"Learning from each other's struggles"

national | miscellaneous | event notice Friday June 11, 2010 22:24 by Laurence Cox - NUI Maynooth

Social movements / activist research workshop, Dublin / Maynooth

A provisional programme is now available for this event, jointly organised in Seomra Spraoi and NUI Maynooth by the participatory action research programme in social movement practice at NUI Maynooth and the Political Ethnography research group at the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, Nottingham University. The programme includes 22 presenters involved in and researching social movements from migrant worker organising to the "Really Open University", with workshops, talks, films and more.

Learning from each other's struggles:

Social movements / activist research workshop

Dublin / Maynooth, June 18th - 20th

Social movements like community development, anti-capitalism, the women's movement, union organising, majority world solidarity, GLBT activism, anarchism and socialism, community education and community arts, migrant rights and anti-racism all produce knowledge for change.

Sometimes this knowledge is a radical understanding of how the status quo works and how it can be changed; sometimes it is expert knowledge of a particular issue that can be used in media and legal battles; sometimes it is research on movements themselves that can be used to get better at what we do; sometimes it is popular education work and radical teaching.

This weekend workshop is for people researching social movements, activist researchers, adult and community educators and movement organisers thinking about the next step in a period of crisis. It is not a place for delivering conventional academic papers, but rather a workshop space for sharing skills, learning from each other's struggles and developing our practice. The workshop is a joint initiative of the participatory action research programme in social movements at NUIM Sociology and the Political Ethnography group at the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, Nottingham.

With apologies for the delay, below is a provisional programme for this event; the PDF includes more details. Further details and updates will be posted at http://actionresearchireland.blogspot.com/ where you can find travel details etc. You can book online or register on the day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday 18th

Seomra Spraoi, Belvedere Court, off Gardiner Street, Dublin 1
(Map on http://www.seomraspraoi.org:8080/Plone/copy_of_contact-us)

7.30 ­ 10.00: Introduction to weekend and activist film night.
Provisional showings: A place in the city; Exodus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday 19th (morning and afternoon)

Auxilia Building, north campus, National University of Ireland Maynooth
(Travel details and maps at http://www.nuim.ie/location/):

9.30 - 10.00: Registration

10.00 ­ 11.00: Energy, power and politics:

Amanda Slevin (Donegal MAOR / TCD Sociology), Hegemony and hydrocarbons
Hilary Darcy (Seomra Spraoi Better Questions / NUIM Sociology), Consent to coercion: policing protest in the Republic of Ireland

OR

Theorising social movements:

Benoit Dutilleul (University of the West of England), Deploying actor-network theory to conceptualise movements' dynamics

11.00 ­ 11.30: Break

11.30 ­ 1.00: Workplace organising as militant / action research

Ziggy (Kolinko collective), Organising call-centre workers as militant research

1.00 ­ 2.00: Lunch

2.00 ­ 3.30: Social movements and strategy: law as battleground

Jenny Boylan (NUI Galway), Grassroots activism and the development of abortion law in the Republic of Ireland
Deborah Magill (Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster), Social movements' use of litigation

OR

2.00 ­ 3.30: Art and archaeology as action research

Thomas Kador (UCD Archaeology), Archaeology as action research
Martina Carroll (ARCAMosaic / UCD Psychology), Community art, action research and anti-racism

3.30 ­ 4.00: Break

4.00 ­ 6.00: Practicing political ethnography

Nottingham Political Ethnography Group, What role for subjectivities and "politica afectiva" in the theory and practice of social justice?
(Deirdre Duffy, Jennifer Martinez, Jon Mansell, Sara Motta, Maria Urbina, Heather Watkins)

Saturday night
Seomra Spraoi, Dublin

7.30 - 10.00: Activist film night
Provisional showing: Porto Marghera: the last firebrands

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday 20th (morning and afternoon)

Auxilia Building, north campus, National University of Ireland Maynooth

10.30 ­ 12.30: Social movements making media

Mimi Doran (UCD Social Justice), Media literacy and social activism: using mainstream and new media as a site for social movements
Yuvi Basanth (RootsReelFilms), Activist documentary making
Barra Hamilton (Dublin Community TV), Activists and the media

12.30 ­ 1.30: Lunch

1.30 ­ 3.00: Who owns social movements?

David Landy (Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Committee / TCD Sociology), Solidarity, splits and panic stations: reflections on an interesting year for the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Committee
Francisco Arqueros (NUIM Anthropology), The politics of migrant worker organising

OR

1.30 ­ 3.00: Personal, political, praxis: participatory action research and movements

Jean Bridgeman (Women of Insight / NUIM Sociology), Notes from a journal: methods and strengths in action research
Asia Rutkowska (NUIM Sociology), Ethics and politics in participatory action research

3.00 ­ 3.15: Break

3.15 ­ 5.00: Social movements and knowledge: who owns the intellectual means of production?

Andre Pusey and Elsa Noterman (Really Open University / Leeds Geography / Activism and Social Change MA), Developing the Really Open University: problems and experiences
Laurence Cox (NUIM Sociology), Why do movements want to know things, and how do they go about it?

Provisional programme (PDF) 0.05 Mb