Introducing The Fifth Wave
Building better care
“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” - Octavia E. Butler
The Fifth Wave believes in a future of fair, valued and collective caregiving.
Our vision
Around the world, across just one generation, many women no longer tolerate bearing the same one-sided domestic burdens as their mothers. Many men now integrate fatherhood in their professional and personal trajectories.
The Covid-19 crisis laid bare how vital paid and unpaid care work is to the functioning of our societies, yet how little we value it. The pandemic also made starker than ever the exhausted state of our health and social care systems.
At the same time, worldwide socio-demographic shifts are prompting institutions to consider new, creative ways to better support families and caregivers, foster intergenerational exchange, and build spaces more conducive to community life.
Born in September of 2025, The Fifth Wave works to elevate the political and cultural salience of caregiving in all its forms: as an essential public infrastructure, a structuring principle of social life, and a central concern of political decision-making.
We are grounded in the rich corpus of philosophical and sociological work in feminist care ethics, which place interdependence and vulnerability back at the core of our value systems. Without these, any discussion of care remains incomplete.
We all care, and are all cared for. Some more than others: care is at once one of the most universal yet most unequally distributed of human activities. The Fifth Wave aims to connect the different threads of the care transition to envision ambitious and holistic solutions for a more caring future.
Our work
Analysis. We analyse local and national alternatives to current care systems, in order to learn from, adapt, and replicate them. When it comes to social innovation, the “local initiative —> replication —> integration into the national infrastructure” pipeline is a tried and tested way to drive society-wide change. We believe in starting small, and scaling what works.
Interviews. We publish interviews with people building the futures of care, whether through their practice or their thinking. People who make up for the harshness of our systems with creativity and passion. And because the best insights on care come from caring, we ask all our interviewees: “Who do you care for, and who cares for you?”
Essays. We work to shift narratives around care, showing that humans are interdependent, vulnerable, and better set up to flourish when supported by resilient care systems. We aim to elevate the importance of caregiving in all its forms, as essential public infrastructure, as a structuring principle of social life, and as a central concern of political decision-making.
Our values
As our name reveals, we are a feminist ideas lab, with a strong intellectual debt to the many feminist writers, activists and academics who have long enriched and questioned our ideas about care. We are committed to advancing reproductive justice, acknowledging the vital role that Black and queer feminists in particular have played — and are still playing — in that fight.
We are a global platform, aiming to bring into dialogue a variety of perspectives on care from across the world. Care is about as universal a human activity as it gets, as there is much to be learned from innovations taking place everywhere.
Care is not politically neutral — it is deeply marked by inequality of gender, race, and class. We aim to highlight this in our research, and shed light on the intersection of fairer care with environmental justice, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights, racial justice, and more.
Team
TFW was created in September of 2025 by me, Mélina Magdelénat — it has evolved to become a parallel, less institutional companion to the French think tank I founded, Cara. A graduate from the University of Oxford, my research interests lie at the intersection of masculinity and affective education — how men learn to care, how different societies teach them to care, and how we can design better paths for young men into caregiving roles.
I say “we” throughout this manifesto, because I am grateful to be working with writers and scholars who contribute to the platform and the project, directly or indirectly — including Jessica Mariana Masucci, Bethany Hansel, Zoë Clark, Pragya Dev, Christine Leroy, and Hélène Collis.
Get involved
Just like caregiving itself, building the futures of care is a collective effort. If you resonate with our mission and would like to be a part of the journey, don’t hesitate to email me at melina@fifthwaveinstitute.com.
If you would simply like to follow along and learn about the futures of care, subscribe to our newsletter.
And if you would like to support our work, helping us bring you more in-depth research and interviews while fairly compensating those on whose efforts this newsletter stands, consider becoming a paid subscriber!
With care,
— MM
As a woman whose mother died of dementia, and whose father is now suffering from it, I am thrilled to see this effort. Following along!
I love this Melina. Really inspiring stuff. Happy to contribute if I can. Have D’Md you. Rebecca