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Past Events

The Sixth Galway Conference on Colonialism, June 24-26, 2010

The SSRC was pleased to co-sponsor the highly successful Conference on Colonialism, titled 'Education and Empire' which took place in NUI Galway from the 24th to the 26th of June. During the conference, a range of stimulating and high quality papers from many different disciplines were presented. For further information, please see the conference website: http://www.conference.ie/Conferences/index.asp?Conference=80

SSRC Annual Lecture 2010 - Juliet Schor

Juliet Schor (Professor of Sociology, Boston College) delivered the 2010 SSRC Annual Lecture on the 18 ^th June in MY127, Aras Moyola (ground floor), NUIGalway.

Her paper was 'Plenitude: the new economics of sustainability'.

Humans are currently on a collision course with the planet, as our activities degrade eco-systems and de-stablize the climate. At the same time, the global economy is undergoing increased instability, with financial gyrations, unemployment and commodity price increases. Ecological shut-down and economic difficulties are related, and only a solution which addresses both will succeed. In this talk, based on the just-released book Plenitude, Professor Schor outlines the role of consumption in creating unsustainable economic and ecological outcomes, and suggests a different path forward.

About the speaker: Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Before joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard University for 17 years, in the Department of Economics and the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Schor received her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Massachusetts.

Her most recent book is Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth (forthcoming, 2010 by The Penguin Press). She is also author of the national best-seller, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (Basic Books, 1992) and The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need (Basic Books, 1998). The Overworked American appeared on the best-seller lists of The New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice The Boston Globe as well as the annual best books list for The New York Times, Business Week and other publications. The book is widely credited for influencing the national debate on work and family. The Overspent American was also made into a video of the same name, by the Media Education Foundation (September 2003). Schor also wrote Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Scribner 2004). She is the author of Do Americans Shop Too Much? (Beacon Press 2000), co-editor of Consumer Society: A Reader (The New Press 2000) and co-editor of Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the Twenty-first Century (Beacon Press 2002). An essay collection, Consumerism and Its Discontents is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2011. She has also co-edited a number of academic collections.

She appears frequently on national and international media, and profiles on her and her work have appeared in scores of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and People magazine. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, the Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show on CBS, numerous stories on network news, as well as many other national and local television news programs.

The lecture was both enjoyable and informative and was followed by a lively discussion before the wine and finger food reception.

The SSRC Annual Lecture was co-sponsored by the Governance and Sustainable Development research cluster, School of Political Science & Sociology, NUI Galway and the ConsEnSus project, Trinity College Dublin and NUI Galway. The organisation of the lecture and reception was assisted by Jonathan Heaney and Daniel Savery.

For further information, please contact Henrike.Raunuigalway.ie or oliver.p.feeneynuigalway.ie and return to this page for updates.

Location map for Aras Moyola Building.

Contemporary Labour Migration: National and International Perspectives

Anglo-Irish Population Conference 12-13 May 2010

Hosted by NUI Galway under the auspices of the Population Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG and Population Commission of the International Geographical Union.The event was sponsored by the Dean of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic Studies, Millenium Fund and the Social Sciences Research Centre.

6th SSRC International Conference Workshop 2010

Facing the Challenges of Sustainable Consumption: Concepts, Cases, Policy and Practice

Friday, March 26th 2010 - Lecture Hall 2 - MY129, Ground Floor, Aras Moyola, NUIGalway.

Speakers included Martin Philipson (University of Saskatchewan, Canada) with his paper 'Perserving sustainable choice in agriculture: The pivotal role of farmers and consumers; Mike Goodman (King's College London, UK) with 'It's stuff that will save us, or so we think: A few short observations about the (sorry) state of sustainable consumption'; and Henrike Rau (NUI,Galway) and Frances Fahy (NUI,Galway) with 'Between conflict and consensus: The theory and practice of sustainable consumption'.

Clockwise from back left: Martin Phillipson, Mike Goodman, Frances Fahy, Henrike Rau, Melanie Jaeger-Erben and Jessica Pape.

25th Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics: Fechner Day 2009

The internationally renowned Fechner Day 2009 took place on October 21st - 24th in the Glenlo Abbey Hotel, Galway. For details of papers and times, please visit the Fechner Day website: http://www.fechnerday.com/

5th SSRC International Conference Workshop 2009

Bringing Nature Back In? Theories of Nature-Society Relations in Environmental Sociology & Sustainability Research

Friday, June 26th 2009 - Room 226-7, Floor 1, Aras Moyola, NUIGalway.

Speakers included Matthias Groß (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany) with his paper 'Landscapes, Ruins, and the Autonomy of Nature: Georg Simmel and the Restoration of Ecosystems'; Peter Doran (QUB) with 'Consuming Passions: Bringing the mind/body back into theory'; and Su-ming Khoo (NUIG) with 'Un/re/thinking Green Political Economy'.

SSRC Critical Theory Seminar Series

'A conversation with Maeve Cooke: Questions and Preoccupations'

Room 333, School of Political Science & Sociology, Aras Moyola - Friday 19th June 2009

Maeve Cooke is Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin, Ireland and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Her current research projects focus on re-conceptualising domination and violence, on re-articulating autonomy and on issues in current debates on religion and politics.

Social Science, Geography and the Spatial Turn

Edward Soja, the Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles, will be giving his lecture on Monday 18th May 2009 at 4pm in Room 203 in the Moore Institute. The event is co-sponsored by the School of Geography and Archaeology, Moore Institute, Social Sciences Research Centre, and the Geographical Society of Ireland.

SSRC Annual Lecture 2009 - Mitchell Dean

Professor Mitchell Dean, author of Governmentality: power and rule in modern societies (1999) gave the 2009 Annual SSRC lecture on Friday 24th of April 2009 in the Moore Institute's Seminar room.

His book, possibly more than any other, was responsible for the academic popularization of Foucault's ideas of bio-power and governmentality. In the lecture, Mitchell Dean presented his paper "Social Thought and the Art of Government".

The PowerPoint of the event can be found at: http://www.nuigalway.ie/ssrc/documents/mitchell_dean_lecture.ppt. The video of the lecture will be available again shortly once some minor technical glitches are fixed.

For further details about Professor Dean's research and publications, please click: http://www.crsi.mq.edu.au/people/dean_mitchell.htm

SSRC Annual Lecture - Professor John Urry

Professor John Urry of Lancaster University gave a guest lecture, 'The New Mobilities Paradigm', on Thursday 24th April in Aras Moyola, NUI Galway. For further details about Professor Urry's research and publications, click here. The lecture was jointly sponsored by the SSRC and the Dept of Geography.

International Conference Workshop

Another international workshop in the very successful SSRC-sponsored series on the theme of society, culture and the environment, was held in NUI Galway from 28th-29th March. The 2008 workshop was titled 'Contested Landscapes: Sustainable Living and the Reclamation of Public Space in (Sub-)Urban and Rural Environments'. A programme may be downloaded here, and a poster is available here. On Friday 28th March, Dr John Barry of Queens University Belfast launched Dr Liam Leonard's latest publication, The Environmental Movement in Ireland (Springer 2008), in Aras Moyola.

Lecture on Jackson Pollock

The SSRC hosted a well-attended guest lecture by Dr Elizabeth Langhorne on Friday 14th March, in the Moore Institute seminar room. Dr Langhorne, from the Central Connecticut State University, is a distinguished scholar and speaker on nineteenth and twentieth-century art history, especially the art of Jackson Pollock. She is especially interested in art as a search for meaning on the part of the artist, and this is where her concerns overlap with those of political science and sociology. Her lecture was titled 'Wisdom and Art: The Case of Jackson Pollock'.

Ecology and Utopia

The 4th Ralahine Utopian Studies Workshop and the launch of the Ecopolitics Online Journal took place on Friday 2nd November at the University of Limerick. Speakers included Professor Tom Moylan (University of Limerick), Dr Liam Leonard and Dr Henrike Rau (NUI Galway), Dr Marius de Geus (Leiden University), and Dr Mark Garavan (GMIT, Castlebar). Topics included 'Ecologial Utopias', 'Concrete Utopias, Sustainable Living, and Green Politics', and 'Sustaining Ecotopias'. There was a presentation on the Cloughjordan Ecovillage by Mr. Davie Phillip.

For further details email liam.leonardnuigalway.ie

Sex Trafficking in Ireland

A report on the nature and extent of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation into Ireland was launched in the Moore Institute, NUI Galway, on October 18th. This is the first independent piece of research to establish a baseline for and analysis of sex-trafficking into Ireland and has been carried out by Dr. Eilís Ward, Department of Political Science and Sociology, NUI Galway and Dr. Gillian Wylie, Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin.

The report was launched by former TCD Senator, Mary Henry, and was followed by a short seminar with a presentation from the findings to include guest speaker, legal expert Penny Redmond, who will specifically address legal dimensions of the issue for Ireland.

The research covers the period from 2000 - 2006 and is based on a survey with a number of Irish experts in related areas of prostitution and the sex trade in Ireland, migration, and violence against women and media research. State, statutory and non-governmental organisations were included in the survey. The survey has a nation-wide scope and sets out to establish baseline figures for the number of women being sex-trafficked into and around Ireland and trends and patterns in relation to the nature of the trafficking act, forms of coercion and violence used, location in the sex industry and the status of the women involved. The findings are located in a discussion and analysis of the domestic and legal framework, Ireland's responsibilities therein and in the context of the sex trade in Ireland today.

The report concludes with a number of recommendations for both the law and for policy and supports to be built around appropriate responses to the needs to women who have been trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

The report is available to download on our homepage.

Settler Colonialism: the Fifth Galway Colonialism Conference

A multidisciplinary conference on the subject of Settler Colonialism was held in NUI, Galway at the end of June. Plenary speakers were: Joe Cleary, NUI Maynooth; Saree Makdisi, UCLA; Patrick Wolfe, Victoria University, Melbourne; and Elleke Boehmer, Royal Holloway, London. The SSRC sponsored Palestinian academic Saree Makdisi's lecture on the topic, 'Zionism, Then and Now'.

Re-Thinking Irish Democracy

The long awaited volume, Uninhabited Ireland: Tara, the M3 and Public Spaces in Ireland, was launched by Michael D. Higgins, T.D. Watch this space for details of where this book is available.

Irish Feminist Thought Conference

The SSRC was pleased to support a conference on 'Irish Feminist Thought' being held at NUI Galway, on 13th and 14th April. Guest speakers were Patricia Coughlan, University College Cork and Myrtle Hill, Queen's University Belfast.

Architect Ruairí O'Brien gives SSRC Annual Lecture

The SSRC Annual Lecture was held on Friday 23rd March and we were pleased to welcome Ruairí O'Brien to speak on "Microglobal Times": The Art of not Wasting Wasteland.

The talk addressed (GDR) architecture and the ’recycling of history’ through novel forms of display and commemoration and the in situ preservation of local knowledge. Ruairí O’Brien moved to Dresden in 1991 and his open air ’Plattenbaumuseum’ in Dresden-Johannstadt has attracted attention both nationally and internationally. Similarly, Ruairi O’Brien’s conceptual plan for the prominent Erich-Kästner-Museum in Dresden-Neustadt has been hailed as an innovative approach to the presentation of information which allows visitors to explore and actively create displays and which combines experiences of mobility with memories of place ( http://www.erich-kaestner-museum.de/index_a.html ).

Ruairí O’Brien’s connections with Ireland and East Germany also allow him to compare and contrast cultural specificities of place and belonging and their expression through architecture. His interest in sustainable building/living is reflected in his work on micro-architecture. Micro-architecture represents an innovative, non-invasive way of conceptually and materially connecting old building substance and new features and uses. Traditional and modern elements are fused to create a new identity for urban spaces and buildings while also retaining aspects of their existing meanings and identities ( http://www.microarchitecture.net/Texte/english/microarch-english.html).

Click here for more information about robarchitects.

Society, Culture and the Environment: 30th-31st March

The third SSRC International Conference Workshop was held at NUI Galway on 30th and 31st March.

Recent reports on the state of the environment alert us to hitherto unseen levels of environmental destruction and their potentially catastrophic social and economic consequences. The Stern review on the economics of climate change published in 2006 represented one such ’wake-up call’ which was followed by numerous calls by politicians and environmentalists for more sustainable development. However, the sense of urgency emanating from these reports often contrasts with slow-paced policy responses both at national and supranational level. The sense of frustration about the lack of progress which was palpable during the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 2006 in Nairobi exemplifies the discrepancy between the need for wide-ranging social-environmental reform and the actual pace of change.

Environmental NGOs and activists have successfully kept environmental problems on the agenda but have frequently failed to bring about lasting changes in the political and economic sphere. This is attributable to a range of external and internal factors including negative state intervention, corporate pressure as well as lack of resources and expertise. Powerful structural and socio-cultural barriers also prevent necessary global changes in environmental policy making and implementation, including the hegemony of discourses of economic progress and persistent North-South inequalities that undermine attempts at bringing about distributive justice worldwide. The mismatch between people’s environmental attitudes and their actual behaviour (’value-action-gap’) and the persistence of short-term political timeframes such as election terms have also been identified as significant barriers to long-term strategies aimed at sustainable development and intergenerational justice.

One of the proposed solutions to this ineffectiveness has been to professionalise environmentalist organisations, thereby increasing their lobbying power. However, experiences of the professionalisation of environmentalist groups have been a mixed blessing attracting both positive comments and criticism. Some proponents of ecological modernisation consider professionalisation a necessary prerequisite to successful partnership negotiations to overcome hitherto adversarial relationships between the State, business interests and environmentalists (cf. Flynn, 2006). Yet others have highlighted as problematic the potential co-option of environmentalist groups by the State and corporate powers through the formers’ departure from grassroots democracy, a concern shared by many activists (Dryzek et al., 2004). Overall, it appears that the success or failure of environmentalist movements depends on a variety of factors, including the role of the State in encouraging or suppressing environmentalist voices.

In-depth knowledge of the opportunities for and barriers to inclusion, such as a better understanding of democratic systems, forms of deliberative public participation and intercultural arguing thus provide powerful tools for activists and other stakeholders to assess their options, identify strategies and explore (un-)successful cases from other countries. Social scientists’ contributions to the environmental debate can aid this process by making accessible information on organisational structures and lifecycles, decision-making processes and conflict resolution. The popularity of collaborative and action research projects involving academics, activists and lay experts is noticeable, albeit with varying results regarding the quality of the work (Gilbert, 1997). Nevertheless, the intersection between academic work and activism remains subject to considerable debate that goes well beyond methodological considerations by social scientists reflecting on their level of involvement and its research implications. The conference workshop aims to explore new ways of researching, recording and archiving information on environmental activism and its outcomes. It will pay particular attention to questions of intellectual and emotional involvement and detachment that arise from the dual role of the researcher as academic observer and activist.

This is the third workshop in the SSRC-sponsored series on society, culture and the environment. The initial two SSRC workshops have yielded an edited volume to be published by Peter Lang Publishers (Oxford) in April 2007.

For further information, please contact the workshop convenors: Dr Henrike Rau (henrike.raunuigalway.ie) and Dr Su-Ming Khoo (suming.khoonuigalway.ie) of the Department of Political Science and Sociology, NUI Galway.

Towards a Sustainable Economy

John Barry and Peter Doran of Queens University, Belfast gave a talk, 'Towards a Sustainable Economy - Theory, Policy and Practice', on Friday 8th December. The event was supported jointly by the SSRC and the ECI.

A Collaborative Development Zone for Israelis and Palestinians

Dr William Hartnett, a recent visiting scholar at the SSRC, presented the findings of his research at a seminar on October 2nd.

Growth and Crises

A conference on Growth and Crises: Social Structure of Accumulation Theory and Analysis was held at the National University of Ireland, Galway from 2nd - 4th November, 2006. The conference was organised by Terrence McDonough, NUI Galway; Michael Reich, University of California, Berkeley; and David M. Kotz, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

For further details, click here

Ageing and Values

The SSRC provided support to a conference on the subject of Values and Norms in Ageing, which was held in Áras Moyola, NUI Galway from 20th-22nd October 2006. Dr Ricca Edmondson of the Department of Political Science and Sociology, NUI Galway and Dr Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz of DZA Berlin (and chairman of EBSSRS) were the organisers.

For further details, click here

SSRC Annual Lecture

Jacob Torfing, Professor in Politics and Institutions at Roskilde University in Denmark, delivered the SSRC Annual Lecture on 15 May 2006. The subject of the lecture was the 'Democratic anchorage of governance networks'. For a copy of his paper, click here.

Professor Torfing is the author of numerous books and publications on theories of discourse and public policy. They include, among others, (1999) New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek, Oxford: Blackwell; and (1998) Politics Regulation and the Modern Welfare State, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.

Social Sciences Research Centre (SSRC)
National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland.
Phone: +353 (0)91 524411 Ext: 2280, E-mail: oliver.p.feeney

nuigalway.ie
This page was last updated Saturday, March 26, 2011