Seminar: ‘We’re all Fairtrade consumers now!’: The meanings, moralities and politics of Fairtrade consumption

Katy Wheeler from Department of Sociology, University of Essex

Date: Thursday 3rd December 2009

At 16:00 in Room 6.345 (Department of Sociology).

Abstract:

If I do my shopping at Sainsbury’s and I buy a banana, I will be consuming Fairtrade whether I like it or not, whether I am aware of it or not.  In recent years, we have witnessed an increasing tendency for businesses, public institutions and organisations to adopt Fairtrade provisioning policies removing the choice of non-Fairtrade items. Existing research into Fairtrade consumption tends to portray the growth of the movement as the result of thousands of individual citizen-consumers making the conscious choice to ‘vote’ for fairer trade (Goodman, 2004; Lyon, 2006; Micheletti, 2003).  However, due to changes in provisioning policies, people are often consuming Fairtrade without even knowing they are doing it.

Seminar: Work after globalisation

Professor Guy Standing from University of Bath, UK, and Monash University, Australia

Thursday 19th November

At 16:00 in Room 6.345.

Guy Standing is Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath and Associate Director of the Work and Employment Rights Research Centre, Monash University, Melbourne. He is also a founder member and co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), a non-governmental organisation that promotes a citizenship income for all.

His latest book Work after Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship (2009) “explains that

Seminar: Towards a social ontology of market systems

Dave Elder-Vass from Department of Sociology, University of Essex

Date: Thursday 5th November 2009

At 16:00 in Room 6.345.

Abstract:

This paper outlines a research project currently being planned by the author. The proposed project aims to theorise some core elements of the relation between the economic and the social by constructing a realistic ontological analysis of market systems, developed using a critical realist methodology. Market systems, it will argue, are ontologically dependent upon

Seminar: Capitalism versus the environment? A debate

Ted Benton & Mark Harvey from the Department of Sociology, University of Essex

Date: Thursday 22nd October 2009

At 16:00 in Room 6.345, Dept. of Sociology, University of Essex.

Professor Ted Benton began his working life as a science teacher in a pioneering comprehensive school in Leicester. Subsequent study for degrees in philosophy eventually led to his appointment as philosophy lecturer in the sociology department at Essex (where he has remained ever since). Ted’s background in both philosophy and the natural sciences (especially biology) is quite unusual for a sociologist, and he has

‘Theory in the face of global challenges’

Centre for Theoretical Studies Roundtable

15th October

University of Essex, Colchester Campus: LTB 9. 1pm-3pm.

Professor Mark Harvey (Director of CRESI)

CRESI to undertake ‘global challenges’ research

Prof. Mark Harvey and Dr Ben Anderson are to lead ground-breaking research as part of a programme of cross-university ‘Global Challenges‘ projects.

CRESI research features at ESRC Seminar

CRESI’s Dr Ben Anderson recently gave an overview of our research on developing small area estimates of income, household expenditure (consumption) and time-use at an ESRC Seminar.

Project: Digital Inclusion and Health

Dr Ben Anderson (Sociology) and Dr Ewen Speed (Health & Human Sciences) have secured a research contract to develop a framework for Digital Inclusion and Health.

Book: Public or Private Economies of Knowledge: Turbulence in the biological sciences

Mark Harvey and Andrew McMeekin’s book “Public or Private Economies of Knowledge: Turbulence in the biological sciences” has just been published by Edward Elgar.

Talk: Capitalism as multi-modal economic process: a neo-Polanyian approach

On June 17th CRESI’s Mark Harvey will be giving an Invited Lecture to the Centre for Globalisation and Governance, University of Hamburg.