Sociological pasts, presents and futures

Thanks to Joy Zhang and Geoff Payne for contributing some fascinating and original thinking to our cluster meeting on Weds 13th November.

Geoff came to talk about his recent chapter in Panayotova, P. (ed) (2019) The History of Sociology in Britain, focusing on how the former polytechnics (current ‘post-92’ institutions) are too often written out of disciplinary histories. The question of who gets to tell the story fo sociology, from what social and institutional positions, remains very relevant and we really enjoyed Geoff’s original approach to this question.

We were also delighted to be joined by Joy Zhang (Kent) who was in Newcastle to give a fantastic seminar later in the day:‘From democratising to decolonising science: Lessons from China’s contemporary life science controversies.’ In our cluster session Joy shared some thoughts about the very different history and present position of Sociology in China as well as connecting this up to her own trajectory and work.

Utopian thinking in international law, human rights, governance

Fantastic symposium at the Newcastle Law School on 8th November 2019 on utopian thinking – thanks to Ruth Houghton for organising! We heard a really rich set of papers with lots to think about for those interested in pasts and futures – and really relevant to a broadly understood sociology even though the overt frame was around international law and human rights.

Kathryn McNeilly (QUB) asked us to think counter-factually about what kinds of worlds might have emerged if utopian moments in the development of human rights law had allowed for the development of radical political daydreaming.

Nathaniel Coleman (Newcastle) reflected on how utopia might be a valuable method for the theory, pedagogy and practise of architecture – reflecting on the central function of architecture in devising and making spaces that might enable new and better ways of being.

Matthew Nicholson (Durham) explored ways of ‘re-situating utopia’ in international law discourse – which usually mobilises fixed, blueprint notions of utopia (whether it locates them in existing frameworks or the promise of a depoliticised human rights). He asked how international law might work in and with a more processual, open-ended and radical utopianism.

I had a few things to say about changing context for imagining better environmental futures and the need for a more speculative, utopian and science fictional sociology.

Sarah Lohmann (Durham) is working on feminist critical utopian fictions from the 1970s and explored how they can be thought of as literary-philosophical thought experiments. They work with a complex, dynamic notion of time and offer imagined alternative societies not as blueprints but as self-organising systems that remain relevant in changing times.

Ruth Houghton (Newcastle) and Aoife O’Donoghue (Durham) are reading feminist utopias and dystopias against global constitutionalist manifestoes in relation to visions of more inclusive and solidaristic visions of international law. How might these texts help us learn how to approach governance that is not predicated on patriarchy?

Between disciplines and interdisciplinarity: bringing sociology, science and environment together

On Weds 12th June Philippe Boudes will be joining us for an informal talk at the meeting point of sociological theory, rural studies, science studies and environmental studies. Co-hosted by Imagining Pasts and Futures and Newcastle’s Centre for Rural Economy, the talk is ‘Between disciplines and interdisciplinarity: bringing sociology, science and environment together’, 12-2pm 12th June Agriculture Building AGRB.3.02.

Abstract: ‘In this presentation I explore how, starting with a very classical academic curriculum, sociology can contribute to interdisciplinary research on environmental and rural issues. Specifically, I explore how sociology can respond to instrumental and policy demands relating to the management and public understanding of those issues. How do we work within an interdisciplinary context which is often limited by demands for operational results? Rather than stay too strongly rooted in my discipline or, by contrast, favour a pro-interdisciplinary posture, I propose a new approach. This is based on trying to « live » my discipline – not denying the diversity of other disciplinary approaches, but recalling always the need to keep in mind the fully social significance of the topics studied. I illustrate this approach with reference to my research on public goods, on the greening of cities, and on river restoration. I show in each case how the contribution of sociology has allowed not only new conceptual inputs with respect to these different issues, but also to the formalization or enrichment of concepts within Sociology, including Simmelian approaches to the city and theories of recognition.’

Remembering difficult pasts – Joanne Sayner 25th March

25th March 2019 was our last scheduled cluster meeting of the semester. We were absolutely delighted to welcome Joanne Sayner to talk about her recent work on culture, centenaries and difficult pasts that she is doing in collaboration with Jenny Kidd (Cardiff). Their research has looked closely at the poppy exhibition which has toured the UK for the centenary of WWI, and in our session raised some fascinating and difficult questions about cultural institutions and commemoration, and how people might be able to think about what the poppy means beyond ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig).

Joanne is Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Heritage Studies here at Newcastle. She works on the politics of remembering in contemporary culture. With our own Anselma Gallinat and also Sarah Jones (Birmingham), she is currently Co-I on the AHRC project ‘Knowing the Secret Police: Secrecy and Knowledge in East German Society.’

Unlocking sustainable cities – Paul Chatterton seminar 27th Feb 2019

It was great to welcome Prof. Paul Chatterton for the Sociology Seminar on Weds 27th February 2019. Paul was the cluster’s invited speaker this semester.

As well as being Professor of Urban Futures and Director of the Sustainable Cities Group at the University of Leeds, Paul is a writer, researcher and campaigner. He is co-founder and resident of the award-winning low impact housing co-operative Lilac and helped set up Leeds Community Homes to help promote community-led housing.

In his new book Unlocking Sustainable Cities and in the talk Paul presents a manifesto for real urban change. The book highlights how cities are locked into unsustainable and damaging practices, and how exciting new routes can be unlocked for real change. Across the world, city innovators are putting real sustainability into practice – from transforming abandoned public spaces and setting up community co-operatives, to rewilding urban nature and powering up civic energy.

The talk set out a number of proposals for immediate radical possibilities for more sustainable cities. A lively discussion afterwards explored the scope for change in a world of infrastructural lock-in and entrenched capitalist power and culture – and the ways in which in small ways as teachers and researchers we can contribute to a greener and more just future.

Utopia now? Talk 21.11.18

On Nov 21st please join us for a talk about contemporary utopian thought  4pm, ARMB.2.49.

David Bell, Lisa Garforth and Adam Stock will be talking about their recent books which reflect respectively on utopian politics, affect and performative practices; green utopian visions and post-war environmental discourse; and dystopian fiction and political thought:

Rethinking Utopia

Green Utopias

Modern Dystopian Fiction and Political Thought

The three speakers share a background in utopian studies and the conversation will  also explore issues in contemporary utopian theory, practice and politics.

And another meritocracy event…

One of the really interesting contributions to our Discover Society special issue is the piece by David Civil (Nottingham) exploring the history of Young’s concept in relation to mid-century histories of sociology and politics.

David is one of the team organising a discussion in Nottingham next week: Meritocracy in Perspective: The Rise of the Meritocracy Sixty Years On . The panel features Toby Young, Nick Timothy, Faiza Shaheen and Helen Goulden. Free event; register online.

 

Merit or meritocracy?

Back in April colleagues in Imagining Pasts and Futures organised a one-day conference reflecting on the idea of meritocracy 60 years after Michael Young published the book that put the term into wide circulation. With guest speakers Jo Littler, Nicola Ingram and Daniel Smith we explored meritocracy as ideology and discourse; merit as a social quality and value; the concept of meritocracy in relation to education, policy and work; the history of the idea in sociology and politics; and the kinds of futures that the idea of meritocracy does and does not make imaginable.

Discussions at the event were stimulating, interesting – and sometimes challenging.

We are delighted to announce that one outcome of that event is a special issue of the online journal Discover Society. It was a pleasure working with colleagues from Newcastle (Geoff Payne, Ruth Graham, Anselma Gallinat and Angus McVittie – well done Angus on a first publication! – and Lisa Garforth in Sociology; Samantha Shields in ECLS; and an honorary shout to Kirsty Morrin, UG at Newcastle not that many years ago and now lecturing at Liverpool) and beyond to produce this wide-ranging, critical, reflective and above all readable set of short articles. We encourage you to read and enjoy!

Thanks to the BSA Sociology of Education Study Group for helping us with the April event.

 

Meritocracy: kicking a concept around

Originally published here.

Thanks to all our presenters and plenary speakers for a really excellent set of discussions on merit and meritocracy at our conference yesterday. In their plenaries, Jo Littler, Nicola Ingram and Daniel Smith offered three wildly different takes on the concept and the work it does in contemporary societies, thinking about the discursive and political shift the idea has undergone ‘from Michael to Toby’, its work in concealing the continued power of both landed and branded gentries, and the impacts it is having on classed selves and bodies in classrooms.

Panel sessions explored more dimensions – the political history of the concept and how we might get past limited ideas of equality of opportunity and individual merit to really imagine egalitarian, collective and communal alternatives; the shaping of young peoples’ future imaginaries within the limited discourse of individualistic merit and success; and the complex ways in which access to and experiences in HE both exhibit the traces of a problematic meritocratic discourse and push back against it. We were particularly delighted to hear lots of innovative ideas from PhD students and early career scholars in those sessions.

We had great, engaged discussions across these topics throughout the day so we heartily thank ALL our participants as well as presenters for their contributions. Some of us will be continuing the discussion at the BSA conference Education Stream Plenary on Wednesday 11th.

Merit or Meritocracy: 60 Years And Counting… was a one-day conference at Newcastle University on 9th April, organised by Anselma Gallinat, Ruth Graham, Lisa Garforth and Geoff Payne of the Sociology Imagining Pasts and Futures Research Cluster with support from the BSA Education Study Group. We also thank the Newcastle University and the School of GPS for their support for this event.

Imagining alternative futures, marking the past – Pt 3

Originally published here.

Thanks to stalwart cluster members James Cummings and Audrey Verma, as well as first-time visitor Katy Lamb, for a fantastic cluster meeting on Weds 14th February. James, Audrey and Katy talked from their research projects about the vastly different capacities of a range of social actors to imagine alternative liveable futures through reflections on pasts that were narrated in terms of loss, pain – and also joy.

Memorials and futures of Equal Justice: Katy is an UG student in the Combined Honours programme and joined us to talk about recent fieldwork in Montgomery, Alabama. Katy won Ncl university funding to conduct research relating to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. Katy’s work helped us to think about the power of commemoration and especially of material objects to rework the past in the present, to make the invisible visible. Here the aim is to inject a new and uncomfortable narrative into the history and historiography of the US and into its contemporary cultural life, adding something distinct to recent debates which have often focused on the removal of Confederate statues and markers.

Katy talked movingly about the museum’s planned National Memorial for Peace and Justice which features displays of soil taken from lynching sites in the museum (seen in the photo here which Katy took during her visit). Katy is working with ideas about the connotations of soil as dirtying and its etymology which is related to wallowing; but also about its links with growth, grit, life-support and renewal. Katy’s reflections on soil, memory and imagined futures also evoked ideas about digging up the past both as a metaphor and as the physical labour involved in locating and recovering these lost sites.

Katy has been drawing on these readings to make sense of this material: Forsdick C (2015) Travel, slavery, memory: thanatourism in the French Atlantic. Postcolonial Studies 8790(March): 1–15. Buzinde CN and Santos CA (2008) Representations of slavery. Annals of Tourism Research 35(2): 469–488. Ebron PA (1999) Tourists as Pilgrims: Commercial Fashioning of Transatlantic Politics. American Ethnologist 26(4): 910–932.