Abstract
The global economic crisis of 2008 has provoked considerable debate on unregulated markets and the need for more effective state regulation. Shahra Razavi draws attention to an important arena of social development, the arena of unpaid care, that is often ‘invisible’ but one that is likely to experience particular strain as the global economic crisis unfolds. Short of a paradigm shift, the paper argues that what is needed as a first step is to interrogate development processes and ‘economic’ policies through a ‘care lens’. It is also necessary to scrutinize the multiplicity of institutional sites where care is produced, and the extent to which ‘social’ policies contest or reinforce gender and class inequalities.
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Notes
The ‘other crisis’ alludes to Susan Donath's ‘other economy’ where ‘the direct production and maintenance of human beings’ take place (2000: 116).
An important effort is under way by the President of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, and his team to turn the planned UN Economic Summit (24–26 June 2009) into a real global summit where the rules of the game can be re-written in order to create the basis for a new global economy that can also serve the interests of developing countries.
There have been calls in the United States for public hearings modelled e.g., on the ‘Stock Exchange Practices Hearings’ conducted by the Senate Banking Committee between 1932 and 1934, to shed light on the deeper causes of the crisis in order to institute a new framework of financial regulation and supervision. (http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/policy_library/data/01522, accessed 12 May 2009).
Reference here is to the 53rd Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which was convened in March 2009 with the working title ‘Equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care-giving in the context of HIV/AIDS’.
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Draws attention to the often invisible arena of unpaid care
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Razavi, S. From Global Economic Crisis to the ‘Other Crisis’. Development 52, 323–328 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2009.33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2009.33