Features / Long Read

Wolfgang Sachs wrote a seminal series of essays for the New Internationalist in 1992 called ‘Development: a guide to the ruins’. The concept of development lives on – and takes on new shapes as it is reframed by the UN, reinterpreted by the Vatican or hijacked by authoritarian populists to serve their own nationalist agenda. But, he argues now, we need to move beyond its misguided assumptions into a new post-development era based on eco-solidarity.

In a groundbreaking new work, Trifonia Melibea Obono has sought out and recorded the unheard stories of lesbian and bisexual women living in the small West African state of Equatorial Guinea.

Blake Morrison grew up in Yorkshire – and made his escape from his traditional conservative background via literature. As he discovered writers from other cultures, borders between cultures and nations seemed to fall away, leaving him as a citizen of the world. But since the Brexit referendum he has often felt like a stranger in his own country.

The world has never been better. From global poverty to inequality between nations, all the indicators are showing progress. This is a comforting narrative – popularized by the likes of Bill Gates and Steven Pinker. But is it true? Jason Hickel examines the rise of this so-called ‘New Optimism’, with its ‘battle cry for the status quo’.

With the release of New Daughters of Africa, editor Margaret Busby explains why the collection – 25 years after Daughters of Africa was published – could not have come at a better time and introduces three stories from the anthology.

Climate change is the salient symptom of a human world unwilling – or unable – to protect its own life. In this lyrical essay, Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik explains why learning to think ecologically will be a precious and indispensable tool for our times – and how our fight against catastrophic collapse can ultimately win a more beautiful world.

In 1987, the British government contracted a passenger ferry to act as a floating immigration detention centre for Tamil refugees. Later that year a storm set the ship loose from its moorings. Felix Bazalgette reports on the the little-known story of exodus and empire that paved the way for the Windrush scandal.

Politicians of both Left and Right continue to march behind the banners of meritocracy and equality of opportunity as if this were all that is needed to achieve a fair society. But rewarding people for their ‘merit’ may be creating a new class system based on arrogant, insensitive winners and angry, desperate losers, writes Peter Adamson.