So We Heard: Dana Dives into Commodification and Gendered Labour Practices

The Can You Hear Us Team is excited to Introduce So We Heard — an informal coffee chat series that, like Can You Hear Us, creates a space for black, indigenous women and femmes of color to discuss and understand anything related to international development without the pressure of having to sound intelligent while doing it. 

In the first episode, host Ragini Puri (CYHU Assistant Producer) dives into a chapter from The Critique of Commodification: Contours of a Post-Capitalist Society by Christoph Hermann with CYHU lead researcher, Dana Abuzinadah. They re-examine the notion of commodification, its many critiques, and how it truly operates within our world, paying special attention to the commodification of women’s labour globally.

At the end of the day, commodifying or the process of turning into a valued commodity transcends the boundaries of the labor force and creates this notion of a breadwinner in the household ultimately shaping and reinforcing the idea of a nuclear family. And linking this to women’s development, constraining them to the household or keeping them dependent on a male breadwinner in no way feeds into their development.

What is Can You Hear Us??

Can You Hear Us? is a podcast by Monica Abad Yang and Madiera Dennison in partnership with the Department of International Development at LSE.

The podcast is the first initiative of its kind in the Department and has the overall aim to prioritise BIPOC women and femmes' specific experiences and narratives by creating a space where we can discuss a multitude of topics that affect us as women, women of colour (WOC) and women in professional spaces such as: Colourism or Work Life Balance.

The name Can You Hear Us? originates from the COVID-19 pandemic as it is commonly repeated on Zoom but also symbolically reflects the work left to do to empower WOC.