Researching social movements and communities in struggle: conference programme

Thursday, May 16, 2024 - 09:30 to 18:00
SE131 School of Education, North Campus, Maynooth

To celebrate the publication of the Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Social Movements (see the introduction here) you are invited to take part in a day conference in Maynooth with the four editors:

  • Anna Szolucha (now Jagiellonian University, Kraków) did her PhD in Maynooth on real democracy in Occupy Dublin (where she was part of the facilitation team) and Oakland, and has since done community-based research on energy and democracy around fracking in England and Poland. She now leads the ARIES project, looking at how people imagine and live with space travel around the world.
  • Alberto Arribas Lozano (now Complutense University, Madrid) has been involved in projects developing dialogues between academic research and social movements in Spain, South Africa and Peru (as part of a Maynooth-based project collaborating with PRATEC, an indigenous Andean education network, around buen vivir and peasant knowledge). Alberto has published widely about social movements as knowledge producers.
  • Sutapa Chattopadhyay (St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia) is a radical geographer working in women’s and gender studies and migration studies. Sutapa’s research focusses on an intersectional analysis of forced dispossessions, social transformations, anti-colonial movements, migrant autonomy and Indigeneity through the voices of the marginalised in India, Italy and globally.
  • Laurence Cox (Sociology, Maynooth) works with movements to develop their own practice. He has published over a dozen books on social movements, Marxism, revolutions and the history of Buddhism and Ireland. Laurence is a founding editor of Interface and currently involved with the Movement Learning Catalyst, supporting strategic activist training across Europe. If you would like to join us, please email [email protected] with a title and 200-word abstract by May 1st.

Programme:

10.00 – 11.30: Session 1

Sutapa Chattopadhyay (Women’s & Gender Studies and Development Studies, St Francis Xavier University, Canada) – Understanding movements through indigenous stories

Mandy Lee (Centre for Health Policy & Management, Trinity College Dublin) – Exploring communal trauma and resilience of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement: a narrative inquiry approach

Alberto Arribas Lozano (Applied Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid) – Social struggles as epistemic struggles. On social movements’ learning and knowledge-making

 
11.30 – 12: Coffee break

 
12 – 1.30: Session 2

Nikolaos Manaras (Politics, Maynooth) – Articulations and transformations of the far-right: the case of Greece

Joseba García Martin (University of the Basque Country) – Chronicle of the struggle against dying with dignity in Spain: civic mobilisation of the Catholic-inspired far right during the COVID-19 pandemic

Laurence Cox (Sociology, Maynooth) – How do social movements become collective actors?

 
1.30 – 2.30: Lunch

 
2.30 – 4: Session 3

Anna Szołucha (Ethnology & Cultural Anthopology, Jagiellonian University, Poland) – Exploring community-based research methodologies

Criostóir King (Geography, Maynooth) – Contested transitions: environmental conflicts and justice in rural Ireland

 
4 – 4.30: Coffee break

 
4.30 – 6: Session 4

Bhavani Kunjulakshmi (Sociology, Maynooth) and Nabiya Khan (independent scholar, online) – Savarna feminist co-optation of movement knowledge and its dangers: Bahujan and Muslim perspectives

Camilla Fitzsimons (Adult & Community Education, Maynooth) – Rethinking feminism in Ireland

Brogan Gallagher (Sociology, Maynooth) – How do political opportunity structures influence feminist social movement organisations (SMOs) mobilisations in response to acts of violence against women (VAW)?

The event is free and all are welcome. We are very grateful to the Dept of Sociology which is providing lunch and coffee for the event.