Centre for Democratic Futures Online Webinar ‘Organising for Change’ Authors meet Critics Event

The Centre for Democratic Futures is happy to bring back our series with panelists “Authors meet Critics: Organising for Change”. Freedom of expression and the right to assemble are some core characteristics of democracies. Democracy itself is an outcome of mobilization processes and it is under threat by right-wing actors. The book “Organising for Change” examines the interactions and reactions across multiple forms of everyday activism for social justice and inclusion. In the book, the concept of social change organisations is used, which the authors define as the broad range of organisations that aim to bring about or resist societal change through any form and combination of service provision, advocacy, and protest. With the people engaged in these organisations as social change makers.

Authors of the book Organising for Change. Social Change Makers and Social Change Organisations, Silke Roth and Claire Saunders will meet a panel of 4 critics to present their work and have a discussion with the panelists.

The virtual webinar will be a chance to meet and engage with scholars from all over the world.

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: May 23, 2024 04:00 PM London
Topic: Centre for Democratic Futures Online Webinar
Register in advance for this webinar :

About the Authors:

Silke Roth is a professor of sociology at the University of Southampton in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy, and Criminology. She is working on the intersections of political sociology and the sociology of work. The red thread that runs through her work is the question of how organisations overcome and perpetuate inequality through the inclusion and exclusion of different constituencies in membership and leadership and through their goals and objectives. She studies various forms of engagement from historical and biographical perspectives.

Clare Saunders’ research is motivated by her underlying desire to make the world a better place to live in. She dreams of a world in which we live in a clean environment that is managed by an inclusive and fair democracy. This had led her to be concerned about charting important environmental and social justice movements, thinking about ways to resolve environmental and political conflict, and trying to find ways to encourage people to adopt more pro-environmental behaviours.

About the Critics:

Ali Meghji Associate Professor in Social Inequalities, Magdelene College, at Cambridge University. His research puts critical race theory into dialogue with postcolonial sociology in order to understand the global dynamics of racialization and racism. In doing so, his work overcomes the methodological nationalism that characterises much contemporary race scholarship and develops a way forward for thinking about global raciality. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Sociology and Sociology Compass. His latest book is A Critical Synergy: Race, Decoloniality, and World Crises (Temple University Press).

Bandana Purkayastha is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut and currently serves as Vice President of National Associations at the International Sociological Association (2023-2027). Her research and writing focus on gender and intersectionality, migration and migrants, transnationalism, human rights and human security, and violence and peace. In her work, she attempts to dismantle knowledge hierarchies. Her publications include works on Indian transnationalism, human trafficking, feminism, and gender in the Indian diaspora. Her latest book is the co-edited Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality (Edward Elgar, 2024).