‘You Can’t Eat Soap’: Reimagining COVID-19, Work, Family and Employment from the Global South
本文质疑世界卫生组织新冠指南中关于工作、家庭和就业的假设，指出其基于全球北方范式，忽视了全球南方的现实复杂性，并呼吁结合科学和本地知识制定更民主的解决方案。
This article problematises the assumptions regarding work, family and employment that underlie the World Health Organization (WHO)’s COVID-19 guidelines. The scientific evidence grounding sanitary and social distancing recommendations is embedded in conceptualisations of work as skilled jobs in the formal economy and of family as urban and nuclear. These are Global North rather than universal paradigms. We build on theories from the South and an intersectional analysis of gender and class inequalities to highlight contextual complexities currently neglected in responses to COVID-19. We argue that building on both science and local knowledge can help democratise workable solutions for a range of different work, family and employment realities in the Global South. Finally, we propose a research agenda calling for strengthened North–South dialogue to provincialise knowledge, account for differences in histories, locality and resource-availability, and foster greater local participation in policy formulation regarding sanitary measures and vaccination campaigns.