Hum Sab Ek

(We Are One)

An immersive exhibit inspired by the actions of the Self Employed Women’s Association.

A traditional impact assessment of the pandemic on the lives of the working poor, evolved into a multimedia exhibition created by an interdisciplinary team of graduate students across Harvard University.

In 2020, as the world “locked down” to face the COVID-19 pandemic, lives and livelihoods of millions around the globe were upended. Members of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), nearly 3 million women working in India’s informal labor economy, navigated the greatest public health emergency of our times through half a century of organizing at the confluence of the labor movement, the women’s movement and the cooperative movement.

A team of Harvard researchers archived over 30 hours of oral histories and interviewed over 1000 households. In response to SEWA’s desire that their story – of resilience and of solidarity – be disseminated widely, the research team first presented their findings in a multimedia exhibition that has traveled the world. This website is its online archive, globally accessible.

Approach

In an effort to shed light on alternative forms of science communication—at a time when the hegemony of quantitative sciences and modeling tend to drown out other modes of knowledge generation and dissemination—Hum Sab Ek presents research findings from a 1,000-household survey and oral histories to both global and local audiences in ways that promote engagement, reflection, and reinterpretation.

The project now includes an online archive of oral histories donated to the Harvard Countway Library’s History of Medicine Archives; a traveling exhibition hosted at research institutions, philanthropic organizations, and multilateral organizations; policy roundtables; and this web repository. The exhibition has been co-designed and developed by Harvard graduate students in collaboration with members of the Self Employed Womens Association.