Professor Laurence Cox, Maynooth Sociology Department, will give a public lecture online and in-person at ICTA-UAB, the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, on “Movements in crisis and a world on fire: social movement research, climate crisis and authoritarianism”.
The most recent wave of climate activism in the global North seems to have hit its limits, while the growth of the far right and intensified repression threaten movement organising in general. In this context many dominant discourses about environmental and climate justice seem to have little real relevance for what we should actually do – as activists, as researchers or both. This lecture asks what we already know about how social movements from below develop and decline, how to understand “movements from above” in periods of historical crisis, how popular struggles can contribute towards large-scale social transformation and how we can help. It draws on a broad historical and decolonial perspective and close empirical study of actual movements on many different levels to outline a theoretical alternative both to despair and to wishful thinking. This in turn makes it possible to identify forms of action that have a realistic chance of making a difference.
Date: Wednesday, June 4th 2025
Time: 11 AM – 12:30 PM CEST (10 – 11.30 Irish Summer Time)
Place: Sala Polivalent de l’Eureka and online: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83569964591?pwd=pbbDmz6Y1bjb30VK8TcrSgRSeXjaGb.1
