Previous Politics of Inequality events:
The role of social norms in shaping collective action
Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series
Tuesday 24 January 12.00pm to 1.00pm. Online and in-person public event. The Marshall Building - MAR 1.09.
Watch the event recording
Speaker:
Professor Roberto González, Professor of Social Psychology, P. Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC)
Chair:
Dr Armine Ishkanian, Executive Director of AFSEE programme and Associate Professor, LSE Department of Social Policy
This seminar will address how social norms shape collective action aimed at social change. Based on Social identity and normative conceptual frameworks, we will discuss why it is important to consider this rather neglected topic in the collective action literature by presenting and discussing recent experimental and longitudinal studies supporting the importance of doing it.
The emergence of a social decolonisation: the question of social change in the French West Indies after World War II
Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series
Tuesday 29 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Centre Building, Room 2.05.
Speaker:
Dr Maël Lavenaire, Research Fellow, LSE III
Chair:
Dr George Kunnath, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III
The social change which takes place in the French West Indies after World War II is essentially generated by a sociohistorical interaction between various elements of change observed from 1946 to 1961. Here we refer to the new political status of French Department allowed by a global context, the outbreak of social movements involved in the process of decolonisation, public policies and a specific planning of “economic and social development” as well as the population growth with the emergence of a new generation from a sociological viewpoint. This interactionist process conducts to the new type of society emerging in the French West Indies since the 1960’s, without drastically changing their colonial social structure and racial inequalities. This singular transformation is characterised by new social frustrations, while maintaining existing frustrations that stemmed from slavery legacies in spite of the overall significant improvement of the living conditions.
Challenges Facing Liberal Democracies: Citizenship and civil society confronting growing inequality
Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series
Tuesday 18 October 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Centre Building, Room 2.05.
Speaker:
Professor Thomas P. Boje, Professor, Department of Social Science and Business, Roskilde University
Chair:
Dr Armine Ishkanian, Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity Programme, LSE III, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy
Some of the crucial challenges facing all liberal democracies in their aspiration for social cohesion and solidarity are how to provide the conditions for individuals to be active, participative citizens. In other words, how to provide opportunities and frameworks for citizens to be involved in mutual social and cultural relationships and for society and the collective to show solidarity with disadvantaged groups. In this seminar, Professor Thomas P. Boje will discuss some of the major challenges facing today’s liberal democracies when it comes to growing inequality, restrictions on citizenship rights, growing polarization in civic activism and the impact of globalization on citizens’ empowerment.
Understanding Inequality in India
Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series
Tuesday 27 September. In-person and online public event.
Speaker:
Professor Reetika Khera, Narendra and Chandra Singhi Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
Chair:
Professor Sumi Madhok, Professor of Political Theory and Gender Studies, LSE
The difficulties in measuring inequality in India, given the paucity of data and the compounding effects of social inequality on economic inequality, have been commented upon. Given these constraints, several scholars have documented the very high, and possibly rising, levels of economic inequality in India.
This talk turns the focus to the lack of recognition of the scale of the problem, especially among the rich/ elite in India. The issue requires urgent attention because the proliferation of digital technologies in basic education and health care is likely to exacerbate inequalities in the long run. The widespread misperception among India's rich/ elite that they are 'middle class' contributes to the lack of policy action, including action on fairer taxation policies in the country.
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Can people change the world? Activists, social movements, and utopian futures
Hosted by LSE Festival: People and Change
Saturday 17 June 11.00am to 12.00pm. Online and in-person public event. Marshall Building.
Watch the event recording
Listen to the podcast
Speakers:
Dr Armine Ishkanian, Associate Professor, LSE Department of Social Policy and Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, LSE III
Dr Faiza Shaheen, Visiting Professor in Practice, LSE III and Program Lead on Inequality and Exclusion, NYU Center on International Cooperation
Georgia Haddad Nicolau, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and Co-founder and Director of Instituto Procomum
Chair:
Dr Maël Lavenaire, Research Fellow in Racial Inequality at the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, LSE III
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, inequality is on the rise, but so is grassroots activism. More and more individuals and groups are taking action and using their voices to tackle the growing social and economic inequalities. Looking beyond just forms of resistance, this panel will discuss the role of activists and social movements in today’s world and examine their agency in imagining utopian futures and creating change. How are social movements providing creative spaces for not only challenging inequalities but also coming up with alternative ideas for solutions to address the problems they are fighting against? And how and to what extent are these ideas informing policy changes?
Democratic Backsliding, Resistance and Hope: The 2022 presidential election and prospects for democracy in Brazil
Hosted by Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre
Wednesday 28 September. Online public event.
Speakers:
Dr Fred Batista, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, UNC Charlotte
Professor Rosana Pinheiro Machado, Professor in the School of Geography, University College Dublin
Amanda Segnini, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and MSc candidate in Inequalities and Social Science, LSE
Chair:
Dr Fabrício Mendes Fialho, Research Officer, LSE III
The upcoming presidential election in Brazil is set to be the most decisive vote-casting in the country since redemocratisation in 1985. Jair Bolsonaro, a polarizing far-right populist, is running for re-election after a controversial first term marked by systemic corruption, record high deforestation of the Amazon Forest, attacks against institutions, rising poverty and unemployment, overt bigotry against minorities, and a chaotic mismanagement of the pandemic that resulted in more than 600,000 deaths. As public opinion polls indicate Bolsonaro’s re-election as unlikely, Bolsonaro has discredited the electoral system and threatened to overthrow the regime in a coup d’etat whilst enjoying firm support of a mobilized and loyal one-third of the electorate.
Stakes have never been so high for the survival of Brazilian democratic regime and its institutions. What factors will influence vote choice pro and against Bolsonaro? Who are his followers? What will be Bolsonaro’s legacy to Brazilian politics? What can be done to defend Brazilian democracy? Drawing together a panel of experts the event will seek to address these questions and create a dialogue on the challenges faced by one of the world’s largest democracies.
Landscapes of Environmental Racism
Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity
Thursday 20 October 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. Sheikh-Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building.
Speaker:
Professor Hazel V Carby, Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Yale University
Discussant:
Ruby Hembrom, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, LSE
Chair:
Dr Imaobong Umoren, Associate Professor, Department of International History, LSE
Settler colonialism and racial capitalism in the US has resulted in dramatic forms of inequality through institutionalized, geopolitical, and environmental racism. Indigenous, black and Latinx communities suffer the health consequences of living in the most polluted and toxic environments. Indigenous peoples across the Americas are also at the forefront of opposition to the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels. In this event, Hazel Carby will be discussing and showing the work of indigenous artists who are responding to environmental and ecological crises and degradation.
Among the artists discussed are Diné and trans-customary photographer Will Wilson, Chemehuevi photographer Cara Romero, and Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lokata artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. These important works focus on urgent environmental issues, like the eradication of indigenous communities through damming and the ecological devastation of petroleum, coal and uranium extraction, while contextualizing them within the wider history of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. These artists also present new ways of thinking about our environment and imagining the future from indigenous perspectives.
Listen to the podcast
AFSEE Keynote Lecture - Doughnut Economics: a new economic vision for cities
Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity
Thursday 10 November 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online public event.
Speakers: Kate Raworth (Co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab and Senior Associate, Oxford University Environmental Change Institute) and Maria Carrasco (Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, LSE and Executive Director, Entramada)
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian, Research Programme Co-Leader (Politics of Inequality) and Executive Director AFSEE programme, LSE III and Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy, LSE
In the AFSEE Keynote Lecture, Economist Kate Raworth will discuss how we can create equal and just cities without overburdening the environment. She will be joined by Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, Maria Carrasco, for the discussion.
Doughnut Economics, a framework coined by Raworth, sets out a 21st-century economic vision of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet, through regenerative and distributive design. Over 40 cities and regions worldwide have already started to engage with the concepts and tools, aiming to turn these concepts into practice in place. How are they getting started, and what are the challenges they face?
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
Resistance Doesn't Walk Alone - exhibition
Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute, Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, and LSE Arts
Atrium Gallery, Old Building, LSE Campus
The collaboration between photographer and AFSEE Fellow Johnny Miller and the Politics of Inequality research programme, showcases the ways that individuals and communities are confronting, challenging, and resisting political, social and economic inequalities in Brazil.
The exhibition works were captured in eight cities across Brazil in 2022. The research project was commissioned by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme and the LSE’s International Inequalities Institute.
More information on the exhibition can be found here
Decolonising Pedagogy: race, gender, and marginal voices in higher education
Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity
Tuesday 07 June 2022
Speakers: Professor Heidi Safia Mirza (Emeritus Professor of Equality Studies in Education, UCL Institute of Education and Visiting Professor of Race, Department of Social Policy, LSE) and Dr Sara Camacho Felix (Assistant Professorial Lecturer and Programme Lead, Atlantic Fellows in Social and Economic Equity, III)
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian (Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, III and Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Fundamental to decolonising pedagogy is an understanding of the way we ‘talk’ about race, gender and social justice in our taken for granted systems of knowledge and power. In this AFSEE Keynote Lecture, Heidi Mirza will discuss how we situate the raced and gendered ‘Other’ in everyday discourse and why and how marginalised groups articulate alternative world views. Professor Mirza will be joined by discussant Dr Sara Camacho Felix.
Watch the video here
Policy and Social Change
Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute, the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, the Atlantic Institute, LSE Department of Social Policy, and LSE Cities
Tuesday 31 May 2022
Speakers: Dr Amara Enyia (Manager of Policy and Research, the Movement for Black Lives and Founder, Global Black) Tracy Jooste (Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity), Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey (Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy, Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian (Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, III and Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy, LSE)
The world is facing multiple crises that are responsible for widening economic and social inequalities and insecurities, ranging from climate change to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past decade, movements such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Occupy, and the Indignados have confronted States and elites, challenged inequalities and mobilised to bring about greater justice, democracy, and progressive policy changes. This panel brings together speakers who are working at the intersection of research and policy to discuss the question: what is the relationship between policy and social change?
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
Civil Society, Solidarity and Emergent Agency in the Time of COVID-19
Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity
Wednesday 23 February 2022
Speakers: Dr Paul Apostolidis (Department of Government, LSE), Dr Irene Gujit (Oxfam, GB), Dr Armine Ishkanian (Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity), Anita Peña Saavedra (Atlantic Fellow, LSE III)
Chair: Dr George Kunnath (Research Fellow, LSE III)
In the wake of COVID-19, a range of civil society actors, from grassroots groups, social movements, and NGOs, stepped in to provide support and assistance to communities. Alongside providing material support (e.g., food, medical supplies etc.) and mutual aid, civil society organisations have been at the forefront in campaigning for better policies and social protections for communities. In this panel, we bring together speakers who have been working with communities across the globe, from Chile, Zimbabwe, the Philippines, and the US to document practices of solidarity, resistance, and mutual aid. They will discuss how civil society organisations are responding to the new challenges and examine the forms of solidarity and agency that are emerging.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
The Digital Disconnect
Hosted by the Department of Media and Communications and International Inequalities Institute
Monday 07 March 2022
Speakers: Professor Marta Arretche (Professor, Department of Political Science University of São Paulo), Professor Ellen Helsper (Professor of Digital Inequalities, Department of Media and Communications, LSE), Professor Karen Mossberger (Frank and June Sackton Professor of Public Affairs, Arizona State University) and Professor Mike Savage (Martin White Professor of Sociology, LSE)
Chair: Professor Bart Cammaerts (Head of the Department of Media and Communications, LSE)
With the increased digitisation of society comes an increased concern about who is left behind. From societal causes to the impact of everyday actions, leading experts will discuss Ellen Helsper's latest book, The Digital Disconnect which explores the relationship between digital and social inequalities, and the lived consequences of digitisation.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
Changing the Story on Disability?
Hosted by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and International Inequalities Institute
Speakers: Liz Sayce (JRF Practitioner Fellow, LSE III), Tom Shakespeare (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Fredrick Ouko (Atlantic Fellow, LSE III), Kate Stanley (FrameWorks UK)
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian
This event will hear from those who are striving to shift narratives around disability through public awareness campaigns globally and will explore whether and how an empirical approach to ‘framing’ could effectively move public perceptions and behaviours.
Thirty years after the world’s first disability discrimination law (the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990), and fourteen years after the UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, debate remains fierce on how to influence public attitudes and behaviours towards disabled people: how to erode and replace discriminatory stereotypes. Disability rights advocates argue that charities (perhaps inadvertently) reinforce negative imagery in their promotion and fundraising. Yet arguably defining disability as a core equality issue has not, as yet, lit up public consciousness and action.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
Youth and Inequalities in the UK
Hosted by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and International Inequalities Institute
Speakers: Jason Allen (St Mary's Youth Team Manager), Jeremiah Emmanuel (entrepreneur, youth activist and author) and Michaela Rafferty (III Atlantic Fellow; Young People’s Development Worker, Just for Kids Law)
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian
Even before the pandemic, young people in the UK faced many forms of inequality and their health and wellbeing was being eroded by a lack of jobs, a shortage of affordable housing, and cuts to public services. As the gap between the generations grows and young people’s voices and concerns are not adequately taken into account by policy makers and politicians, it is no surprise that young people increasingly feel anxious of what the future holds. This panel brought together three young leaders who are working in and beyond their local communities to address inequalities in education, housing, employment and the criminal justice system.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
For a Reparatory Social Science
Hosted by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and International Inequalities Institute
Wednesday 26 May 2021
Speaker: Professor Gurminder K Bhambra
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian
In the inaugural Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity Keynote Lecture, Professor Bhambra explored the social sciences’ failure to acknowledge the extent to which modern nation-states were bound up with relations of colonial extraction and domination. Without putting such relations at the heart of our analyses, we cannot address global inequality effectively. Positing colonial histories as central to national imaginaries and the structures through which inequalities are legitimated and reproduced, she explored a framework for a reparatory social science, oriented to global justice as a reconstructive project of the present. The past cannot be undone, she concluded, but its legacies can be transformed to bring about a world that works for us all.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
Refusing Discriminatory Technologies of Power: racial justice and the challenge of hi-tech policing - Inequalities Seminar Series
Tuesday 11 May 2021
Speaker: Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan
Chair: Professor Ellen Helsper
From informational capitalism to biased code, technological systems increasingly form part of larger structures of oppression and domination. This talk tackled the topic of technology, injustice, and inequity with a focus on bottom-up practices of resistance, rejection, and refusal of digital and automated systems that increasingly govern people’s lives.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
When Violence Endures: inequality, resistance, and repression in India's Maoist guerrilla zones - Inequalities Seminar Series
Tuesday 23 March 2021
Speaker: George Kunnath
Chair: Professor Ellen Helsper
This talk engaged with the concept of violence in the context of the ongoing Maoist insurgency and counterinsurgency in India. During the five-decade-long armed conflict involving the Maoist guerrillas and the landless/poor peasants on the one side, and the state security forces and upper-caste/private militias on the other, violence has taken multiple forms. It has spiralled, giving rise to new formations and new theatres of war, especially in the forested areas which are home to indigenous populations. The speaker conceptualised this enduring violence and reflect on the possibility of resolutions, drawing on twenty years of his research in conflict-affected regions in India, and recently in Colombia.
How to Fight Inequality: and why that fight needs you - Book Launch
Hosted by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity
Thursday 18 March 2021
Speakers: Masana Ndinga-Kanga, Ben Phillips, and Pedro Telles
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian
Inequality is the crisis of our time. The growing gap between a few at the top and the rest of society damages us all. No longer able to deny the crisis, governments across the globe have pledged to address it – and yet inequality keeps on getting worse. In his new book, How to Fight Inequality: and why that fight needs you, international anti-inequalities campaigner Ben Phillips discusses why winning the debate is not enough: we have to win the fight. Drawing on his insider experience, and his personal exchanges with activists and leaders of successful movements, Phillips shows how the battle against inequality has been won before, and shares a practical plan for defeating inequality again.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
Precarious Work, COVID-19 and Latino Immigrants in the US
Thursday 25 February 2021
Speakers: Genoveva Roldán Dàvila, Paul Apostolidis, Patricia Pozos Rivera, and Juan de Lara
Chair: Daniela Castroa Alquicira
The Politics of Inequality: why should we focus on resistance from below?
Wednesday 27 January 2021
Speakers: Professor John Chalcroft, Dr Flora Cornish, Professor Ellen Helsper, Dr Armine Ishkanian, and Dr Sumi Madhok
Chair: Dr Alpa Shah
While it is now widely accepted that inequality is the defining issue of our time and there is growing research on the drivers and impacts of inequalities, there has been less focus on how inequalities are experienced and resisted by ordinary people and communities. The newly launched Politics of Inequality research programme at the International Inequalities Institute explores the practices of resistance, mobilisation, and contestation from a bottom-up perspective.
Watch the video here
Listen to the podcast here
Oxfam Emergent Agency project launch
Thursday 12 November 2020
This event was part of the AFSEE Covid-19 Rapid Response Fund initiative
Speakers: Katherine Marshall, Laurence Cox, and Yogesh Kumar Ghore
Please click here for a summary about the meeting by Dr Duncan Green.
Research presentation by Anita Pena Saavedra (AFSEE Senior Fellow) based on AFSEE Covid-19 Rapid Response Fund project
Thursday 12 November 2020
Conversatorio: Pobladoras, Memoria y Resistencia: Reflexiones a partir de los derechos humanos y los feminismos (Jueves, 19 de noviembre de 2020 - 18:00 a 20:00 Hrs)
Click here for details