7. Kath Browne: ‘Beyond Opposition’ – How can we live together when we don’t agree?
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In this episode, Niamh chats with Professor Kath Browne, a social and cultural geographer at UCD. We discuss her fascinating ERC-funded project, Beyond Opposition, which seeks to explore the everyday experiences of people who are opposed to, or have concerns about, legislative and cultural changes around same sex marriage, abortion, gender self-identification and other sexual and gender equalities. The project also explores how we might address the social polarisation that has emerged between people occupying different standpoints on sexual and gender rights.
Kath’s work probes what it means for feminist/LGBT+ movements ‘when we feel both under threat and simultaneously we are gaining some forms of power?’. In our conversation, Kath discusses the heterogeneity among those opposed to different forms of gender/LGBT+ equalities; the ways in which they experience public space now that they can no longer assume that their views are widely accepted; the ethical and emotional aspects of doing research with people opposed to your very way of being; and the potential for radical empathy. Kath’s research also questions some of the unintended consequences of some LGBT+ activism, and asks how, if at all, we might overcome some of the social polarisation that defines contemporary politics and social life.
For more information on the Beyond Opposition project, check out: https://beyondopposition.org/
The Gaza Fundraiser is here:https://www.patreon.com/posts/thank-you-from-100216021
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56:25
6. Emma Penny on Working Class Studies, Activism and Culture
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Emma Penney is a working class academic whose work contributes to the exciting and ever-expanding field of ‘Working Class Studies’. She is also an activist and archivist who is committed to celebrating the still woefully under-recognised and ignored arts and praxis of working class communities in Ireland. Now based in Sligo, Emma is a lecturer in the Atlantic Technological University and she’s also a joint founder, with the poet and activist Sophie Meehan, of the extraordinary online Working-Class Writing Archive.
In this episode, Emma talks about the importance of her self-identification as a working class academic, and why she has used the term ‘welfare class’ to capture her embodied experiences of life and work in the purportedly class free environment of the university.
Emma is currently completing a book for Liverpool University Press, entitled: ‘Women Writing the Margins: Working-Class Writing and Activism in Ireland’s Second Wave Feminist Movement’. Here she discusses the distinctive forms of feminism and creativity that emerged from working class women’s groups during the 1980s and 1990s, but which often operated below the radar of state funding and employment scheme priorities, or indeed academic interest. The importance of archival work is a central theme in this interview, and Emma explains the origins and rationale behind the online Working-Class Writing Archive, and her hopes for its future.
She also reads some poetry, giving listeners a brief but beautiful taster of the cultural practice of the working class communities, poets and writers whose work constitutes the archive.
The Gaza Fundraiser is here:https://www.patreon.com/posts/update-from-from-99005710
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1:39:23
5. Gavan Titley on ‘Free Speech’
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In this episode, Rosie and Gavan Titley consider the politics behind ‘PC gone mad’ or ‘Cancel culture’ type controversies, and what might be distinctive or new about contemporary free speech related anxieties. Gavan explains the concepts of ‘post-racial’ societies and ‘frozen racism’ and how, when linked to dominant ideas about free speech, they are used to close down discussions about racism and racialisation.
Gavan Titley is based in the Department of Media Studies in Maynooth University, and the interview largely centres on his important book, ‘Is Free Speech Racist?’ which was published by Polity Press in 2020. It also anticipates some of the issues that will be explored in his upcoming book ‘What is Free Speech For?’ (Bristol University Press).
Gavan talks about his motivations for writing the books, before moving onto a philosophically rich exploration of what ‘free speech’ means and what it is (often) taken to mean. He explains how ‘commitments to free speech’ and a willingness to be ‘offended’ are used to police racialised non-European peoples and Muslims, in particular; how the cover of ‘freedom’ becomes a measure of their capacity to be integrated into western society, dovetailing with migration control and so-called counter-terrorism regimes.
It is also apparent, within the current conjuncture, that if some people and communities are deemed ‘suspect’ in relation to free speech, they are also deemed less deserving of it. The interview closes with some thoughts on the scope for activists to challenge or push back against these cynical and racist deployments of free speech in politically productive ways.
Gaza Fundraiser:https://www.patreon.com/posts/important-update-98690483
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2:05:26
Where is the ‘Care’ in Social Care?
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In this episode, Niamh talks to Dr Majella Mulkeen of Atlantic Technological University about her research on the framing of care within the Standards of Proficiency for Social Care Workers (SOPs) in Ireland. As Majella explains, the SOPs are set down by the Social Care Workers Registration Board.
They detail the skills and abilities that individuals must possess in order to enter the register of social care workers, i.e. to be able to legally practise in Ireland using the protected title of ‘social care worker’. Drawing on research outlined in her 2020 paper in the Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, Majella explains the background to these developments and offers a critical yet constructive reading of the SOPs.
This is a timely interview, not only because the Social Care Workers Register opened in November 2023, but also because how care is understood, practised and valued in Irish society is a pressing concern, whose significance extends far beyond one sector.
The latest report from the West Bank with Hannah McCarty is out now here:https://www.patreon.com/posts/patron-exclusive-98331907
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1:21:50
3. All We Want is the Earth
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In this wide-ranging conversation, Rosie talks with Patrick Bresnihan and Naomi Millner about their wonderful co-authored book ‘All We Want is the Earth - Land, Labour and Movements Beyond Environmentalism’.
Published by Bristol University Press in July 2023, the book critiques what its authors describe as ‘modern environmentalism’ and conventional understandings of who does and what counts as environmental politics. In this interview, Naomi and Paddy highlight and re-centre the radical ecological legacies of a diverse array of movements, activists and thinkers from the Global South, and other contexts, over the past 80 years or so. These include Dolores Huerta, César Chávez and United Farm Workers’ who organised on behalf of migrant farmworkers in California during the 1960s; Mexican agronomists such as Edmundo Taboada; and movements associated with Autonomous Marxism, Wages for Housework and Zero Work.
Paddy and Naomi recognise the prescience of Amílcar Cabral, Sylvia Wynter and others who forged essential connections between anti/decolonial and ecological struggles. They consider more recent movements too, such as La Vía Campesina, The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, the Zapatistas and how they challenged capitalist globalisation and resource extraction in the name of food-sovereignty, indigenous rights and the commons. And they point us towards vibrant forms of Earth Politics, that centre Indigenous knowledges and the imagery of Madre Tierra (Mother Earth), while also re-imagining human and non-human relationships.
The Múscailt on Social Care is out now here:https://www.patreon.com/posts/97892405
Múscailt is a podcast of interviews with scholars and writers who are raising important questions about Irish society through their research. Committed to critique and hope in equal measure, the show features discussions on a range of issues relating to ecology, criminal justice, politics, sexuality, culture, identity, social policy and more. Join hosts Rosie Meade and Niamh McCrea for in-depth, convivial conversations with guests who want to share their work on Irish society with new audiences.
Ireland