Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Research Centres, Institutes and Projects
  3. Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century
  4. News and Events

News and Events

Symposium Abstracts

LIST OF ABSTRACTS 

Prof. Linda Connolly, Professor of Sociology and Director, Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute.

Undeservedly Forgotten: Gender-based violence, impunity, documents and testimony.

The history of views and factors that have influenced the treatment and abuse of women in western societies applies to the question of wartime violence. This paper focuses on the impact of conflict-related violent conflict, in the latter stage of the Irish revolution (1919-23) and in its aftermath, on women’s lives. Each woman I write about in this project was an individual who deserved respect and support for the ordeals they experienced. Silence, fear and impunity too often prevailed over justice for crimes perpetrated. The retelling and recovery of their stories is a reminder to contemporary societies of the continued importance of tackling the root causes of gender-based and sexual violence that has impacted the lives of millions of girls and women globally, including in warfare.

Dr Monica O’Mullane, School of Public Health, UCC 

Using a Stop & Share Action Research Reflective Method in Doing and Researching Health Impact Assessment: The Case of the HIA on the Cork City Development Plan (2022-2028)  
The presentation will share empirical research findings on three rounds of one-to-one Stop & Share action research reflections that were conducted with twelve members from the HIA team who are involved in a Health Impact Assessment on the Cork City Development Plan (2022-2028). Two researchers from the HIA-IM project facilitated the reflections. HIA-IM is a Health Research Bord funded project that seeks to create a contextualized HIA Implementation Model from the doing of two HIAs. The presentation will share findings on the data that emerged on the process of doing the HIA, as well as reflections around the usefulness of such a method in creating space for participants to both reflect on the process of HIA as well as on the role that reflection plays in the HIA.  

 

Zara Harnett, Dr Laura Linehan and Prof Keelin O’Donoghue, PLRG, Obstetrics and Gynaecology and INFANT Research Centre 

Enhancing pregnancy loss and fertility awareness and knowledge amongst young people within school settings 
Pregnancy and infant loss, in the form of miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death, occurs in 20–25% of all pregnancies. Despite prevalence and associated physical and psychological impacts, there remains a lack of public awareness and understanding of pregnancy loss, including amongst people of reproductive age. We make the case for enhancing pregnancy loss and (in)fertility awareness, specifically focusing on young people in second-level education. We situate our work within reproductive health and reproductive justice frames, recognising the impact of social factors on people’s reproductive lives, and the need for multi-level interventions to enable people to fully realise their reproductive rights. Although schools provide an important setting to learn about and discuss topics relating to sexual and reproductive health - including pregnancy loss and fertility – current evidence suggests that this is not happening. Our new SPRING project aims to improve this knowledge at secondary school age level, with future interventions developed in collaboration with all relevant knowledge users, including young people themselves. 
 
https://www.ucc.ie/en/pregnancyloss/researchprojects/spring/ 

 

Dr Conor Cashman and Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan, School of Applied Social Studies, UCC  

The Policy and Practice Impact of Engaged Research with Offshore Island Communities 
This paper will explore an engaged research project with offshore island communities on their housing needs. In 2022, island representative and community groups sought assistance from social scientists in UCC to support their advocacy work on housing, which was emerging as a critical issue for residents and potential residents. Throughout the following year, UCC and island community groups developed and disseminated the research survey, published recommendations based on the research, and engaged with policymakers on the research findings. This paper will provide reflections on that research journey and outcomes - documenting the community-engaged design, the impact of the research and how action-oriented interventions can be achieved through collaborative partnership with communities and critical engagement with the political system. 

 

Dr Tom Boland, Department of Sociology & Criminology, UCC   

Employment Transformations: Career Guidance as the handmaiden of capitalism or empowering?  

At the interface between education, work and welfare, Career Guidance has emerged as a mediator of the formation of subjects. Fitfully and unevenly, Career Guidance emerged historically, and is variously instituted at school, university and service-level organisations. Ostensibly, career guidance helps individuals to find a match with a vocation or profession, discover their skills and orientation and motivate individuals in navigating the labour market, often repeatedly. From a critical perspective (Grey, 1997, Fejes & Dahlstedt, 2013) career guidance operates as the handmaiden of capitalism, buttressing the work ethic, reconciling individuals to limited choices and directing flows of cultural and symbolic capitalism. From an emancipatory perspective, career guidance can empower individuals by helping them understand their structural situation and supporting their self-development and agency (Hooley, et al, 2017, 2018). Encoded in both of these perspectives is the notion that career guidance, among other forms of ‘pastoral power’, can serve to transform subjects in one way or another. In this paper, I examine both genealogically and through interviews with contemporary Career Guidance Counsellors, that the notion of transforming people, through conversation, advice and the market, is already central and explicit. To close, this leads to a problematisation of how ideas about ‘transformation’ pervade contemporary social sciences. 

 

Dr Nicola Ingram, School of Education, UCC 

The re(making) of elites in education and employment transitions: embodied cultural capital and symbolic closure 

In this paper I draw on three research projects spanning a 12 year period to make an argument for the importance of embodied cultural capital in the making of elites and the reproduction of structures of domination. I explore how this plays out in both education and employment transitions. Embodied cultural capital is a key site for the generation of symbolic closure, which is the control of classificatory definitions of value that demarcate recognition and misrecognition within social settings. The paper pulls together insights from a project on working-class teenage masculinities and urban schooling in Belfast, North of Ireland; a project on higher education, social mobility and social class in Bristol, England; and a project on private school entry to Oxbridge, based in a school in the North of England. I advance an argument for the significance of the body and associated affects as an ultimate locus of recognition for elites and exclusion for those from dominated groups, even when educational success is equal. 

 

Dr Lauren Bari, Management and Marketing, UCC    

The cost of flexibility: glass ceilings, the pressures of parenthood and the transition to solo self-employment.  
Self-employment offers greater levels of flexibility than waged employment. This flexibility is often sought after by the working mother demographic for whom waged work can be undesirable and unmanageable. This paper explores how self-employed mothers negotiate their work-family balance. We ask the extent to which increased flexibility and control over location, timing and conditions of work eases work-family conflict relative to waged work. The results suggest that rather than facilitating a more equitable sharing of domestic and caring tasks, the flexibility offered by self-employment leads to women multi-tasking, managing the ‘mental load’ of the household. We see inflexibility and discriminatory attitudes towards women in waged work push women into ‘going out on their own’ as well as common themes of unexpected sickness, additional needs, and the unpredictability of family life. Through these conversations we see choice and constraint narratives play out. Women use flexible working arrangements to continue to navigate dual responsibilities under situations of structural constraint but also displaying clear preference for prioritising time with children.  

 

Dr Evelien Geerts, Philosophy & Women's Studies, UCC    

Why Memes (Analyses) Matter: Critical New Materialisms for Troubled Times 

Sketched out against the backdrop of the far right’s conspiratorial response to the Anthropocenic COVID-19 crisis and the hopelessness this pandemic seemingly embodied on an existential level, this paper analyses Schild & Vrienden’s [Shield & Friends’] memetic activism through the lens of contemporary critical new materialist philosophies. Part of the global far right, Schild & Vrienden positions itself as a Belgian Flemish alt-right youth movement out to metapolitically alter society, consequently undermining democracy (see Pano 2018; Maly 2019). In line with many other identitarian groups, digital meme-making and sharing is Schild & Vrienden’s preferred metapolitical or culture-altering strategy. Arguing that the powers of digital memes, commonly spread and reworked by social media users before going “viral” as agential artefacts, should not be philosophically underestimated, as many memes, and particularly the alt-right memes of Schild & Vrienden and consortia, possess “making live and letting die”-powers (Haraway 2016; Lykke 2019), this paper tries to unravel the dehumanizing matter(ings) of memes and their affective hauntings by using Schild & Vrienden’s memetic activism as its primary case study. A troubling, grounded hopeembodying critical new materialist perspective – influenced by Baradian (2007; 2010) agential realism, Deleuzoguattarian (2005) micropolitics, and a Braidottian (2013) posthumanist politics of affirmation – is then used to unpack the matter(ings) of memes, including their potential feminist countermatterings amidst troubled times. 

 

Dr Dan McCarthy, Centre for Planning Education and Research, UCC    

Shifting the Burden: Corporate/Indigenous Relations in Canadian Contexts and How They Often Go Wrong 

This presentation offers the Shifting the Burden Archetype (Senge / Stroh) to document a systemic pattern that is unfortunately, often unconscious to the parties involved and inadvertently leads to the undermining of corporate or government / Indigenous relationships in Canada, despite best intentions.  Based on over a decade of experience in these contentious contexts, the presentation will document a set of interacting feedback loops that illustrate an unfortunate set of patterns of behaviour, based on starkly different worldviews, in which the choice to engage in more superficial attempts at relationship building actually undermine the ability of the parties to engage in the more difficult but fundamental solution of trust-based relationships.  Recommendations for interventions in these typical or archetypal relationships will be made based on an understanding of the dynamics of the system and process design. 

 

Dr Kieran Keohane, Sociology & Criminology, UCC 

Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization: from diagnosis towards metanoia. 
 
“Neither the life [or the health] of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both” (Mills 1953), so here we will trace a broad comparative-historical-sociological arc from Greece and Rome, through the Dark Ages, into Renaissance, Enlightenment, Modernity, and to our late modern, neo-liberal era, outlining a general hypothesis that epidemics of depression, anxiety, suicidality, addictions, pleonexia, despair, nihilism, and even dementia are related to cultural pathologies of the social body and disorders of the collective ésprit de corps that arise during historically recurring cycles of liminal collapse and transition. And by extension and corollary we will explore what might be done to ameliorate human sufferings and to propagate societies in which people may lead a happier, healthier, more hopeful and more meaningful life. 

 

Dr Elena Kavanagh, School of Law, UCC

Weaving a Web of Resilience: Indigenous Knowledge and Global Risk Governance 

 Apart from climate change, crisis narratives include nuclear war, pandemics, and transformative artificial intelligence forming potential world-ending scenarios. However, non-state Indigenous perspectives and non-Western world views are frequently left out of these conversations. As custodians of the lands, Indigenous Peoples possess traditional Knowledge that could be invaluable in mitigating these risks. Doing so ought not to instrumentalise Indigenous Knowledge solely as tools to help humanity address global polycrisis. As historically colonised populations, Indigenous peoples have grounds to possess rights to participate in decisions that affect them, derived from their right to self-determination. In light of the recently adopted UN Pact for the Future and the EU Risks on the Horizon report, the current presentation emphasises acknowledgement of Indigenous Knowledge and fair inclusion of Indigenous participation. It aims to open the debate on the adequacy of the current measures for preventing catastrophic and existential risks. 

 

Dr Claire Dorrity, School of Applied Social Studies, UCC and Dr Naomi Masheti, the Cork Migrant Centre

Navigating the Integration Process: The participation of migrants in shaping better understandings of exclusion. 

This presentation focuses on barriers to integration experienced by migrants in Ireland.  It draws on some of the preliminary findings of the MiEd Project, a UNIC Alliance Seed Funded Project, examining specific challenges faced by migrants in accessing education. While the focus of the project is on barriers to higher education, the research reveals how barriers to education exist at all levels of the integration process and involve multi-layered complexities, that include social, cultural, religious, political, legal and economic challenges that perpetuate cycles of disadvantage.   
Through active participation and co-creation in the research process, this paper highlights how the participation of migrants lends to more informed and deeper understanding of exclusion. This not only enriches understanding of specific challenges faced by migrants, but also contributes to new theoretical understandings that shape expert knowledge informed by co-creative and democratising processes. 

 

Dr Catherine Forde, Dr Fiona Dukelow, Edith Busteed, School of Applied Social Studies,UCC 

Intersectional climate justice, climate policy and the Irish welfare state: elusive connections. 
The climate crisis is increasingly making its impact known and will have a growing bearing on the future of welfare states. Climate policy and climate action plans are gradually becoming more central to the policy repertoire of nation states. At the same time, the challenge of meeting climate targets as global temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb will likely intensify re/distributional conflicts. Yet recognising and responding to climate injustices, both in terms of vulnerability to climate impacts and the uneven burdens and benefits of climate policies, remain largely absent in that policy repertoire. This paper reflects on this situation in the Irish context. It is based on the research findings of a baseline policy review the authors produced for a project currently being undertaken by the National Women’s Council of Ireland and Community Work Ireland called ‘Feminist Communities for Climate Justice’. Drawing on eco-feminist and intersectional perspectives, in this paper we first scope out a framework for understanding climate justice and outline why an intersectional understanding of climate justice is crucial but also highly complex and challenging to realise. Informed by this framework, we then proceed to track and analyse the degree to which intersectional climate justice features in Ireland’s Climate Action Plan, which was first published in 2019 and is updated annually, and in related areas of social policy. We find a policy landscape where fundamental aspects of climate justice are missing, and where there are both enormous data gaps and a lack of recognition of the knowledge and experiences of women and marginalised communities and of how they intersect. While there are some attempts at recognising climate justice issues these remain highly siloed and disconnected from any overall picture and effort. Notwithstanding the fact that realising climate justice will always be a ‘work in progress’ (Walker, 2012), for Ireland to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 in a fair and just way, as stated in Ireland’s Climate Action Plan, there is much to be done to recognise and respond to the climate injustices experienced by women and marginalised communities. 

 

Dr  Vittorio Bufacchi, Dr Piaras MacEinri, Dr Gertrude Cotter, Dr Yasmine Ahmed, Jody Ponce & Dr Amin Sharifi Isaloo. Philosophy, Geography, Centre for Global Development, Sociology & Criminology, School of Society, Politics and Ethics. 

Populism and the rise of far-right 

Short presentations followed by dialogue and discussion. 

In recent years, the far-right and populist movements have gained striking momentum across Europe. Their emergence, their online and offline activities and mobilisations not only indicate a democratic deficit, but they have also resulted in declining respect for human rights, equality, justice and international norms. Far-right ideologies and values such as self-interest, lack of solidarity, greed, xenophobia and racism are shared across EU borders and are increasingly seen as a transnational threat. Thus, the impact of their activities can be profound on people and communities at the receiving end of their action.  Considering the crisis, Covid-19, wars and conflicts, this panel discussion will revolve around the consideration of the developments around the far-right in the European as well as the Irish context and the discussants will explore possible strategies to cope with the dangers posed by the far-right and to revive democracy. 

 

Bob Grumiau, Sociology & Criminology, UCC 

‘nos hemos escondido: we have hidden ourselves’  

In the months that followed the Chilean revolution of 2019, local assemblies gathered to reconstruct the social tissue in their neighborhoods. Acting upon a malestar (unease) with a system and a political class that protestors traced back to the authoritarian implementation of a neoliberal regime in Chile, neighbors came together to create communal networks based in different modes of relatedness and responsibility. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork and participatory action research (Mackenzie et al. 2012) conducted during the protests, this paper argues that a neoliberal imaginary and the central role attributed to the market as administrator of social relations have shaped the way in which social interactions and spaces are actively lived in Chile. We suggest that in response, Chilean street- assemblies have acted to reconstruct social tissue by reconnecting participants with each other. In doing so, they established themselves as ethical spaces for decision making that allow for contingency and not-knowing. 

 

Dr Gill Harold and Dr Noel O'Connell, School of Applied Social Studies, UCC 

Mind the Gap! Challenging poor access provision for deaf sign language users in public healthcare systems 

International evidence indicates that sign language users experience inequalities when accessing public health systems, as compared with hearing people. Inconsistent access provision by public health providers, poor communication strategies and low deaf awareness levels among healthcare professionals all amount to chronic disadvantage leading to health disparities. This paper presents the key findings of the ISL HEALTH project which was funded under the IRC New Foundations scheme. The research was carried out in partnership with Cork Deaf Association and Community K (formerly Kerry Deaf Resource Centre), in consultation with the HSE’s National Office for Human Rights and Equality Police. The research set out to better understand the audist systems and practices which privilege hearing ways of being, towards identifying transformative strategies to eliminate the discrimination experienced by members of Deaf communities in public health systems. 

  • So much change in academia: and yet how much?

    28 Nov 2024
    So much change in academia: and yet how much?

    On 19th November, ISS21 Genders, Sexualities & Families research cluster and MA Women’s Studies in association with UCC Futures – Collective Social Futures presented a talk by Pat O’Connor, emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Limerick, and Visiting Professor, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.

    Read more

  • Making Space for Play in Irish Schoolyards

    28 Nov 2024
    Making Space for Play in Irish Schoolyards

    At a seminar held on 28 November, Dr. Michelle Bergin presented a paper on the “Making Space for Play in Irish Schoolyards” project, which aims to evaluate existing provision for children’s right to play in diverse schoolyards and to inform how we can support schools to create conditions for all children to play. The seminar was hosted by the ISS21 Children and Young People Research Cluster & UCC Futures – Children.

     

    Read more

  • Dementia Lifeworlds Symposium

    05 Dec 2024
    Dementia Lifeworlds Symposium

    The first Dementia Lifeworlds Symposium took place on Wednesday 29th November at UCC and was an occasion for the research project team to bring ideas on the table, to explore and establish common ground, and to share interests and ideas.

    Read more

  • Imaging/imagining Reproductive Crisis

    09 Dec 2024
    Imaging/imagining Reproductive Crisis

    In this workshop Dr Rebecca Close explored the entanglements between images and imaginations of the so-called fertility crisis as constitutive of the epistemic, affective and political investments that determine how societies manage reproductive capacities and practices.

    Read more

Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century (ISS21)

Top Floor, Carrigbawn/Safari Building, Donovan Road, Cork, T12 YE30

Choose areas of the website to search
Top