Social Conflicts at the times of “Polycrisis”

Period of duration of course
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Course info
Number of course hours
20
Number of hours of lecturers of reference
20
CFU 3
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Modalità esame

A 3,000-word essay and oral (online) discussion

Prerequisiti

Primary audience: Visiting students and EELISA partners. Also open to Ph.D students but cannot be used to fulfill degree course requirements.

Programma

This is an integrative, research-based seminar presenting different streams of investigation on social conflicts that are being undertaken in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences. After a theoretical introduction to the idea of contentious politics and to theories of social conflicts, different applications to specific empirical issues will be presented in each session, with attention to the link to problems of sustainability and to the idea of polycrisis, as well as to methodological choices and practices. Themes will include environmentalist struggles, labour strife in global value chains, contesting border and migration regimes, feminist struggles, protests against austerity, anti-authoritarian struggles, peace movements, information and social media as contested terrains. The course will be delivered in blended mode.

Obiettivi formativi

The seminar will enable students to develop theoretical and methodological knowledge and critical skills to assess current research and debates on the nature of social conflicts, political divides, and poplitical participation, in particular with regard to current social transformation issues such as the environment, demography and gender, global and European governance, digitalisation and the transformation of the economy and work.

Riferimenti bibliografici

M. Wieviorka, Social Conflict https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0011392113499487 Forchtner (2019), “Climate Change and the Far Right” Bosetti et al. (2025), “Green Backlash and Right-Wing Populism” Schwörer & Fernández-García (2024), “Climate Sceptics or Climate Nationalists?”