Movements, Policy and the Politics of Inequality

Theme in the Politics of Inequality research programme

This theme examines how movements and activists engage with, challenge, and seek to shape policy processes and wider political transformations to tackle inequalities through forms of mobilization as well as everyday forms of action and resistance.

Adopting a comparative and international perspective, the research considers the agency of actors and the ways in which movements  and activists are challenging inequalities, demanding social justice, and advancing critiques of neoliberalism. Looking beyond forms of resistance, the research also examines how social movements and activists  prefiguratively adopt alternative social relations and models of wellbeing as well as  how they imagine and enact utopian futures. The research seeks to advance our  understanding of the factors which shape the ability of movements to achieve wider socio-political and cultural transformations  as well as policy change through collective action.

The lead investigator and coordinator of this project is Dr Armine Ishkanian

This research consists of two projects: 

• Activism, Policy and Transformation
• Demanding a ‘just recovery’ from below: the role of grassroots accountability activism in safeguarding labour migrants’ rights in the pandemic era