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.
Over the last year, the urgency of immediate action to prevent climate change has ascended social, personal and political agendas. Undoubtedly, one reason for this can be summed up as ‘The Greta Thunberg effect’. In one year, since August 2016, this 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl has inspired schoolchildren in five continents to be vocal in drawing Read More
Today there is too much hot air amongst our political leaders and not enough action. Climate disruption is tearing the planet apart in ways that have been entirely predicted, yet for which we remain basically unprepared. Climate change continues to be the most significant and urgent matter of our time. Global warming is not ‘natural’. Read More
With climate change once again making headlines around the world, and the global climate strike this Friday, how do we, as ordinary people, make sense of what’s happening and why does this matter? Kristina Diprose, one of the authors of Climate Change, Consumption and Intergenerational Justice: Lived Experiences in China, Uganda and the UK has Read More
With the Global Climate Strike starting on Friday, this week we’re bringing you articles on climate change from Bristol University Press authors. Here, Sarah Nash, author of Negotiating Migration in the Context of Climate Change, explains the need to disentangle the relationships between phenomena such as human mobility and climate change in order to bring Read More
In a world marked by political and economic uncertainty, debt appears to be a constant, an enormous dark cloud weighing upon our lives. We are always in debt, struggling to make ends meet, maintain repayments, and balance the books. In the wake of financial crash of 2008 debt was big news and many imagined the Read More
In their ground-breaking book, The Economics of Arrival, Katherine Trebeck and Jeremy Williams argue that, although everyday economics tells us there is no such thing as enough growth, we have, in fact, ‘arrived’. Economic growth has already brought unrivalled prosperity for GDP-rich countries; we have enough. The challenge is now to make ourselves at home Read More
John Brenton, Sustainability Manager at Bristol University, shares his thoughts on The Economics of Arrival by Katherine Trebeck and Jeremy Williams.…Read more
Informal refugee camps in and around Calais may no longer be in the news but the problem is far from solved. In this impact case study, Sarah Mallet shows how her book, Lande: The Calais Jungle and Beyond, co-written with Dan Hicks, and the corresponding exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, create a Read More
Huw Thomas, co-editor of Futures of Work, talks with Katherine Trebeck, co-author of The Economics of Arrival, about how most developed countries have arrived, and instead of enlarging the economy they should focus on improving it. Image Credit: Terje Sollie via Pexels
The present is a time of multiple crises, and these social, environmental and economic crises affect how work is organised, what work is like, and what work does in the world. …Read more