Book launch of Unfree by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
The Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) are delighted to host the book launch of Unfree: migrant domestic workers in Arab States by Professor Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California on Monday 25 October 2021. Across the globe, migrant domestic workers are unfree workers whose legal residency is contingent on their continued employment as a live-in worker with a designated sponsor. This talk examines the politics of their indenture and the ramifications of this in understanding the global political economy of care. This is the first event in the Transforming Economies of Care Series, with more events to follow every month.
Discussants: Professor Nicola Mai, Professor of Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia and Dr Sara Farris, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, UK. The launch is being hosted by the Director of CASEI, Distinguished Professor Beverley Skeggs, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University.
You can register for the event via Eventbrite here. A video of the launch will be made available shortly afterwards through our YouTube channel. Please direct any queries to Michael Lambert at the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk).
On Thursday 21 October 2021 the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economies Inequalities (CASEI) hosted the virtual launch of the podcast Who do we think we are? hosted by Professor Michaela Benson, Professor in Public Sociology at Lancaster University. The Windrush Deportation Scandal, Brexit and citizens’ rights are watershed moments that have brought questions of citizenship, migration and belonging in Britain today into public view. These issues and more are discussed across the podcast
The contributors to the launch were:
Michaela Benson is Professor in Public Sociology at Lancaster University, co-lead of the ESRC-funded project Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit, and host and producer of Who do we think we are? Tweets @michaelacbenson.
Chantelle Lewis is Junior Research Fellow in Black British Studies at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, co-host and founder of the anti-racist podcast Surviving Society, and Deputy Director of Leading Routes. Tweets @ChantelleJLewis.
George Kalivis is a doctoral researcher in Visual Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, artist and architect.
A video of the launch will be made available shortly through our YouTube channel. For any enquiries relating to the event, please contact the organiser Dr Michael Lambert: m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk.
Dr Launch Clancy Book Launch: Running the Family Firm
The Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) hosted the launch of Running the Family Firm: How the Monarchy Manages its Image and Our Money (Manchester University Press, 2021) by one its members, Dr Laura Clancy on Tuesday 28 September 2021. Dr Clancy completed her PhD here in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University and is now a Lecturer in Media. Her book is based on this body of original work and is an excellent showcase for its world-leading research. The book shows unequivocally that we cannot talk about inequalities in Britain today without talking about the monarchy. It is available in hardback, paperback and as an ebook through the publisher’s website.
Owing to ongoing restrictions due to the Coronavirus pandemic the launch will be hosted virtually via MS Teams on Tuesday 28 September 2021, 4pm-5:30pm UK BST. It will be chaired by the Director of CASEI Distinguished Professor Beverley Skeggs and feature Dr Bruce Bennett (Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Lancaster University), Professor Helen Wood (Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, Lancaster University), and Dr Sivamohan Valluvan (Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick), as discussants as well as questions and answers with the author.
You can register for the event via Eventbrite here. A video of the launch is available through our YouTube channel which you can watch here. For any enquiries relating to the event, please contact the organiser Dr Michael Lambert: m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk.
‘On Neoreaction (NRx) and its Software’ by Professor Roger Burrows
On Tuesday 8 June 2021 the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) hosted a virtual lecture by Professor Roger Burrows, Professor of Cities at Newcastle University. This public talk examined the impact of neoreactionary (NRx) thinking on contemporary, political debates manifest in ‘architectures of exit’.
The public talk has been published as part of a special issue on ‘Post-neoliberalism’ in Theory, Culture and Society with Harrison Smith. You can watch a short introduction to the paper by Roger Burrows here, and download the paper which has been made available open access here. A video of the talk is available through Lancaster University Sociology Department YouTube channel here.
For any enquiries relating to the event, please contact the organiser Dr Michael Lambert: m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk.
‘COVID-19, capitalism, and social reproduction in crisis’ by Professor Silvia Federici
As part of a postgraduate module taught in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University – ‘Capitalism and crisis’ – and in conjunction with the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities, on 20 April 2021 Professor Silvia Federici spoke on ‘COVID-19, capitalism, and social reproduction in crisis’. The event was organised, introduced and chaired by Dr Francesca Coin, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Lancaster University with Professor Beverley Skeggs, the Director of CASEI and a Distinguished Professor in Sociology at Lancaster University.
In her talk, Silvia looked at how the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the policies of dispossession, impoverishment and deprivation that have underpinned the history of capitalism since its inception. Looking at the disastrous impact of the recent crises on social reproduction, Silvia Federici discussed the efforts that women are making all over the world to de-privatise our everyday lives and create cooperative forms of living in our societies.
You can watch a video of the talk through the Lancaster University Sociology Department YouTube channel here. For any enquiries relating to the event, please contact the organiser Dr Michael Lambert: m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk.
Distinguished Professor Bob Jessop Festschrift
On 28 October 2020 Lancaster University Sociology Department and the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) hosted a virtual Festschrift to recognise and celebrate the work of Distinguished Professor Bob Jessop.
Since arriving as a Professor in Sociology in 1990, he has contributed immeasurably to the intellectual, organisational, and cultural life of the University and the Sociology Department. The event on 29 October went some way towards recognising the contributions he has made across his career on the occasion of his retirement.
The event was introduced by Professor Imogen Tyler (Head of Department, Lancaster University Sociology Department) and was Chaired by Distinguished Professor Bev Skeggs (Director, CASEI) and featured six internationally acclaimed speakers in three panels covering different aspects of Bob’s work: political economy; governance; Marxism. The speakers were:
Professor Andrew Sayer (Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy, Lancaster University)
Dr Ngai-Ling Sum (Honorary Researcher, Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities, Lancaster University)
Professor Juan Carlos Monedero (Professor of Political Science, Complutense University of Madrid)
Professor Martin Jones (Deputy Vice Chancellor, Staffordshire University)
Professor Alex Demirovic (Emeritus Professor of Critical Social Theory, Goethe University Frankfurt)
Professor Michael Brie (Senior Fellow for Socialist Transformation Research and the History of Socialism, Rosa Luxemburg Institute)
The event also featured a short reflection and commentary by Distinguished Professor Leo Panitch on the wider context of Bob’s work and it’s global reach into a range of debates.
There will be a number of forthcoming publications connected to the event. A recording of the virtual Festschrift is available here.
Who Cares in a Shrinking State? Responsibility and Respectability Reconsidered
On 30 September 2019 we welcomed LSE Centennial Professor Mary Evans to Lancaster University to discuss her research into the nature of respectability, asking “who is responsible?” and how?, what forms of deserving and undeserving distinctions are drawn between women when the state abdicates its responsibility.
As the state in the UK shrinks its responsibility for social care, Mary asked who will provide for the children, the elderly, the less able and those who need care? She discussed the impact of the “care sandwich” as mothers give up work to care for their elderly family members as well as their very young family members and in between the sandwich of young and old is all the regular care that they disperse daily. Beyond this is the “triple whammy” of amplified inequalities through austerity cuts to benefits, further caring responsibilities with the retreat of the state and the impact on women.