Post-COVID19, there is talk of ‘building back better’.  What does this mean? Does it refer to making some improvement to existing economic and social arrangements whilst leaving much of its premise intact? Sunil Kumar draws upon his research on internal migrant construction workers in India, exploited in terms of wages as well as working and living conditions, to suggest that we should, instead, think of building back differently based on the idea of care. 

He argues that we need to go beyond the notion of ‘caring for’ (the material conditions of societal relationships) to encompass notions of ‘caring about’ – the person, the human.  This will require a fundamental rethink of the value that society currently places on low-wage and precarious workers.  Caring about will require investments of time: time for conversations, time to listen, time to understand, time for compassion, time for solidarity, and time to act.  Each of us must carve out time to care about and share these experiences with others.  The spin-offs of doing so can only be positive.

Meet our speaker

Sunil Kumar (@urban_sk) is a lecturer in Social Policy and Development in the Department of Social Policy at LSE. 

How can I watch the film?

Visit the Festival Hub or watch via the YouTube playlist.

More about this event

This event is part of the 'Festival Shorts' series. Festival Shorts are 10-minute talks by LSE experts released during Festival week, available to watch via the LSE Festival Hub.  

The LSE Festival: Shaping the Post-COVID World is running from Monday 1 to Saturday 6 March 2021, with a series of events exploring the direction the world could and should be taking after the crisis and how social science research can shape it.

Twitter hashtags for this event: #LSEFestival #LSECOVID19