Reconceptions

Wai delves into the complexities of Pan-Africanism, challenging static or essentialist notions of “African solutions” by emphasizing the continent’s dynamic realities. He critiques attempts to romanticize African identity as detached from the global influences of colonialism and modernity. Instead, Wai argues for situating solutions in Africa’s present material and political conditions, integrating both local and global knowledge to address systemic issues.

“So African solutions, it’s not about something necessarily intrinsically or primarily African, but an idea that is grounded in African normativity and location in which you bring multiple influences in order to be able to propose a solution to the problems that face the continent from the perspective of the continent.”

A deep dive into the undervaluation of care labor, exploring its roots in gendered and racialized ideologies, and its broader implications in capitalist societies. Drawing on feminist and Marxist critiques, Battistoni examines historical and contemporary theories about why care work is poorly paid yet essential, arguing that ideology critique is only a first step.

“I think often people sort of skip to imagining that like the very basic function of sort of saying like, look, this is ideology then kind of itself has this like direct connection to the emancipatory, the thing of sort of like pulling the veil away from people’s eyes or revealing the reality of oppression as it exists and then that kind of active revealing knowledge or kind of learning the truth or something can just have like a political function or an emancipatory function on its own. And I think that can be part of it, but I certainly think there’s another step that often has to happen.”

Brazil’s political landscape under Lula’s third presidency is defined by a precarious balance between compromise and constraint, as fiscal austerity and a conservative-dominated Congress hinder the administration’s ability to implement bold reforms. While Lulismo retains support among the country’s poorest, a divided right, exemplified by the rise of radical figures like Pablo Marçal, signals an increasingly volatile electoral future leading into the 2026 elections.

“Taken as a whole, then, the municipal results may indicate a political process that bears comparison to that in the United States. There, Dylan Riley and Robert Brenner have argued, the American working class has fractured into two structurally opposed electoral blocs: those with college degrees, who have stayed with the Democrats, and those without, who have flocked to Trumpism. In Brazil, we have seen something like the inverse: a subproletariat that remains loyal to Lulismo, and a new precariat—comprised of low-waged workers who are gradually becoming self-employed in greater numbers—which, along with the pinched and resentful fractions of the petty bourgeoisie, has moved towards the extreme right, entering into an alliance with the agriculture, extractivist and service industries, including finance.”

The 1990s narrative of globalization as a uniquely modern phenomenon is fundamentally misleading, obscuring the long history of human mobility, exchange, and cultural interconnection. Far from being a recent and destabilizing force, globalization has been a hallmark of human history, shaping our shared culture and identities through countless migrations, exchanges, and adaptations that challenge the rigid ideologies of nationalism and anti-globalism.

“Our present appears that way only because we have forgotten our common past. Globalisation didn’t begin in the 1990s, or even in the past millennia. Remembering this older shared history is a path to a different tale, which begins much, much earlier – long before the arrival of international supply chains, ocean-going sailing ships, and continent-spanning silk roads. The tale of globalisation is written across human history. So why do we keep getting the story so wrong?“