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Thursday January 01 1970

Everyday creativity, counter cultures and social change:

dublin | miscellaneous | event notice

Friday September 21, 2007 20:03

by Laurence Cox - Dept. of Sociology, NUI Maynooth

laurence.cox at nuim dot ie

an activist research symposium on how we can transform this society

How can Irish society be changed? What political, social and cultural agents are working for real transformation, and how can we support their development? This symposium brings together activists, researchers, and people involved in alternative cultures in an open discussion around all these issues:

- how human needs are frustrated in this society;
- the creative ways in which ordinary people respond and resist;
- the everyday forms of culture that people develop in order to meet these needs and support each other;
- and the processes of political organisation and social change that sometimes develop out of this.

The starting-point for this seminar is Donagh Davis' recently completed research on counter culture, everyday creativity and political action in Dublin, and the common ground between his work and the contexts the other presenters are working in (earlier counter cultures, working-class drug users, feminist spirituality, Polish anti-capitalist activism, community media, environmental justice and popular education). We will be using these different examples to try to think more generally about the possibility of social transformation in Ireland.

It will be a non-academic forum, with short (10 - 15 min.) presentations opening up space for discussion, but grounded in activist research, serious political thinking and real debate. All the presenters are involved in the movements and cultures they are talking about, and are carrying out research with a view to bringing about social change. The symposium draws on the work of the participatory action research programme on social movement practice at the Dept. of Sociology, NUI Maynooth.

Programme:

9.30 Welcome and coffee

10.00 The idea of counter culture in Ireland

Donagh Davis: Everyday creativity, counter culture and the movement of movements
Laurence Cox: Counter culture and social change since the 70s
Discussion

11.30 "The" counter culture and other oppositional cultures

Jean Bridgeman: The hidden people, working-class cultures and resistance
Ciara O'Connor: Resisting Catholicism: is women's spirituality feminist?
Asia Rutkowska: Counter culture in Poland
Discussion

1.00 Lunch

2.00 Getting beyond the activist ghetto

Margaret Gillan: Constructing the community TV space
Terry Dunne: Agency and strategy in radical ecological thinking
Hilary Darcy: Police repression - how activists understand the limits
Discussion

3.30 Coffee

4.00 Plenary discussion

5.00 Ends

---

Saturday, October 13th (10 - 5)
Auxilia Hall 2, North Campus, NUI Maynooth
(see http://www.nuim.ie/location/maps/north.shtml for location and http://www.nuim.ie/location/index.shtml for transport details)
All welcome; admission and tea / coffee free

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Comments (5 of 5)

Timing

by disappointed

Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:15

What a pity this event happens on the same day as the "Reclaiming Power - people's resistance to the WTO, World Bank and IMF" conference, which I received an email about in mid September ... tough choices to be made :) I'm sure there's plenty of people in the same boat as both events read like they promise to be really excellent and valuable to social justice activists......

Lots of clashes that day

by Fintan Lane

Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:35

It's just one of these unfortunate clashes. There is also an anti-war conference on 13th October and a national meeting of the ISN. Four events and counting.

Avoidable?

by D_D

Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:57

These clashes are unfortunate, and a real problem. We'll have to live with them, I suppose.

They are not entirely unavoidable. The left, in it's broadest span and diversity, may be a long way from co-ordination, and even longer from unity, but one thing we could try for is preventing CLASHES which take away from all similar events happening at the same time.

Some checking and asking around before setting dates would help, and meanwhile Indymedia is probably the nearest thing we have at present to a kind of clearing house to avoid these mis-timings.

I agree (to a point)

Thu Sep 27, 2007 15:07

This does happen too often. For our own part, though, the ISN national meeting is an internal event (decided ages ago) and was never going to be advertised on indymedia, or anywhere else, and we didn't know about the other very interesting conferences and seminars when we scheduled it. Such clashes, unfortunately, are pretty difficult to avoid. It happens. I'm sure other political groups are also having internal meetings on the 13th.

Dear oh dear.

audio recording + dreaming more... + a few helpful links

by dunk

Thu Sep 27, 2007 22:59

fuspey at yahoo dot co dot uk

seems like momentum is building in dublin, glad thats happening. Seems theres differing views as to how effective this is, how political its directed, what form(s) being "political"...etc. Anyway, its healthy that this discussion / forum is happening, weldone to organisers and i hope it grows further. On the "reclaiming power" thread i made the point that i hope that maybe people might record and later upload material, to firstly archive for later use, and also so that if there are clashes that those who missed whatever, still get to listen later... i feel this is still a hugely underutelised area that if explored more by social movements might further widen and deepen things.

the opening of seomra spraoi has sparked a fair bit of discussion which ties into what i think is being partly explored by the forum, worth a deco there to see the arguments but also positive contributions...

my own angle, is that although there is still a bit of discussion there is, and has been, a serious lack of dreaming / imagination or critical discussion as to the exploration of "best case scenario" and how we get there, in all its angles. i posted about this before with little response, so wont again. but things are moving, so well done to those that are making it happen

Reclaiming Power - people's resistance to the WTO, World Bank and IMF
http://indymedia.ie/article/84303#comment207974

Seomra Spraoi: We got us some space!
http://indymedia.ie/article/84294&comment_limit=0&conde...08105

Grassroots Gathering,follow up meeting
http://indymedia.ie/article/84093

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Everyday creativity, counter cultures and social change:

Comments (5 of 5)