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EDITOR’S LETTER

DINYAR GODREJ for the New Internationalist Co-operative newint.org

Cover: Construction workers go off shift as the sun sets. VIEW STOCK/ALAMY

VALUE-ADDED WORK

Like it or not, we place a value on the work we do. Depending on our perception, this might be the notion of finding fulfilment through the work one does (extolled alike by managers and those of a more creative bent), the search for work that ‘makes a difference’, or the more mundane but essential: working for a wage.

Ironically, some of the most important work is, if not entirely unrecognized, grossly undervalued. This is the care work still done mainly by women, without which society would cease to function and the wheels of business would hit the buffers.

But it’s monetized work that is seen as sink or swim. Not being able to access it is a source of great desperation, especially when social provision is weak or non-existent.

This edition’s Big Story inspects how workers the world over are being squeezed. There is no shortage of ideas that envisage a future where we reorganize society in such a way that work becomes at most a part-time adjunct in a world of shared plenty. We look at a some of those. But in the shortterm, the challenges are age-old – struggles for greater autonomy, dignity and fairness.

In other sections of the magazine, we meet Ghana’s 13-year-old DJ Switch, an incredible campaigner for children’s rights. And in Temperature Check we offer some handy suggestions for what you can do to get the right messages to world leaders attending the COP26 climate talks.

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:

Navsharan Singh is an independent scholar and activist working on the agrarian crisis in Punjab, India. She is the author of Landscapes of Fear: Understanding Impunity in India.

Rose M Brewer is an activist, writer and scholar who teaches at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She has written extensively on black families, race, class and gender.

Tomekah George is an illustrator, animator and maker based in Sheffield, UK. She creates colourful illustrations which sit somewhere between a paper collage and a painting.

Francesca Ebel is a correspondent for the Associated Press in Tunis. Her work has appeared in Politico Europe magazine, The Independent and the LA Review of Books, among other publications.

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NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021