The Young Sociologist of the Year Award - UCD School of Sociology essay competition for secondary school students

The Young Sociologist of the Year Award is an essay-based competition hosted by the UCD School of Sociology. The faculty at UCD Sociology are delighted to see so many students begin their studies in Politics and Society. This subject teaches secondary-school students how to begin questioning and analysing the world around them and developing the ability to become reflective and active citizens in our society.
This is the inaugural year of this competition and so we encourage as many schools as possible to get involved. The competition is open to all 5th and 6th year students studying Politics and Society.
To learn more about the application process and prizes to be won please visit. www.ucd.ie/sociology/newsandevents/politicsandsociety/

Travels with Tocqueville and Beaumont by Prof. Jeremy Jennings

The final seminar for this semester, Thursday 29th November, at 1pm in room D418, Newman Building. The School welcomes Professor Jeremy Jennings from King's College, London. For a seminar entitled "Travels with Tocqueville and Beaumont" All welcome to attend.

Prof. Andreas Hess radio interview on the contemporary relevance of Judith N. Shklar's political theory

One of our Sociology Professors Andreas Hess was recently interviewed by a journalist and producer working for Austrian public radio. This interview was conducted together with three other social scientists. The objective was to put together a one-hour feature on the contemporary relevance of Judith N. Shklar's political theory.

Here is the link to the full-length feature:

https://oe1.orf.at/player/20181121/533631

Congratulations Roland Adorjani named a finalist in the HEA Making an Impact Competition 2018

Congratulations to one of our PhD students Roland Adorjani who participated in the HEA Making an Impact 2018 competition and was selected as one of five finalists. The competition is across all universities and disciplines in Ireland and Roland was selected as one of the five most impactful students.


Here is a link to the video Roland submitted for assessment detailing his research.


https://youtu.be/x10Sa1V5VTs


The final of the competition will take place on the 22nd of January in the lighthouse cinema, Dublin. Best of luck Roland!


Find out more about the Higher Education Authority competition for communicating research.

Congratulations to Sarah Fahy for winning the Barry Foley Prize

Congratulations to one of our Graduate students Sarah Fahy who has been awarded the Barry Foley prize for 2017/2018. Sarah's winning essay was entitled 'A Conversation Between Mother Nature and Father Time'‌ from the module SOC30330 Contemporary Theory. Sarah will be presented with her award at the President's Awards ceremony in March.

You can read the winning essay here and learn more about the Barry Foley Essay Prize.

Well done Sarah from all of us at the School of Sociology!

'Caribbean Europe. Exercises in Unlearning Borders' Prof. Manuela Boatcă (University of Freiburg)

School of Sociology seminar series - 'Caribbean Europe. Exercises in Unlearning Borders'

Prof. Manuela Boatcă (University of Freiburg)
Thursday 22 November, 1pm. Room D418, Newman Building.

All welcome to attend, tea and coffee will be served before the seminar and please feel free to bring along your lunch. 

Manuela Boatcă is Professor of Sociology with a focus on macrosociology and Head of School of the Global Studies Programme at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany. Her work on world-systems analysis, postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, gender in modernity/coloniality and the geopolitics of knowledge in Eastern Europe and Latin America has appeared in the Journal of World-Systems Research, Cultural Studies, South Atlantic Quarterly, Political Power and Social Theory, Berliner Journal für Soziologie, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, Theory, Culture and Society, and Current Sociology. She is author of Global Inequalities beyond Occidentalism, Ashgate 2015 and co-editor (with E. Gutiérrez Rodríguez and S. Costa) of Decolonizing European Sociology. Transdisciplinary Approaches, Ashgate 2010 and of the Current Sociology monograph issue Dynamics of Inequalities in a Global Perspective (with V. Bashi Treitler), 2016. 

Mulhuddart Satellite by PhD Student Michael Mc Loughlin

Michael Mc Loughlin is one of our current PhD students at the School of Sociology. Check out his latest project as the artist in residence with Draíocht - Mulhuddart Satellite. Opening on Sat 17 November, 12 noon, Ground & First Floor Galleries, Draíocht, Dublin 15.

MULHUDDART SATELLITE BY MICHAEL MCLOUGHLIN DRAÍOCHT'S ARTIST-IN- RESIDENCE 2017-2019 Curated by Sharon Murphy November 17th2018 to February 23rd2019 Opening on Sat 17 November, 12 noon, Ground & First Floor Galleries, Draíocht, Dublin 15 To be opened by Mr. Fergus Finlay, Chief Executive, Barnardos Mulhuddart Satellite is a major exhibition by Michael McLoughlin, at the mid-point of his 3 year residency (2017 to 2019) in Mulhuddart, a community on the doorstep of Draíocht. The exhibition presents a number of mappings of Mulhuddart through drawings, soundscape, audio recordings and radio broadcasts. The artwork and accompanying engagement programme reflects the lived experience of people, groups, clubs and agencies who make Mulhuddart the community it is. Mulhuddart Satellite and the longer term relationship with Mulhuddart through McLoughlin's residency exemplifies Draíocht's local participation focus in its new 2018 to 2022 Strategy - ‘Space for the Arts' and the community involvement central to the work of Mulhuddart Priority Task Group and the recently published Mulhuddart Strategic Development and Implementation Plan. Mulhuddart has been a prominent west Dublin civil parish for hundreds of years. Along with Clonsilla and Castleknock it was one of the main three areas of what is now Dublin 15. With this exhibition, we aim to present visions of Mulhuddart as presented by clubs, community networks and groups of friends who help define this continually developing vibrant area. McLoughlin has been Artist in Residence in Draíocht since 2017. The role we asked Michael to take on was that of ‘diviner’ (as coined by Sharon Murphy, our Curator in Residence) to spend time in Mulhuddart developing an understanding of the communities within it and in turn begin to suggest possible linkages between Draíocht, Mulhuddart residents and the participations that could build potential points of connection. The Mulhuddart Satellite exhibition presents a number of ‘mappings’ of Mulhuddart, each presented as an installation in the gallery, drawings, or as public radio broadcasts. One piece, for instance, consists of a bank of wall mounted loudspeaker cones and was made from McLoughlin’s door to door calls to every home in Mulhuddart, in an attempt to record the names of every resident. Another draws on local archaeology and changes in what Mulhuddart is several over centuries. In the Ground Floor Gallery an installation that takes the name of the exhibition ‘Mulhuddart Satellite’ features spatial recordings of conversations between community groups in Mulhuddart and is made from banks of speakers hanging from the gallery ceiling through which the audience negotiate their way through conversation, chat and stories. As part of the Mulhuddart Satellite exhibition program, there is a series of events, workshops and screenings that you can find out more about in the Draíocht brochure, or on Draíocht.ie.  They include an exhibition in Riverdale Community College made in collaboration with students from the school, screenings of filmed work by young people from the area and we will be collaborating with 92.5 Phoenix FM to broadcast live from Draíocht’s artist studio. Overall the exhibition explores place, belonging, friendships and the connections we have to the people around us. This sense of place is something we can’t take for granted and exhibitions like Mulhuddart Satellite can act as a gentle reminder of how our relationships with neighbours, friends and family define us and the place we live.

About Michael McLoughlin Since the mid-1990s Michael McLoughlin has consistently developed and presented new ways of making contemporary artwork in social contexts. Within the few years alone he has made site specific audio work in Limerick (Cumann: An Audio Map of Limerick, Limerick City Gallery of Art), Drogheda (Cumann, Droichead Art Centre, & as part of Beyond the Pale, Highlanes) and in Dublin (Rest Here, UCD Sutherland School of Law & Ocean Wonder, Resort Revelations, Portrane). In 2017 he participated in Curating the Social: Meet me in the empty centreat PRAKSIS Oslo, Norway. He was also UCD College of Social Science & Law Artist in Residence in 2015, where he is currently a doctoral candidate in UCD School of Sociology, focus on relationship building, orderliness and participations in art practices in social contexts. About Sharon Murphy Sharon Murphy is a curator and lens-based artist. She has curated exhibitions in both gallery and public art contexts. Her curatorial practice is mainly focused on the place of the visual arts/visual culture in the lives of young people and concomitantly on supporting emerging artists whose practice is experimental and interdisciplinary. Her recent work has explored expanded notions and uses of the Gallery beyond traditional ’white box’ conventions and uses and, conceived as a social, creative, cultural space. She is resident curator at Draíocht. Mulhuddart Satellite is her eighth exhibition for Draíocht. About DraíochtBlanchardstown Draíocht, opened in 2001, is a multi-disciplinary arts and entertainment Centre in the heart of Dublin’s Blanchardstown. Choose from comedy, theatre, music, film, dance, family events, exhibitions and more. Draíocht welcomes over 50,000 people a year.  Draiocht's two Galleries are open Monday to Saturday 10am-6pm. Admission is Free. Draíocht is a registered charity venue generously funded by Fingal County Council with additional funding provided by The Arts Council. Draíocht also has a loyal network of Friends who contribute annually to the Company.

Toward a Decolonial Path A Lunchtime Discussion with Rolando Vázquez - Thursday 15 November, 1pm.

Toward a Decolonial Path

A Lunchtime Discussion with Rolando Vázquez

University College Roosevelt

Thursday, 15 November, 1pm

Comlamh, 12 Parliament St Dublin

Registration required, tickets free

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/toward-a-decolonial-path-tickets-52090856153

Decoloniality: ‘There could never be only one centre from which to view the world but that different people in the world had their culture and environment at the centre. The relevant question [is] therefore how one centre relate[s] to other centres...’ Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 
As is immediately legible within the term itself, decoloniality arises from contexts of colonial subjugation and resistance to it. In academic, education and activist circles, we see the ‘term’ being used more and more frequently. Its significance and value is that it actively centres and implicates legacies of western Anglo-European projects of colonial subjugations and empire-building in the here and now – in the current landscapes of our political, social and economic organising. 
This session of Decolonial Dialogues with Rolando Vasquez (University College Roosevelt) is a collaboration between Alice Feldman, Sive Bresnihan and David Nyaluke, and our respective organisational affiliations (UCD Sociology MA Race, Migration & Decolonial Studies, Comhlamh and UCD Proudly Made In Africa).  
For us, decoloniality differs from other perspectives that foreground issues such as ‘voice’, ‘representation’ and ‘standpoint’. What makes it distinct is its recognition of the impossible reach of the western colonial mindset, the extent of the ‘coloniality of [our] being[s]’ (Sylvia Wynter) and the consequent limitations of the strategies we use to create change. 
There are no easy answers here. 
The terms: colonial, anti-colonial, postcolonial, decolonial – what are the differences and why are they important? 
As people engaged in social justice organising and education, what does the decolonial frame invite us to consider that is new? 
How about decoloniality as a practice (embodied, ethical, political, creative, and committed to global justice)? What could that look like?
How to be cultivating a pluriverse through our work - arising through multiple knowledges, ways of knowing and being from a multitude of centres – rather than the universalising of particular worldviews?

Rolando Vázquez is associate professor of Sociology at University College Roosevelt and affiliated researcher at the Gender Studies Department and at the Research institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Utrecht. He coordinates the Middelburg Decolonial Summer School together with Walter Mignolo for the last nine Years. He has been engaged with the movement of Decolonial Aesthesis. He curated the workshop: 'Staging the End of the Contemporary' for MaerzMusik at the Berliner Festspiele in 2017. He co-authored the report of the Diversity Commission of the University of Amsterdam in 2016. Through his work he seeks to develop practices of thinking and learning that transgress the dominant frameworks of contemporaneity, heteronormativity and coloniality. His research on the question of precedence and relational temporalities seeks to overcome the western critique of modernity and contribute to the ongoing efforts to decolonize knowledge, aesthetics and subjectivity.

AI IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK! Everyday Life and the Digital Revolution - Prof. Anthony Elliott, Monday 26 November 1pm, Icon Theatre, Room H1.13, Science Hub

In this provocative lecture, Cambridge-trained sociologist Anthony Elliott argues that much of what passes for conventional wisdom about the AI Revolution is either ill-considered or plain wrong.  The reason?  AI is not so much about the future, but is rather a revolution already well underway – albeit one which is unfolding in complex and uneven ways across the globe.

From industrial robots to chatbots, and from driverless cars to military drones – AI, Elliott argues, is transforming all aspects of our lives, from the most intimate aspects of personal relationships to the changing nature of work, employment and unemployment.

Elliott explores how intelligent machines, advanced robotics, accelerating automation, big data and the Internet of Everything are impacting everyday life and modern societies.  The rise of smart machines transforms the global economy, but equally there are now massive changes to society and everyday life.  In order to grasp the full impact of these transformations, Elliott focuses not only on automated technology and jobs and employment, but also AI and new forms of social interaction and the transformation of private life.

ANTHONY ELLIOTT is Dean of External Engagement at the University of South Australia, where he is Research Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Hawke EU Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and Network on AI and Digital Transformation.  He is Super-Global Professor of Sociology (Visiting) at Keio University, Japan and Visiting Professor of Sociology at UCD, Ireland.  He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.  Recently he was appointed to the Expert Working Group of the Academy of the Council of Learned Academies in Australia to investigate: “Deployment of artificial intelligence and what it presents for Australia”. The project has been commissioned by the Chief Scientist of Australia, Dr Alan Finkel, at the request of the Prime Minister’s Commonwealth Science Council, and with support from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.  He is the author of some 40 books in social theory and modern sociology, including most recently Reinvention, Identity Troubles and The Culture of AI, all published by Routledge.

Today's seminar 'The Emergence of Inequality in Social Groups' with Milena Tsvetkova (LSE)

School of Sociology seminar series - 'The Emergence of Inequality in Social Groups'

Dr Milena Tsvetkova  (LSE)
Thursday 8th November, 1pm. Room D418, Newman Building.

All welcome to attend, tea and coffee will be served before the seminar and please feel free to bring along your lunch. 

From small communities to entire nations and society at large, inequality in wealth, social status, and power is one of the most pervasive and tenacious features of the social world. What causes inequality to emerge and persist? In this talk, I will present recent and current research that investigates how the structure and rules of our interactions can increase inequality in social groups. In a recent meta-analytic study, we looked into the effects of four structural conditions – network structure, network fluidity, reputation tracking, and punishment institutions – on the distribution of earnings in network cooperation games. We analyzed 33 experiments comprising 96 experimental conditions altogether and found that there is more inequality in clustered networks compared to random networks, in fixed networks compared to randomly rewired and strategically updated networks, and in groups with punishment institutions compared to groups without. Inequality emerges under these conditions because fixed networks allow exploitation of the poor by the wealthy and clustered networks foster segregation between the poor and the wealthy, while the burden of costly punishment falls onto the poor, leaving them poorer. In current work, we are developing large-scalegamified online experiments to study how competition, group identity, and visibility of heterogeneity could further increase inequality in cooperative environments. Overall, our research relates to strategies and interventions to decrease inequality and mitigate its negative impact, particularly in the context of mid- and large-sized organizations and online communities.
 

Bio

Milena Tsvetkova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She completed her PhD in Sociology at Cornell University in 2015. Prior to joining LSE, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.Milena’s research interests lie in the fields of computational and experimental social science. She employs online experiments, network analysis, and agent-based models to study fundamental social phenomena such as cooperation, contagion, segregation, and inequality. Currently, she is collaborating with computer scientists to combine gamification and citizen science and develop new methods for large-scale network experiments online.