Notion of multiple crisis and feminist perspectives on social contract

Abstract

The concept of multiple (economic, ecological, social and political) crisis has arisen from recent tumultuous economic events. This paper uses a feminist perspective to present the concept as a crisis of regeneration of both nature and social reproduction. We intend to go beyond multiple crisis using the notion of a new social contract, to overcome this crisis in a transformative way towards sustainability. A feminist analysis of the concept of social contract is founded on the critique of domination and is based on Carole Pateman's 1998 thesis that the modern social contract is characterized by a ‘separating inclusion’ of women. It also refers to Val Plumwood's critique of the separated and autonomous self, which is part of all classical conceptions of social contract. We argue that overcoming the multiple crisis requires overcoming structures of separation and re‐envisioning concepts of the individual, by discussing the German example of a ‘Social Contract for Sustainability ’ (2011). If the notion of social contract is to become a catalyst for transformation processes leading to sustainability, it cannot be overarching but has to be developed as a multitude of small new social and local contracts.

COVID‐19, ethics of care and feminist crisis management

“…In the tradition of feminist writing I ‘ask difficult questions’ (Bell, Meriläinen, Taylor, & Tienari, 2020, p. 178) to resist masculine logics and to illuminate the ethical assumptions and dimensions of crisis management. Scholarship at the intersection between feminism and crisis management tends to emphasize crisis as a form of governance or control (e.g., Griffin, 2015), discuss the marginalization of women/feminist perspectives during crises (e.g., Otto, 2011) or focus on how anthropogenic (human‐made) crises can be transformed by feminism towards a sustainable future (e.g., see Biesecker & von Winterfeld, 2018). In contrast, I focus on how institutions and organizations manage high impact, low probability exogenous crisis events (Pearson & Clair, 1998).…”

Introduction: social contracts and informal workers in the global South

“…These networks represent an important step towards establishing new social dialogue platforms, in which the interests of informal workers can be represented alongside those of governments, national and multinational companies and formal wage workers. As with other social movements, this movement is embedded in the daily realities of people round the world in which identity and class often intersect, and is voicing demands for economic justice to create new openings for informal workers (Biesecker and von Winterfeld 2018). Despite their heterogeneity, these broad-based networks are bringing together different types of organizations of informal workers with similar interests, such as trade unions, cooperatives, producer groups, trade associations and other membership-based organizations (Agarwala 2018, Behrendt et al 2019.…”

A new social contract inclusive of informal workers

“…These broad-based networks are bringing together different types of organizations of informal workers with similar interests, such as trade unions, cooperatives, producer groups, trade associations, and other membership-based organizations (Agarwala 2018;Behrendt et al 2019). This movement is embedded in the daily realities of informal workers and aims to empower informal workers to voice demands for economic and social justice (Biesecker and von Winterfeld 2018). These networks and their affiliates are actively struggling, with some success, for new social dialogue platforms in which the interests of informal workers can be represented alongside those of government, national and multinational companies, and formal wage workers.…”