Tuesday 27 January 2015

Voices from Mayo: "If I could say one thing to other communities..."

An exhibition of photos and statements looking at experiences challenging the Corrib Gas project, Co Mayo

Friday 30th January 2015,7pm, in the Comhlamh offices at 12 Parliament St.

After 14 years of challenging the oil and gas industry in north Mayo, what knowledge does the community there have to share? What questions might other communities have and how might they benefit from the experiences of those standing up to Shell and the State?

A four-year CEESA research project (2010-2014) in the parish of Kilcommon, northwest Mayo, sought to identify and share useful knowledge from the experiences of challenging the Corrib Gas project. This has been used to create an exhibition in which people respond to the question: If you could say one thing to other communities facing an unsafe development planned for their area, what would it be?

On Friday 30th January some of the 51 campaigners who took part in the research will speak about what they are learning through challenging the Corrib project. The creators of the exhibition will also talk about the research and photography behind the exhibition.

On the night, we will be joined by Nuala McNulty of Love Leitrim, a community group “fully committed to protecting the environment of Leitrim and Ireland as well as the health of our children against fracking through an awareness campaign and non-violent direct action”. Nuala will talk about the threat posed by fracking to her native Leitrim and 
beyond, as well as the strength of local community organising in being a powerful force to stop it. 
For more information on Love Leitrim, visit www.loveleitrim.org. 

RSVP @ the facebook event

Further information about the exhibition:

Kilcommon, located in northwest Mayo, is home to approximately 2,000 people. It is the planned location of the Corrib Gas project – an inland gas refinery complex and high-pressure, raw gas pipeline. Since plans were revealed in 2000, a network of local people have organised in diverse ways to challenge the project.

The research was also used to compile a short resource booklet, available alongside this exhibition, which is intended to spark discussions in other communities facing injustices or unsafe developments. 

The exhibition has already been shown in Co Mayo, and in Co Fermanagh in regions affected by plans for fracking. This is the first time the exhibition has been shown in Dublin.

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Radical Routes housing coop tour - audio

The audio from the Radical Routes session in the Teachers' Club last October is now up online here.

Tuesday 20 January 2015

John Holloway seminar "Think hope, think crisis" (April)

The MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism is delighted to announce the details of John Holloway's public seminar, rescheduled from October. We think this will be of interest to many activists and campaigners for social justice and transformation.

John Holloway seminar
"Think Hope, Think Crisis"

Monday - Tuesday, April 13th and 14th, 10 am - 5 pm
NUI Maynooth

Can we still hope that there can be a radical transformation of society? How does the present capitalist crisis relate to the possibility of hope? Crisis seems to kill hope, yet the crisis of the system must be a central concept of social transformation. How do we re-learn hope, re-learn crisis?

John Holloway is a Professor of Sociology at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades in the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico and Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Rhodes, South Africa. He has published widely on Marxist theory, on the Zapatista movement and on the new forms of anti-capitalist struggle. His books Change the World without taking Power (Pluto, London, 2002, new edition 2010) and Crack Capitalism (Pluto, London, 2010), have stirred international debate and have been widely translated.

The seminar is free but we ask participants to come for both days and read a short (20-page) text in advance so that everyone will get as much as possible out of the event.

To register, please email laurence.cox AT nuim.ie and we will set aside a place for you and send details of the location and reading. Do please feel free to pass on this invite to others you feel may be interested.

Event organised by the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism.
Thanks to the Faculty of Social Sciences, Maynooth for financial support.

Thursday 15 January 2015

Contradictions, learning and a campaign for the right to the city

Public talk: Contradictions, Learning and a Campaign for a Right to the City

John Krinsky, CCNY and New York City Community Land Initiative

Thursday January 22nd, 3.00 - 4.30 pm
Seminar Room, Auxilia Building, north campus, NUI Maynooth (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/campus-life/campus-map)


John Krinsky is associate professor of political science at the City College of New York. A sociologist and urban planner by training, he is author of Free Labor: Workfare and the Contested Language of Neoliberalism, co-editor (with Colin Barker, Laurence Cox, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen, of Marxism and Social Movements) and has written about labor and community organizing in New York and about the transformation of public work (with Maud Simonet).

He is a co-founder of the New York City Community Land Initiative.

All welcome.

Organised by the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism and the Dept of Sociology, Maynooth.