Everyday creativity, counter cultures and social change:

dublin | miscellaneous | event notice Friday September 21, 2007 20:03 by Laurence Cox - Dept. of Sociology, NUI Maynooth laurence.cox at nuim dot ie

an activist research symposium on how we can transform this society

How can Irish society be changed? What political, social and cultural agents are working for real transformation, and how can we support their development? This symposium brings together activists, researchers, and people involved in alternative cultures in an open discussion around all these issues:

- how human needs are frustrated in this society;
- the creative ways in which ordinary people respond and resist;
- the everyday forms of culture that people develop in order to meet these needs and support each other;
- and the processes of political organisation and social change that sometimes develop out of this.

The starting-point for this seminar is Donagh Davis' recently completed research on counter culture, everyday creativity and political action in Dublin, and the common ground between his work and the contexts the other presenters are working in (earlier counter cultures, working-class drug users, feminist spirituality, Polish anti-capitalist activism, community media, environmental justice and popular education). We will be using these different examples to try to think more generally about the possibility of social transformation in Ireland.

It will be a non-academic forum, with short (10 - 15 min.) presentations opening up space for discussion, but grounded in activist research, serious political thinking and real debate. All the presenters are involved in the movements and cultures they are talking about, and are carrying out research with a view to bringing about social change. The symposium draws on the work of the participatory action research programme on social movement practice at the Dept. of Sociology, NUI Maynooth.

Programme:

9.30 Welcome and coffee

10.00 The idea of counter culture in Ireland

Donagh Davis: Everyday creativity, counter culture and the movement of movements
Laurence Cox: Counter culture and social change since the 70s
Discussion

11.30 "The" counter culture and other oppositional cultures

Jean Bridgeman: The hidden people, working-class cultures and resistance
Ciara O'Connor: Resisting Catholicism: is women's spirituality feminist?
Asia Rutkowska: Counter culture in Poland
Discussion

1.00 Lunch

2.00 Getting beyond the activist ghetto

Margaret Gillan: Constructing the community TV space
Terry Dunne: Agency and strategy in radical ecological thinking
Hilary Darcy: Police repression - how activists understand the limits
Discussion

3.30 Coffee

4.00 Plenary discussion

5.00 Ends

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Saturday, October 13th (10 - 5)
Auxilia Hall 2, North Campus, NUI Maynooth
(see http://www.nuim.ie/location/maps/north.shtml for location and http://www.nuim.ie/location/index.shtml for transport details)
All welcome; admission and tea / coffee free