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.
Gary Craig, co-editor of The Modern Slavery Agenda, looks at how Mo Farah revealing his story now has raised public consciousness about slavery.…Read more
Launching their book ‘Social Work with the Black African Diaspora’, Paul Michael Garrett and Washington Marovatsanga call for more expansive and less Eurocentric ways of perceiving the social work task.…Read more
In the latest episode of the Transforming Society podcast we speak to author Stephen McBride about radical solutions to global issues such as economic catastrophes, inequality, climate change and political failure. Are there means of escape from the near dystopia we find ourselves in?…Read more
The joint effort between Policy Press and the British Society for Gerontology (BSG) has pioneered research in topics studying the impact of globalisation on the study of ageing, intimacy in later life, precarity and connecting digitalisation to trends in ageing. Tom Scharf celebrates the partnership between Policy Press and BSG, a springboard for pushing forward into new areas of research and action for positive change. …Read more
Cybernetics provides lot of the tools needed to help individual coops bring about effective democratic and non-hierarchical regulation. It shows us how we can collectively manage change in the face of adversity and develop the solutions we need. Thomas Swann looks at the history of the coop movement and ask whether cybernetic cooperatives could be the future of work.…Read more
Fran Amery discusses the impact of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on access to abortion and how the work done by grassroots organisations like AidAccess and Women on Web will have a vital role to play moving forward.…Read more
The current economic and political system is broken. Neoliberal ideas and practices that have dominated politics for the last 40 years has undermined democratic accountability. Stephen McBride explains how only institutional changes in our economy and politics can lead to a sustainable future. …Read more
Based on their Journal of Poverty and Social Justice article, Traute Meyer and Paul Bridgen look at the effects of the post-Brexit immigration system on the household incomes of migrant workers.…Read more
Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention has implications for the future of multilateralism, international law and global politics. Özlem Altıok, women’s rights activist and member of EŞİTİZ, a gender equality watch group based in Turkey, writes on the patriarchal backlash against women’s hard-won rights, and how the women's and LGBTI+ movements refused to give up and continue to struggle for the Convention.…Read more
Sue Scott and Siddharth Mallavarapu, two of the co-editors in chief of the new non-profit, Open Access Global Social Challenges Journal, discuss the journal's mission, how it speaks to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and how it will support researchers in low and middle-income countries.…Read more