Global social challenges
There are multiple interlocking crises currently gripping the planet. Significant threats and dangers lie ahead of us, but so do opportunities, as new ways of being, thinking, and doing emerge.
This stream of Transforming Society is a space for exploring the complexities of the global social challenges across disciplines and fields. It seeks to build and share the knowledge needed to shape a fairer world, across and for the global south and north, hoping to foster dialogue between academics, practitioners, policy makers and the wider public.
Sarah Smith and Elena Stavrevska discuss whether the UN’s WPS agenda excludes categories of identity and realms of experience in efforts towards peace, justice and human security. Gender is not mutually exclusive. …Read more
Andreas Nölke, author of 'Post-Corona Capitalism: The Alternatives Ahead', reminds us that this is a perfect time to take stock of the societal, economic and political effects of COVID-19 so that we don’t waste an important window of opportunity for wide-ranging social reform. …Read more
BinBin Pearce, Associate Editor for the new Global Social Challenges Journal, discusses the urgency of creating an energy system weaned from supplies of oil, coal and natural gas held in the hands of authoritarian regimes.…Read more
Ivan Kalmar, author of 'White But Not Quite', argues that dismissive attitudes towards Eastern Europeans are a form of racism and explores the close relation between racism towards Central Europeans and racism by Central Europeans: a people white but not quite.…Read more
Colin Yeo, author of 'Refugee Law', considers the UK government’s ‘bespoke’ scheme for those fleeing Ukraine in the context of previous responses to refugee crises going back to WW1. …Read more
In this episode, Nasar Meer talks about his new book 'The Cruel Optimism of Racial Justice', looking at why we continue to see systemic injustice and how equal treatment isn't the same as treatment as an equal.…Read more
Nasar Meer, author of The Cruel Optimism of Racial Justice, argues that there is no likely end to the struggle for racial justice, only the promise this heralds and the desire to persevere.…Read more
To mark International Women's Day this year we are launching a series of Transforming Society articles to celebrate our female authors and editors: 'Women in academia and practice'.…Read more
Sociologist Sue Scott talks about the challenges she has faced as a female academic and the advice she’d give to young women in academia. …Read more
Marie Lall talks about the challenges for women academics of COVID-19, motherhood, male dominance and fieldwork in remote and politically dangerous areas and offers advice to younger women in academia. …Read more