustices in the production of people in their humanness. This paper outlines a framework for thinking about affective relations in structural social justice terms. In so doing, it hopes to contribute to the redistribution, recognition, representation debate about justice by making the case for a fourth dimension, relational justice. The framework is sociologically informed by theoretical work and empirical research undertaken on love, care and solidarity. It takes a structural rather than individualist approach to social justice, arguing that equality of conditions matter as it is impossible to have anything but weak forms of equality of opportunity in economically and politically (structurally) unjust societies. ; European Commission Horizon 2020 ; 18 month embargo once published - AC ; Check for published version during checkdate report - AC

This chapter tells the story of how the UCD Common Rules were changed in the late 1980s to allow all UCD staff members to join, regardless of their occupation. As membership had been confined to academics and senior administrative staff, this was a significant achievement. After much debate and many meetings from 1985-87, the decision to democratise the Common Room was made at an AGM on March 12th 1987. The meeting was attended by 100 members of whom 77 voted to make to open up the Common Room.