There have been plenty of interpretations regarding the meaning and function of sacrifice within the discipline of anthropology. Going beyond sacrifice as a ritual and exploring a wide range of its manifestations and functions as contemporary cultural practices, discourses, and underlying logics, we reveal its role in the social organization of social care provision within the framework of neoliberal capitalism. Our analysis supports the theory that sacrifice can have the function of social control, and of preserving hierarchies. The forgoing of a minority of migrant domestic workers to provide intensive social care becomes the (no) solution to the ongoing care crisis. It thus becomes the way to hide structural violence and dilute responsibilities for society, which benefits from the servile conditions under which the labour is performed. The ethnographic material (observations, informal conversations, and interviews) that is part of our analysis originated from fieldwork in Castellón de la Plana, Spain (2018/19). This analysis, however, goes beyond that case, being valid for reflecting on the position of care for elderly and dependent people in our societies, care in general, the current global trend in social care provision, and the new social reproduction regime in which sacrificial logics play an increasing role.

中文翻译：

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关怀阶级牺牲的生命：社会再生产危机、不平等的欧洲和现代形式的奴隶制


在人类学学科中，关于牺牲的意义和功能有很多解释。我们超越了作为一种仪式的牺牲，探索了它作为当代文化实践、话语和潜在逻辑的广泛表现形式和功能，揭示了它在新自由主义资本主义框架内提供社会关怀的社会组织中的作用。我们的分析支持这样的理论：牺牲可以具有社会控制和维护等级制度的功能。放弃少数移徙家政工人提供密集的社会护理成为解决当前护理危机的（不）解决方案。因此，它成为隐藏结构性暴力和淡化社会责任的方式，社会受益于劳动的奴役条件。我们分析的民族志材料（观察、非正式对话和访谈）源自西班牙卡斯特利翁-德拉普拉纳的实地考察（2018/19）。然而，这种分析超越了这种情况，它有效地反映了我们社会中老年人和受抚养人的护理状况、一般护理、当前社会护理提供的全球趋势以及新的社会再生产制度，其中牺牲逻辑发挥着越来越重要的作用。