After the Contracts EndThe Space Left Behind

It was unexpectedly unsettling to sit again in a virtual room. The familiar choreography returned—screens lighting up, names appearing—but the reason for gathering had shifted. These were people I had worked with, studied alongside, interviewed, and been interviewed by. We once met through institutions, through roles carefully defined by contracts and acronyms. Now we were meeting in their absence.

This time, there were no updates to deliver, no strategies to refine. We were there to listen.

What emerged were not stories of individual failure, but of structural withdrawal. Restructuring. Cuts. Reorganisation. Words that sound administrative, almost polite, but carry the force of erasure. When the work disappeared, it took more than salaries with it. It took coherence. A language for who we were. A way of being legible to ourselves and to the world.

For many of us—women especially—the loss cut deep. Our identities had been shaped by work that demanded not only expertise, but moral alignment. Care, protection, justice were not just sectors; they were ways of living. When that scaffolding collapses, the question is not what job next? but what remains of me now?

One story traced the move from the humanitarian system into statutory social work. The same child, the same commitment—but an entirely different culture. Child protection here, child safeguarding there. Harm neatly contained within families, while violence in communities—sexual exploitation, coercion, structural neglect—slips out of frame. The work required a kind of constant translation, an exhausting mental acrobatics: how to explain years of humanitarian practice in interviews without sounding either irrelevant or excessive.

Starting again meant a salary cut, a visible step down, but also a sense of direction—a career path, progression, the possibility of influence from within. Not a bounce back, but a deliberate crossing. A belief that the insights forged in crisis zones might still matter inside rigid statutory frameworks.

Another story spoke of being forced into stillness. Of restructuring that sent someone home, not with rest, but with questions. Watching the world fracture further and asking, with painful clarity: what do I want my work to stand for now? The shift that followed was not cosmetic. It meant moving away from institutions towards movements, from technical expertise to challenging mindsets, from speaking the language of neutrality to acknowledging politics. The level stayed the same; the ground beneath it changed. The transition was made possible by privilege—by networks, confidence, relational capital. That, too, was named. So was the discomfort of knowing that crisis does not distribute itself evenly, and rarely settles where it should.

There were stories of interviews that led nowhere. Feedback that explained nothing—not the right fit, didn’t quite match the team. Of roles accepted with lower pay, lower technicality, simply to remain in motion. A familiar humiliation: carrying decades of experience into rooms that could not see it, because the language was wrong, the accent unfamiliar, the history too complex.

And then there was the turn towards values. Not as branding, but as survival. Values as something to return to when everything else is in flux. They shift in priority, even if they do not disappear. At certain moments, stability matters more than impact. Proximity to family more than mobility. Safety more than speed.

Change, we were reminded, is not an interruption—it is the condition we live under. Resisting it only deepens the wound.

Many spoke of grief. Grief for a sector that no longer exists as it once promised itself to be. Grief for identities forged in urgency and purpose.

Sociologists have warned us about this collapse—when work disappears, meaning goes with it—but living it reveals how gendered it is. Women’s labour has always been elastic, expected to stretch endlessly across crises, families, borders. When it finally snaps, we are encouraged to rebrand the fracture as flexibility.

Still, something else was quietly taking shape in that room. A remembering of what we actually know how to do. Skills long dismissed as “soft”: cultivating trust, coordinating across difference, facilitating, holding multiple priorities without dropping the human thread.

These capacities are not secondary. In new spaces, they are rare. The work now is translation—learning how to speak without erasing ourselves, how to tell our stories in languages that can be heard.

Talking to those already inside these spaces. Letting them help us find the words.

Listening, I recognised myself among them. Among those who turned to baking, keeping environmental and communal values alive in different forms. Among those who stepped back from burnout and sought refuge in principles, in writing, in new communities. Among those drawing on a whole life—not just a career—including teaching English, starting again, refusing to compress themselves into a single acceptable narrative.

I have now placed the “open to work” badge on my profile. Not because I doubt the knowledge I carry, but because what I am offering cannot be reduced to it. What I bring are principles, values, relational skills, and a stubborn commitment to making things go just. Not at any cost. Not at the cost of ourselves.

This space we are inhabiting is uncomfortable, unfinished, and necessary. It is not a pause between successes, nor a personal detour. It is a collective crossing. And sitting together, telling these stories aloud—without apology—is how we begin to walk it.

Z. Liew