A documentary exploring the impact of COVID-19 on informal workers in Colombia supports an urgent call for policy innovation from an interdisciplinary research project team led by Kent Law School Reader Dr Luis Eslava.<\/p>\n
Newly available in English, the documentary<\/a> is one of the outcomes of \u2018Informality in Times of COVID-19\u2019, a project which focuses on Colombia as a case study for exploring the impact of the global pandemic on informal workers, their families, and public policies in general.<\/p>\n By highlighting the contributions made by the informal economy to the general economy and wellbeing of countries, the project reveals how the precarities that accompany informal work become ultra-precarities during a public health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n \u2018Informality in Times of COVID-19\u2019 is the first intervention of Ruptures21: Towards New Economies, Societies and Legalities<\/a>, which seeks to advance new ways to understand and solve global issues.<\/p>\n Co-ordinated by Dr Eslava, the Ruptures21 \u2018Informality in Times of COVID-19\u2019 project comprises a team of more than 20 socio-legal academics, labour economists, public health experts, anthropologists, film makers, graphic designers, translators, research assistants and public policy makers. Kent Law School Professor Donatella Alessandrini is a member of the project\u2019s Academic and Research Committee.<\/p>\n As a result of their research, Ruptures21 makes an urgent call for a new set of social, economic, and health policies in relation to the informal economy in Colombia and similar countries in the Global South.<\/p>\n Dr Eslava said: \u2018In the documentary, the struggles of informal workers during the pandemic are contextualised in terms of the ongoing struggle for social justice in Colombia and many other places. Our goal is to support these transformations.\u2019<\/p>\n The project team collaborated with informal workers, their families, and Bogot\u00e1-based art collective ArtoArte<\/a> to produce the documentary.<\/p>\n Originally released in November in Spanish, the documentary has now been made available in English. Other project outcomes include a series of multilingual reports, life histories, data clips, and the first comprehensive aggregated database on informality in Colombia.<\/p>\n \u2018Informality in Times of Covid-19\u2019 is supported by the University of Kent, the University of Essex, the University of Warwick and Universidad del Rosario and forms part of ongoing work by The IEL Collective<\/a> to encourage public debate and policy innovation in relation to the functioning of the international legal, political and economic order.<\/p>\n Dr Eslava<\/a> and\u00a0Professor Alessandrini<\/a>, received support for the \u2018Informality in Times of COVID-19\u2019 project through the University of Kent\u2019s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Emergency Response Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n