After lunch on Tues 13th I ended up – after being approached by someone who had been at the last session who wanted to recommend “Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery,” - at the second half (i.e. 180 degrees) of a roundtable on “Emerging Research in Environmental Sociology (Part 2)." Of particular... Continue Reading →
Kondratiev, Brundtland and everything between… #isaforum2016
The second day of the International Sociological Association Forum was just as good as the first, if even hotter; like a Finnish sauna. It had everything from protest camps to dead Russian economists, academic infighting to open source software for Saving the World. I caught the end of a 0900-1030 session which was on climate... Continue Reading →
Carboniferous capitalism, climate and colleagues – a good day #isaforum2016
Today was the official start of the International Sociological Association Forum. There were four slots for paper presentations before the official welcome and an opening plenary. This blog post gives a (very!) brief summary of some of the highlights that I saw in my travels. I went to the opening session of the Social Movements... Continue Reading →
Attack of the hipster tomatoes! Or “things to do in Vienna when not talking about social movements”
What happens when you get four and a half thousand academics (sociologists and sociologically-minded fellow travellers, to be precise) in one place (the University of Vienna, to be preciser) at one time (10th to 14th July – perciser still)? You get a lot to talk and think about, is what you get. The third “International... Continue Reading →
Bragging: Published in a Routledge collection #activism #climate
Whoop. Whoop. WHOOP!!! I am published!! Emergent Possibilities for Global Sustainability: intersections of race, class and gender, edited by Phoebe Godfrey and Denise Torres, Routledge 2016. Chapter 22 is "Pathological and ineffective activism - what is to be done?" by Marc Hudson and Arwa Aburawa. Whoop!! A physical copy just arrived. It looks fantastic, and... Continue Reading →
Social Movement Learning: Partisan Collective and “Activist Skills and Knowledge”
How do we know what skills and knowledge we have? How do we know who else in the group can help us, or would benefit from our help? How do we spot “single points of failure”? What do we do about burn out – before, during, and after? All these (good) questions were on the... Continue Reading →
“Stay safe”?! White Privilege, #brexit and WTAF
I know a young Malaysian woman. We bumped into each other this evening, me three pints in. There was of course only one possible topic of conversation. As we parted, I said "stay safe". WTAF, that I have to say that? I have a hijabi friend who is going to be living in London, and... Continue Reading →
Here we go again. Can I sit this one out? Prob not.
Shit just gets realer and realer, doesn't it? Utter uncertainty about pretty much everything political (the environment stuff - especially carbon emissions and sea level rise - are locked in now). Who will lead the Tories? Who will lead Labour? Will they even exist a year from now? Will we actually leave the EU? Under... Continue Reading →
Brexit and climate – is the world too complex for our political institutions?
The British people have narrowly voted to leave the European Union. Britain's elites are in a state of bewilderment and fear not seen since the Global Financial Crisis hit in September 2008. Already the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will step down, and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is also being challenged. ... Continue Reading →
Civilising hypocrisies and fundamental questions: on “Emancipating Transformations
Manchester Tyndall Centre today hosted a provocative and highly interesting seminar. Professor Andy Stirling, who spent the 80s in the trenches for Greenpeace, had schlepped up to deliver a seminar on “Emancipating Transformations.” What they? Read on for an (almost) blow by blow account. [My multiple two centses are in square brackets like these.] Stirling... Continue Reading →
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