Collective Social Futures Festival of Social Science 2025

Symposium Abstracts & Biographical Details

 

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Professor Kathleen Lynch, University College Dublin

Title of Presentation: Beyond Human Capitalist Education and Research: Epistemic and Affective Considerations

Biographical details

Kathleen Lynch is a sociologist and Professor of Equality Studies (Emerita) at University College Dublin (UCD) where she has also held a Senior Lectureship in Education. She has served as a member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) for the past five years and was elected to the executive of the Global Forum for Rehumanizing Education in 2025.

Kathleen has worked over many years to promote equality and social justice through research, education and activism. Her teaching and research are guided by the belief that the purpose of scholarship and research is not just to understand the world but to change it for the good of all humanity. To that end,  she played a leading role in establishing the UCD Equality Studies Centre (1990) and the UCD School of Social Justice (2004/5). This involved developing and teaching Outreach, undergraduate and graduate programmes to promote equality and social justice for over 30 years.

She has authored many articles,  and a number of books on all types of equality and social justice issues, The Hidden Curriculum, 1989, Equality and Education, 1999,  Equality and Power in Schools, co-authored with Anne Lodge,(2002), and Equality: From Theory to Action (2004 co-authored with J. Baker, S. Cantillon and J. Walsh).

Her more recent work is focused on the relationship between care and social justice, notably Affective Equality: Love, Care and Injustice (2009 lead author); New Managerialism in Education: Commercialisation, Carelessness and Gender (co-authored with B. Grummell and D. Devine) (2012, 2015); and Care and Capitalism: Why Affective Equality Matters for Social Justice, (Polity Press, Cambridge 2022). Her forthcoming book Beyond Human Capitalist Education: From Capitalocentrism to Carecentrism will be published in 2026 by Routledge. Her academic work has been published in a number of different languages, including French, Spanish, Chinese and Korean.

She was awarded the UCD Medal for Pioneering Change, in 2018, and the Irish Research Council, President of Ireland Prize for her Research Promoting Equality and Social Justice, in 2019.

Kathleen was born in Co. Clare. She is a carer, a mother and grandmother.

 

 

FIRST PANEL: SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS AND INCLUSIONS

 

Dr Liam Weeks, Government & Politics/Society, Ethics & Politics, UCC

Title of presentation: The rise of the influencer: the unseen impact of private members’ bills.

Abstract 

Legislative effectiveness is often crudely measured in terms of the pass/failure rate of parliamentary bills, under-estimating the agenda-setting abilities of the opposition. This paper analyses such a capacity by considering the influence of private members’ bills on governments’ legislative agenda. Data comes from the Irish parliament from the 2011–‘24 period. Using a unique dataset containing characteristics of over 1,000 PMBs and their sponsors, our primary finding is that a focus on the end goal for parliamentary bills leads to a misunderstanding around their effects and role in the legislative process. Private members’ bills are four times as likely to have an influence as they are to pass. We also find that female parliamentarians are more likely to sponsor influential bills, and that the issue topic of the bill can matter.

Biographical details

Dr Liam Weeks is a senior lecturer and Head of the Department of Government and Politics. He is currently editor of the journal Irish Political Studies, and has published widely on different aspects of Irish politics, most especially on political parties, parliament and elections. His most recent book, 'Birth of a State' (Irish Academic Press), was a re-evaluation of the role of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty in the foundation of the Irish state.

 

Dr Kara Hosford, Department of Sociology and Criminology, UCC   

Title of presentation: Building Inclusive Futures: Establishing a Trans Research Agenda through Collaborative Engagement in Ireland             

Abstract

"Despite Ireland's progressive legal gender recognition, the Transgender and Gender Diverse (TGD) community faces significant healthcare restrictions and high mental distress. Historically, TGD communities have been studied on rather than with or by, resulting in research agendas misaligned with their most pressing needs. This study addressed this deficit by employing five focus groups with 19 TGD participants from across the country, exploring community priorities within three domains: Healthcare, Social Wellbeing, and Legal Matters. Transcripts were analyzed using framework analysis.

Analysis revealed ten interconnected themes highlighting a profound disconnect between Ireland’s progressive reputation and the community’s lived reality. Core findings include the identification of systemic failures within healthcare and justice, a significant gap between legal rights on paper and practical implementation, and the harmful impact of public misinformation. Crucially, participants articulated a clear vision for future research that is ethical, patient-centric, and intersectional, moving beyond deficit-focused models to include positive outcomes of gender-affirming care. This agenda provides a critical roadmap for prioritizing community-defined needs."

 

Dr Katharina Swirak, Department of Sociology and Criminology

Title of presentation: Visualising Prison and Penal Abolition Together: A participatory approach to building an all Island Prison and Penal Abolition Network

Abstract

This presentation reflects on the first 18 months of the Irish Prison and Penal Abolition Network (IPAN). The Network was kickstarted in May 2024 with a participatory research event at University College Cork, where academics, activists and criminal legal impacted persons explored together what prison and penal abolition means for the island of Ireland. The network was formed at a time that marked the beginning of unprecedented political interest and fervour in prison and penal expansion on the island of Ireland, despite better evidence that prison spaces will always be filled, once they are built. This presentation will provide an overview of what penal abolition means in both theory and practice, explore the significance of challenges faced when conducting such work at the intersection of academia and inclusive activism and outline how penal abolition is simultaneously a regenerative project orientated towards doing justice differently and nurturing communal bonds of solidarity and mutual aid.

6.Biographical details (150 words)Required to answer. Multi Line Text.

Katharina Swirak is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, University College Cork. Her research interests include the intersections of criminal justice policy and social policy, reintegration after prison, prison education, the penal voluntary sector and youth justice. At the moment, she is particularly interested in grappling with the methodological and ethical challenges of the broader academic and criminological enterprise and thinking through the implications of inserting abolitionist practices and schools of thought into the ‘real world’ of criminal justice policy. She has recently concluded two research projects, which have used participatory methods with legal system experienced persons (www.cleanslatecork.com and https://www.northsouthtogether.com/) - to better understand the complexities of life after prison as well as experiences of prison education.

 

SECOND PANEL: CLIMATE JUSTICE AND SUSTAINABILITY

 

Dr. Ian Hughes & Bob Grumiau, UCC

Title of presentation: Different ways of seeing: artistic practice and transformation   

Abstract

The current 'polycrisis'/'metacrisis' has stirred a sense of urgency for policy responses and behavioral changes needed to embark on the structural transformations required to tackle pressing global challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, destabilising levels of inequality, a cost-of-living crisis, the erosion of democracy, rising geopolitical divisions, accelerated migration patterns, and war. However, global responses to this historical moment have so far fallen short. The DSIS model aims to reframe the dominant narrative that focusses mainly on socio-technical transition by stressing the need for a deep global cultural transformation that acknowledges the interdependency of the climate crisis with other challenges such as economic inequality, the crisis of democratic systems, and continued gender, cultural and racial hierarchies.

This presentation focusses on the importance of different ways of seeing within the DSIS framework, more specifically on art-based practices and methodes, when it comes to imagining and talking about transformational change. Situations where there is a need to develop innovation and find new solutions require different methods. To imagine different worlds to come, we need a thinking that can think the indeterminate and imagine that-which-does-not-yet-exist, so to make it appear in concrete form as a new, purposeful addition to the real world. Moreover, we are also in need of narratives that can get these stories across and resonate with the public. In addition to thinking the new, we argue that art-based practices and methods can help us tell more liveable and inhabitable stories.

Biographical details

Ian Hughes is Senior Research Fellow at MaREI Centre, Sustainability Institute, UCC, working on the Deep Societal Innovation for Sustainability and Human Flourishing (DSIS) project. He also works as a Research Officer in the Department of Education and Youth.

Bob Grumiau is a doctoral student at University College Cork and is part of the Deep Societal Innovation for Sustainability and Human Flourishing (DSIS) project where his focus lies on the religion, gender & education strands.

 

 

Dr Niall Dunphy, School of Engineering & Architecture/Sustainability Institute, UCC

Title of presentation: Understanding Irish people’s attitudes, beliefs and values related to climate change

Abstract

This contribution will introduce the CLIMATUDE project, an EPA funded project based in the CPPU group and jointly hosted by the Sustainability Institute and the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century at University College Cork.

CLIMATUDE is deploying a programme of engaged research to develop an in-depth understanding of Irish people’s attitudes, beliefs and values related to climate change. In doing so it is working to map the knowledge and perceptions of Irish people relating to climate change and its societal implications.

The project aims to develop an in-depth understanding of how people’s attitudes to climate change are shaped by their sources of information, social networks and wider public discourse. It will explore how their beliefs and values are influenced by their socio-demographic attributes, especially gender, life-stage, socio-economic privilege, and educational attainment.

In realising this work, CLIMATUDE will consider perceptions and attitudes to specific climate mitigation and adaptation measures, attitudes to wider governance structures and to decision-making processes. Through this work, the project aims to will contribute towards the inclusion of climate justice principles in the design and implementation of climate actions.

Biographical details

Dr Niall Dunphy is a transdisciplinary researcher, with 25 years’ experience of working at the intersection of the social sciences & humanities with science & engineering – exploring the human dimension of sustainability. He is director of the CPPU research group within the UCC Sustainability Institute and is a member of the UCC Collective Social Futures EMT. Niall’s primary research interests lie in exploring the human and societal aspects of the energy transition, examining the role(s) expected of people in prospective energy futures – considering both what the envisaged energy transition could mean for people, but also importantly what the human dimension could mean for the realisation of the technical and societal transformation that will comprise the transition. He has been Principal Investigator of more than 30 multidisciplinary research projects, with funding awards in excess of €11.5m.

 

Dr Elizabeth Folan O'Connor, Dr Martin Galvin and Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan, School of Applied Social Studies & GreenInCities project

Title of presentation: GreenInCities: Co-Creating Solutions for Climate Mitigation & Sustainability

 

Abstract

The GreenInCities research project is a 4-year EU Horizon-funded research project that seeks to develop methodologies and tools for collaborative climate mitigation and sustainable urban planning approaches for deprived areas. During the first two years of the project, leader cities (Barcelona, Nova Gorica, Prato, Athens and Helsinki) collaboratively addressed three main challenges at the heart of the project: improving societal readiness levels and awareness of vulnerable groups, going beyond classical greening and renaturing interventions, and leveraging cutting edge technologies to maximise sustainable urban regeneration impacts that include climate mitigation. The project is now concentrating on using that knowledge for replication in the follower cities of Cork, Birštonas, Hersonisos, Matosinhos, Pécs and Reykjavik. Running until December 2027, the Cork City GreenInCities team, consisting of UCC researchers, Cork City Council partners and technical teams, is beginning the process of replication and implementation in Knocknaheeny. The GreenInCities team will use leader cities’ participatory methodologies and process outcomes as a toolkit to develop sustainable nature-based solutions for collaborative climate change mitigation and adaptation and urban green space transformations that are grounded in the specific needs of the community. All phases of this co-creation process will be guided by the project’s participatory tools to engage with residents, key stakeholders and technical teams in the development of key pilot sites in the area. This will be followed by implementation and co-monitoring phases which will deploy project evaluation methodologies (quantitative and qualitative) to collect data on the project’s roll-out and impact, to ensure learnings for European policy and practice.

Biographical details

Elizabeth Folan O’Connor, BA (DePaul University), MSc (UCC), PhD (UCC) is a postdoctoral researcher working with co-PIs Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan and Dr Martin Galvin on the Horizon Europe-funded GreenInCities project through the Institute for Social Science in the 21st century (ISS21) at UCC. The GreenInCities research project aims to adapt co-creative methodologies and tools developed by leader cities to co-create innovative nature-based solutions in the deprived area of Knocknaheeny for the purposes of collaborative climate mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable urban planning and regeneration. Elizabeth is also lecturer in UCC’s School of Applied Social Studies, where she teaches communication and contemporary issues in youth and community work and has experience supervising undergraduate and postgraduate students. Research interests include community-based participatory research in areas of disadvantage, interdisciplinary research, education policy, and communication policy and theory. Research goals are to further develop experience working with disadvantaged communities in the co-creation of knowledge.

 

 

THIRD PANEL: RESEARCHING WITH MARGINALISED AND/OR DIFFICULT PASTS

 

Dr Órla O'Donovan, School of Applied Social Studies, UCC

Title of presentation: Living well with the bioconscripted dead?

Abstract

In this presentation I will discuss the ongoing work of the Living Well with the Dead Research Collective and, particularly, our recent CSF-supported project Caring for and about University Legacy Medical Collections. The urgency of this work is evident in public controversies surrounding medical museums internationally, and multiple necroactivist calls for universities and museums to reckon with contemporary legacies of their histories of dehumanizing, objectifying and using the bodies of the disenfranchised as resources. The project fostered new intradisciplinary partnerships involving Irish and international scholars from the social sciences, humanities, law and medicine, together with museum practitioners. Collaboration with colleagues in the university’s Pathology Department and working with a colonial medical legacy collection were crucial to the project. The legacy collection is made up of “potted wet specimens” that are thought to have originated in a British military hospital in Malta around the time of World War I.
Our search for ways of living well with the dead is not solution or closure-oriented but endeavors to imagine and enact ethical ways of living with histories of hurt that cannot be undone or fixed. Additionally, refusing normative binaries of living/dead and animate/inanimate, we approach collections as always in process, recognizing their liminality and their changing materialities and socio-cultural anatomies and imaginaries. In addition to elaborating on this approach, I will explain “the bioconscripted dead” as a term that helps us to avoid forgetting and looking away from the violences materialised in many medical collections and the dead whose remains have been specimened.

Biographical details

Órla O'Donovan is an increasingly undisciplined feminist scholar who works at the intersections of critical bioethics, social studies of science and medicine, and community and social movement studies.

 

Professor Laura McAtackney, Archaeology and Radical Humanities Laboratory

Title of presentation Knowing the North?: Cross-disciplinary approaches to dealing with difficult, recent pasts in the North of Ireland.

Abstract  

This seed project was co-ordinated by Professors Laura McAtackney (UCC), Roisín Higgins (Maynooth Uni), and Patricia Lundy (UU) with the aim of bringing together different disciplinary angles and focusing on the lived experiences of difficult recent pasts in the North of Ireland. Our point of inspiration has been a recognition that the Troubles and its legacies has not only dominated our understandings of the North but also skewed how much we engage with and understand more 'normative' societal trauma, such as institutional abuse and gendered experience of patriarchal societies. We organised a number of workshops with invited contributors from activist, lived experience and academic backgrounds focusing first on institutional abuse and then gendered experiences and sexual violence and asked how can we enable more victim and survivor-centred approaches to accessing those pasts, what can we do in the present to ensure official forms of reckoning are addressing the needs of the people who were most detrimentally effected by the institutions, and reflect on how we can ensure public memory is shaped moving forward into the future. This short place with reflect on some of our initial findings and will discuss how we might move forward.

 

Biographical details

Laura McAtackney is Professor in Archaeology and member of the Radical Humanities Laboratory, University College Cork, Ireland. She is also Docent in Contemporary Historical Archaeology at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her research focuses on material-based approaches to understanding institutions, post-conflict and post-colonial societies, and the politics of how they are understood and remembered. Most recently she was the PI of a Independent Danish Research Fund project "Enduring Materialities of Colonialism: temporality, spatiality and memory on St Croix, USVI (2019-2024)".

 

Dr. Gema Kloppe-Santamaría, Department of Sociology & Criminology, UCC.

(Un)Doing the Archive: Methodological & Conceptual Challenges of Studying Extralegal Violence and its Afterlives

Abstract

The aim of this presentation is to reflect on the methodological and conceptual challenges of writing and researching the history of extra-legal forms of violence whose archival footprint is slippery, tenuous or seemingly marginal and whose sheer existence has been silenced by the judicial record. Reflecting on my experience of "building an archive" to trace and analyze the previously untapped history of lynching in Mexico and on my current efforts to uncover the history and legacies of sectarian and religious violence in this country, I will talk about the power of reading with and against multiple sources in order to overcome the silencing of past histories (Trouillot 1995) and locate the afterlives of this difficult past in the present-day context. 

 

FOURTH PANEL: GENDER AND FEMINISMS: CRAFTING AND CARE

 

Professor Elizabeth Kiely, Applied Social Studies, UCC

Title of presentation: Lace, Life & Lore: Crafting Women's Digital Stories

Abstract

This presentation will showcase a selection of the material generated from a research engagement with Ms Veronica Stuart and traditional lace makers based in Cork city as well as lace makers attending a festival of lace making in Kinsale County Cork in March 2025. This was a collaborative project which included staff (Dr Armida de La Garza, Dr Brenda Mondragon Toledo)and students (Emily Ann De Marco & Francesca Siegel) in UCC supported by the Digital Scholarship Studio (Martin O' Driscoll and Declan Synott). The dataset produced is multi-media and it includes oral history, digital audio and visual stories and photographs pertaining to women’s lace making. The project starts from the premise that work made with the hands is a good starting point to open up and find a way into conversation. We see the project as making a contribution to the cultural preservation of Irish lace making by using digital tools to make it more accessible and by digitally archiving the material with appropriate metadata for safe storage and future reuse. It has also been a huge collaborative learning project for those of us involved as we get to grips with audio and video editing technologies. We intend to write about the project and we aim to share the learning and experience with community focused learning support organisations in the cultural heritage sphere such as the Oral History Network of Ireland and the Irish Community Archive Network.

Biographical details

Elizabeth Kiely is Professor of Social Policy in the School of Applied Social Studies. She is current Chair of the Oral History Network of Ireland. Recent work relevant to oral history and storytelling includes a single authored chapter entitled 'Analysing for Resistance in Talk and Text' in the book edited by Chris Fitzgerald (2025) entitled 'Linguistics and Oral History', published by Bloomsbury.

 

Dr Angela Veale, School of Applied Psychology, UCC

Title of presentation: Crafting intersubjectivity through performative activism

Abstract

Artivism, a practice combining art and activism, offers a powerful tool to create spaces of reflexivity and dialogue. This presentation explores the emergence of intersubjectivity between immigrant parent performers and a professional policy & practice audience as the performance drew both parties into a dialogical relationship. The presentation draws on workshops to develop a Forum Theatre performance on the theme of disrupting trajectories of immigrant children to child protection, on the performance and on the audience response gathered through audience engagement and feedback. The performance of the play produced specific psychological ‘moments’ which elicited cognitive and emotional responses in the audience and created an ‘in between’ space of connection. At times, the performance was a disruptive experience for the audience as they came into contact with scenarios that they were unfamiliar with, had become desensitised to or witnessed something familiar being made visible. The ‘vital’ nature of the performance heightened a sense of connection between parent actors and audience. It captured an embodied form of intersubjectivity, in which intersubjectivity is the implicit and often automatic behavioural orientations towards others. In a sometimes overwhelming world where it can seem a challenge to get people to care, the performance was a space of connection and a chance to generate new perspectives on given realities. This has led to further action through partnerships seeking to disrupt the trajectories of immigrant children to child protection.

Biographical details

Angela Veale (PhD) is Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Psychology, UCC. She lectures on developmental, sociocultural & critical community psychology, psychoanalysis and qualitative research methodologies. Her background and expertise includes the psychosocial effects of violence and conflict, post-conflict social reintegration, migration and globalisation and the effects on children, youth and families. In particular, she has an interest in sociocultural psychology, participatory action research (PAR), qualitative and emancipatory research methodologies. Recent projects include she guest edited the Special Issues Early prevention for Children with an Immigrant Background for Frontiers in Psychology, with Lebiger-Vogel, Rickmeyer, Meurs, Veale, A & Derluyn and a special issue on ‘Crisis, Im/mobilities and Young Life Trajectories’ for the Journal Social Sciences (with Giorgia Dona). Her current research examines migrant parenting in a new culture (funded by CACSSS Interdisciplinary Research Fund). She is currently interested in individual-in-collective processes of disruption, imagination, reorganisation, resistance and social change.

Dr Kellie Morrissey, School of Applied Psychology

Title of presentation FirstDrops: soma design to encourage colostrum harvesting for new parents

Abstract

FirstDrops explores how breastfeeding parents learn the embodied skill of hand expression (HE) during the perinatal period, focusing on the challenges associated with colostrum harvesting (CH). Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), the project investigates mothers’ lived experiences of learning to express, handle, and store colostrum, and how these shape confidence, bodily awareness, and readiness for breastfeeding. Early findings reveal an initial thematic structure centred on touch, discomfort, and becoming, which will be discussed in this talk. Drawing on soma design theory, FirstDrops frames HE as a somatic practice that merges sensory, emotional, and cognitive dimensions of care. The project aims to contributes to better understanding of how soma design can facilitate skill-building and interdependent wellbeing in maternal health contexts.

Biographical details

Dr Kellie Morrissey is a Lecturer in Applied Psychology at University College Cork whose research comprises aspects of psychology, design, and health technology. She completed her BA and PhD in Applied Psychology at UCC, later working as a Research Fellow at Open Lab, Newcastle University, and as Lecturer in Design for Health and Wellbeing at the University of Limerick before returning to UCC in 2024. Her research focuses on how participatory and feminist design methods can sensitively address embodied and socially complex issues in health and care, from dementia and ageing to sexual and reproductive health, including abortion rights, endometriosis, and breastfeeding.