Nursing crabs and the biopolitics of care

This article examines the biopolitics of care within Madagascar's live mangrove crab trade. It reveals how care operates as a governance mechanism beyond ethical or affective practice. Care in this context is both technoscientific and embodied, shaped by regulations, market demands and labour hierarchies. I argue that the care provided to crabs – whether through nursing facilities, cold-chain logistics or the attentive handling by female traders – serves to sustain life and optimize vitality for economic purposes. This tension highlights the crucial yet often overlooked political dynamics of care in sustaining the global live seafood commodity chain. By recognizing the diverse forms of care within the seafood industry, the article also uncovers the socio-economic inequalities and ecological precarity embedded in these asymmetrical care practices.