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.
Higher education must take a stand on Gaza and academic freedom: The silence of Swedish universities
These authors argue that universities must actively defend academic freedom and human rights, especially in response to the destruction of Palestinian education, because silence risks complicity and undermines their democratic role.…Read more
In this episode of the podcast, George Miller speaks to Madeleine Sumption, author of 'What is Immigration Policy for?'. They discuss why there is no single ‘right’ level of immigration, how the same evidence can lead to such different conclusions, and why attempts to control migration numbers so often fail.…Read more
Marc Thompson, author of 'Spark', argues that the toxic algal blooms in Lough Neagh expose a wider ecological crisis driven by flawed economic systems and poor water management, highlighting the urgent need for a “planetary mindset” and more cooperative ways of organising society within environmental limits.…Read more
Frank T. Manheim, author of 'American Environmental History and Policy', argues that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement reflects a long-building political polarisation over environmental policy in the US, rooted in conflicts in the 1970s, and that future climate progress depends on overcoming this divide.…Read more
In this Transforming Business episode, Martin Parker speaks with Barbara Kump and Babette Julia Brinkmann about how we can all create change from within our organisations.…Read more
In this podcast, Richard Kemp speaks with Bahar Baser and Élise Féron about how the 'Journal of Disappearance Studies' serves as a space to break these boundaries and give this important field a unified platform.…Read more
Gurminder K. Bhambra, editor of 'The Modern World After Colonialism', draws on Chinua Achebe’s insight to argue that dominant social-science narratives overlook colonial histories, and that re-centering empire is essential to rethinking modernity.…Read more
Dominic Hinde, author of 'Journalism in the Anthropocene', argues that coverage of leaders like François Hollande reveals how journalism fragments climate change into isolated stories instead of treating it as the context shaping all reporting.…Read more
Pushkala Prasad, author of 'Capitalism’s Dark Complexion', argues that capitalism has always been deeply racialised, exploiting Black and Brown bodies, from chattel slavery to modern e-waste labour, while disproportionately enriching White populations.…Read more
Justine Grønbæk Pors, author of 'Inherited Time', argues that democracy must be lived and practised in schools, and that contemporary education policy’s focus on performance has erased earlier democratic traditions whose “ghosts” still offer vital lessons for renewing democracy today.…Read more