The world is facing multiple crises that are responsible for widening economic and social inequalities and insecurities, ranging from climate change to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over the past decade, movements such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Occupy, and the Indignados have confronted States and elites, challenged inequalities and mobilised to bring about greater justice, democracy, and progressive policy changes. This event brought together speakers who are working at the intersection of research and policy to discuss the question: what is the relationship between policy and social change?
Drawing on their research and practice and in conversation with each other, Atlantic Institute’s Leaders in Residence, Amara Enyia and Tracy Jooste, and LSE academic Robtel Neajai Pailey considered how in the wake of the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic we can not only build back better, but also build differently.
Panelist
Tracy Jooste
Tracy Jooste is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, and a public policy practitioner, researcher, and social impact lead. She has successfully championed fairer access to housing, water, sanitation, and healthcare for low-income households in South Africa, with a focus on women and youth. She has also led gender-responsive budgeting programs for the last few years and currently supports gender justice initiatives in the Global South.
Panelist
Amara Enyia
Amara Enyia (@AmaraEnyia) is the Manager of Policy and Research with the Movement for Black Lives and founder of Global Black. She is also a strategist and public policy expert working on local and national policy as well as international affairs and foreign policy.
Panelist
Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey
Robtel Neajai Pailey (@RobtelNeajai) is an Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy at the Department of Social Policy at LSE and a Faculty Associate at the LSE International Inequalities Institute. A Liberian scholar-activist working at the intersection of Critical Development Studies, Critical African Studies and Critical Race Studies, Robtel centres her research on how structural transformation is conceived and contested by local, national and transnational actors from ‘crisis’-affected regions of the so-called Global South.
Chair
Professor Armine Ishkanian
Armine Ishkanian is the Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme and Professor in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research examines the relationship between civil society, democracy, development, and social transformation.
Banner Image: Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
