Public lecture: "Movements in crisis and a world on fire: social movement research, climate crisis and authoritarianism", by Laurence Cox

Laurence Cox, Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and one of Europe’s best-known social movement scholars, will visit ICTA-UAB to give a public lecture.

 

Title: "Movements in crisis and a world on fire: social movement research, climate crisis and authoritarianism" 

 

Speaker: Laurence Cox, Professor at the National University of Ireland Maynooth 
 

• Date: Wednesday, June 4th 2025
• Time: 11 AM – 12:30 PM
• Place: Sala Polivalent de l’Eureka and online: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83569964591?pwd=pbbDmz6Y1bjb30VK8TcrSgRSeXjaGb.1

 

The most recent wave of climate activism in the global North seems to have hit its limits, while the growth of the far right and intensified repression threaten movement organising in general. In this context many dominant discourses about environmental and climate justice seem to have little real relevance for what we should actually do – as activists, as researchers or both. This lecture asks what we already know about how social movements from below develop and decline, how to understand “movements from above” in periods of historical crisis, how popular struggles can contribute towards large-scale social transformation and how we can help. It draws on a broad historical and decolonial perspective and close empirical study of actual movements on many different levels to outline a theoretical alternative both to despair and to wishful thinking. This in turn makes it possible to identify forms of action that have a realistic chance of making a difference.

 

Bio: Laurence Cox is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and one of Europe’s best-known social movement scholars. He is author/editor of fifteen books, including Why Social Movements Matter; We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism; Silence Would be Treason: Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa; Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Social Movements; and Haciendo otros mundos posibles: porqué los zapatistas nos importan, and founding co-editor of the activist-academic social movements journal Interface. He has been active in social movements since the 1980s and is currently involved in activist training work with the Ulex Project and the Movement Learning Catalyst.