It is now widely accepted that inequality is the defining issue of our time and there is growing research on the drivers and impacts of inequalities, but there has been less focus on how inequalities are experienced and resisted by ordinary people and communities. The new AFSEE/III Politics of Inequality research theme explores the practices of resistance, mobilisation, and contestation from a bottom-up perspective.
This panel discussed the following questions:
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why we established this theme
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why research on collective action and everyday resistance against a wide range of social, cultural, economic and political inequalities is important in advancing our understandings of not only how inequalities are experienced, but also how they can be tackled
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how research on this theme brings together interdisciplinary perspectives to contribute to on-going research and teaching across LSE as well as engaging with wider global debates.
Panelist
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.
Panelist
Professor Ellen Helsper
Ellen Helsper is Professor of Digital Inequalities in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, where she also serves as Programme Director for the MSc Media and Communications (Research). She is also a Faculty Associate at the LSE International Inequalities Institute. Her current research interests include the links between social and digital inequalities; mediated interpersonal communication; participatory immersive digital spaces (VR, ER); and quantitative and qualitative methodological developments in media and communications research.
Panelist
Professor John Chalcraft
John Chalcraft is Professor of Middle East History and Politics in the Department of Government at LSE. He graduated with a starred first in history (M.A. Hons) from Gonville and Caius college Cambridge in 1992. He then did post-graduate work at Harvard, Oxford and New York University, from where he received his doctorate with distinction in the modern history of the Middle East in January 2001. He held a Research Fellowship at Caius college (1999-2000) and was a Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Edinburgh University from 2000-05.
Panelist
Dr Flora Cornish
Flora Cornish is an Associate Professor in Qualitative Research Methodology at the Department of Methodology at LSE and a Faculty Associate at the LSE International Inequalities Institute. She is a community psychologist investigating the role of grassroots mobilisation in improving public health, both through local-level community responses to health crises, and through wider organising, coalition-building and campaigning.
Panelist
Professor Sumi Madhok
Sumi Madhok is Professor of Political Theory and Gender Studies and Head of the LSE Department of Gender Studies. Her work combines theoretical, conceptual and philosophical investigations with detailed ethnographies of the lived experiences, political subjectivation, and political struggles for rights and justice, specifically, in South Asia.
Chair
Professor Alpa Shah
Alpa Shah is Professor in Anthropology at LSE. She also leads a research programme at the LSE International Inequalities Institute on ‘Global Economies of Care’. Professor Shah's "Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas” was winner of the 2020 Association of Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize, shortlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the New India Foundation Book Prize.
