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.

“An American Story – Race Amity and the Other Tradition” Screening and Q&A with the filmmaker: Dr. William H. ‘Smitty’ Smith

Thursday 25 October, 7.30pm - Come along to a screening of “An American Story – Race Amity and the Other Tradition” There will also be a Q&A with the filmmaker: Dr. William H. ‘Smitty’ Smith, NTH 1 on the lower ground floor of the Newman Building in UCD.  This is a free event and all are welcome to attend.

Lunch time seminar with Ann Averill - Thursday 18 October 1pm

School of Sociology seminar series - 'Irish Nationalism and Globalisation: A Study of the Generation Born Between 1976 and 1986'

Ann Averill recently completed PhD student - UCD Sociology
Thursday 18th October, 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. 

Ann Averill was awarded an MSocSc from University College Dublin in 2014. She commenced her PhD in 2014 at UCD School of Sociology. She submitted her doctoral thesis titled Irish Nationalism and Globalisation: a Study of the Generation Born between 1976 and 1986 in June, she recently completed her PhD by passing her viva examination. 

Ann's seminar will address themes such as the historical sociology of Irish nationalism and how Irish nationalism evolved in line with societal changes, before and after independence. Contemporary Irish nationalism among people born between 1976 and 1986 who grew up in Ireland and are now living in two locations, Dublin and London, the ways of thinking, feeling and acting among this generation, and how emotions inform their nationalism, as well as the role of inter-generational values in informing their decisions. Also the 1916 commemorations in Dublin in 2016 and contemporary emotional engagement with nationalism in Ireland today.

New podcast: Wolfgang Marx about the UCD common room

In this episode of "Dublin Calling - the student podcast" our PhD student Mark Doyle talks with Associate Professor Wolfgang Marx about the threatened closure of the UCD common room.

Professor Payam Akhavan Seminar - 'In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey'

School of Sociology seminar series - Jointly hosted with the School of Law

Professor Payman Akhavan - McGill University
Wednesday 10th October, 1pm. Moot Court - Sutherland Building

All welcome to attend, tea and coffee will be served before the seminar.