Wednesday 26 October 2011

Why we protest

Good article by Patrick Kingsley in today's Guardian about some of the strange feelings that the fact of protest seems to bring out in people who don't...

Monday 24 October 2011

Occupy Dame Street practice and politics

A good article from Anna Szolucha of Occupy Dame Street about the complexities of decision-making and strategy in ODS, now in week 3.

Thursday 20 October 2011

Latin American Development Issues Course

This is a long-established course (now accredited at FETAC 5 level) on development and the lack of development in Latin America, with strong attention to issues of politics and culture as well as economic, social and historical angles - as you would expect from its organisers at the Latin America Solidarity Centre. More details about the course on their website and enrolment via Ballsbridge College of Further Education.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Occupy University

Occupy Dame Street is developing a series of talks under the heading "Occupy university". Topics currently up include solutions to the Euro, the history of Indymedia, interview skills, TV and the culture industry and university in crisis. A few of the talks have also been recorded - here is Conor McCabe and here is Helena Sheehan.

Monday 17 October 2011

Social movements conference at Maynooth


“New agendas in social movement studies”

NUI Maynooth, Saturday November 26th, 9.30 - 6.15


About the conference

This conference brings together 21 researchers from Ireland, Britain, Italy, Belgium and the US working on movements ranging from alternative food movements to the World Social Forum, from Shell to Sea to SlutWalks and from Irish Ship to Gaza to children’s rights advocacy. It showcases some of the best work in the field by new, established and independent scholars alike. The conference seeks to encourage real research which does not simply restate common assumptions but tries to make real contributions to wider debates about social movements, the thinking of movement practitioners, and public understanding of the nature of society and democracy.

The keynote speaker, Dr Cristina Flesher Fominaya (University of Aberdeen), has beenresearching and participating in European social movements since the early 1990s. She has carried out research on anti-globalisation networks, Spanish Green parties and the British anti-roads movement, and is also known for her work on the politics of memory around terrorist attacks such as 3/11 in Madrid and 9/11 in New York. A founding editor of the social movement journal Interface http://interfacejournal.net, she is co-chair of the Council for European Studies’ European Social Movements Research Network.

Practicalities

The conference is free and open to the public with no advance booking required. Tea and coffee will be provided but participants should bring their own lunch or buy it in Maynooth. We cannot organise accommodation directly but there are various possible hostels, hotels and B&Bs both in Maynooth and in Dublin. Registration is at the conference from 9.30 on in the Auxilia Building, North Campus (see the map at http://www.nuim.ie/location/maps/NUIM-Map-booklet-v3.pdf  - Auxilia is building #47 in the lower right corner). For queries please contact Dr Theresa O’Keefe at theresa.okeefe@nuim.ie

 

Overall timings

9.30 - 10        Welcome and registration
10 - 11            Plenary session. Cristina Flesher Fominaya, “New directions in social movement studies?”
11 - 11.30       Coffee / tea
11.30 - 1         First sessions
1 - 2.15           Lunch
2.15 – 3.45    Second sessions
3.45 - 4.00    Coffee / tea
4.00 – 5.30   Third sessions
5.30 - 6.15     Closing discussion

 

Draft timetable

Session 1, 11.30 am - 1 pm

(A) Remaking social movements
Silvia Lami (Philosophy, Pisa and U. Chicago) - Re-thinking social movements. Limits of 60s and 70s movements, new perspectives of struggle

Leslie Parraguez Sanchez (Loyola University, Chicago) - Between spatial identities and the Right-to-the-City: a socio-spatial perspective on the reconfiguration of social movements

Theresa O’Keefe (Sociology, NUI Maynooth) - Flaunting our way to freedom? SlutWalks, gendered protest and feminist futures

(B) Exploring new movements
Andre Kenneally (UCC) - Children’s right advocacy as a new social movement

Yafa Shanneik (Study of Religions, UCC) - Irish women converting to Islam: a new post-secular movement?

(C) Research / methodology
Jean Bridgeman (Sociology, NUI Maynooth) - Spaces for new knowledge: working class community education for social change

Anna Szolucha (Sociology, NUI Maynooth) - The tyranny of sociology: a case for an interdisciplinary social movement research

Session 2, 2.15 - 3.45 pm

(D) Agency and power
Geoffrey Pleyers (FNRS-Université Catholique de Louvain & CADIS-EHESS Paris)- The global justice movement and beyond: two paths for social agency

Laurence Davis (Independent scholar) - The Irish Ship to Gaza and the revolutions of our time

Amanda Slevin (Sociology, UCD) - Pipelines, politics and power: Shell to Sea and the Irish state

(E) The politics of new media
Margaret Gillan (Community Media Network) - Building working-class media (provisional title)

Asia Rutkowska (Sociology, NUI Maynooth) - Activists on the web: analysing the content of social centre webpages

Paul Candon (Sociology, TCD) - The emerging digital public sphere in Ireland: how old habits die hard

Session 3, 4 - 5.30 pm

(F) Mapping Irish social movements
Laurence Cox (Sociology, NUI Maynooth) - Gramsci in Mayo: a Marxist perspective on social movements in Ireland

Peter Lacey (Anthropology, NUI Maynooth) - EU-critical movements and Irish social activism

(G) Advocacy and institutionalisation
Orla O’Donovan (Applied Social Studies, UCC) - Irish patients’ movements on the move to Europe

Pauline Cullen (Sociology, NUI Maynooth) - Mobilization on women’s interests at the EU: femocrats and feminist political practice

(H) Troubles within movements
Andrea Rigon (Sociology, TCD and Institute of Development Studies, Nairobi) - The tyranny of structurelessness: unequal power relations in the governance of the World Social Forum process

David Landy (Sociology, TCD) - Researching splits

Aisling Murtagh (Food business and development, UCC) - The power dynamics of alternative food initiatives in Ireland

Centre for Politics, Power and Society, Dept. of Sociology, NUI Maynooth 

Research cluster “Critical Political Thought, Activism and Alternative Futures”

Mobilising for social and environmental justice meeting

As resistance to austerity grows in the US and Europe and Durban prepares to host critical climate change talks in December, Durban based activist Patrick Bond will talk about the rise of the climate justice movement in Africa and its connections with other social movements in Africa and elsewhere, such as struggles for trade and debt justice and access to social services. Irish climate and community campaigners will respond to his insights. The meeting will ask what can we learn from movements in the South, and how can we link the local and global struggles we are engaged in? 

Patrick Bond is a political economist with long-standing research interests and NGO work in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He teaches political economy and eco-social policy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, where he directs the Centre for Civil Society and is involved in research on economic justice, geopolitics, climate, energy and water. Patricia McCarthy is co-Director of Community Technical Aid, which provides support to local communities and projects in north inner-city Dublin. She has a long-standing interest and experience in anti-poverty actions, social inclusion and participation. Molly Walsh is Policy and Campaigns Manager with Friends of the Earth Ireland. She leads their campaign for an Irish climate law and will be attending the make-or-break UN talks in Durban at the end of November. 

For more information or to register please contact Fleachta@comhlamh.org.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Occupy Dame Street

... now have a website up as well as a livestream channel, which can be viewed directly at times and at others has a set of past videos. There is also occupystream, with livestream from occupations around the world (US particularly but not only).

"Occupy University" talks are listed here.

Sunday 9 October 2011

The alchemy of hope

Nice post by activist academic Lesley Wood about Occupy Wall Street as part of a global wave.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Michael Albert in Dublin

Three talks by Michael Albert of ZNet next week in Dublin:

- Tuesday 8 pm: alternatives to capitalism and the IMF bailout
- Wednesday 1 pm: social media and revolution
- Thursday 6 pm: building an alternative society

More info here.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

DIY, Skillshare and Activism Festival

"This year's Skillshare festival is to take place from the 11-13th November 2011.

With demonstrations of practical solutions, inspiring talks, interactive workshops, alternative technology, exciting projects, live music and networking opportunities, this Skillsharing festival will bring together 400 people from local Dublin neighborhoods and communities across Ireland to Wesley House, Leeson Street in Central Dublin."

Just a preliminary announcement for now, but there should be more to come soon. Keep an eye on the main Gluaiseacht page.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Horizontalism and "Occupy Wall Street"

Interesting piece at Democracy Now with Marina Sitrin commenting on the protests - now extending themselves across the US.