In this Big Ideas Talk, Andrea Doucet tells a story with unparalleled power—a stirring and thought-provoking story that almost literally leaps off the screen.

Doucet is a care scholar. “For 30 years,” she says, “I’ve consulted with governments and international organizations – and I’ve told stories about how women and men care for children and aging parents”. As care crises worsen, Doucet is convinced that we need to think differently about what care is and to seek solutions in unlikely places. In this talk, she shares her journey of turning to ecologist Rachel Carson and of finding three lessons about care in Carson’s best-selling book, Silent Spring. These lessons are about the inter-relations of all human and non-human life, the ethical responsibilities of scientists and researchers, and the power of storytelling grounded in science.

Watch this Big Ideas Talk, “Nothing Exists Alone: Three Lessons About Care from Ecologist Rachel Carson” to hear a David and Goliath story with profound lessons for our politically fraught times.

About Andrea Doucet

Andrea Doucet is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Gender, Work, and Care, Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock University, and Honorary Professor at University College London. She serves as Project Director and Principal Investigator of the Canadian SSHRC Partnership program, Reimagining Care/Work Policies and Co-Coordinator of the International Network of Leave Policies and Research. Most of her scholarly and public writing explores care in its varied forms – as concepts, everyday practices in diverse contexts, care policies, and as ontologies and epistemologies. Author of the award-winning book Do Men Mother? (University of Toronto Press [UTP] 2006, 2018), Doucet is currently completing several writing projects on care ethics and social-ecological care, including a book on care leaves and caring democracies (with Peter Moss, Policy Press), an international Handbook on the Listening Guide (with Carol Gilligan and Natasha Mauthner, Routledge), and a manuscript (which informs her Big Ideas talk) on Rachel Carson and care imaginaries (UTP)