What do the COVID-19 pandemic, the humanitarian crisis, and a fast-depleting planet or the climate crisis all have in common? That these are some of the major threats or crises facing the world today? Or that these are reflective of social injustices on a grand scale. And that any response to these must bring to the fore a systematic understanding of the neglect, the actions and inactions that have contributed to these crises, and the power relations that determine where the impact is most felt. The unprecedented human suffering (experiences of illness, deaths, and divided societies) resulting from these injustices disproportionately affect the disadvantaged and socially marginalised populations.

Who are these people? As described in the book, they are the rising precariat class disenfranchised because of rising inflation, cost-of-living, depleting health, and other public services, as well as rapid technological changes that they do not have the resources to use or adapt to. They are the ‘othered’ and oppressed due to their subordinate caste or religious minority status. They are the 120 million people forcibly displaced and rendered homeless due to wars, conflicts, and persecution, and the 10 million that are rendered stateless, denied a nationality and accompanying basic human rights. They are the people living in the ‘deep end’1 – in favelas, in detention camps, in islands that are at risk of sinking or coastlines exposed to cyclones and tsunamis.