Blog list | School of Social and Political Science

22/08/2025

Exploring speculative climate justice futures with creative methods

At the “Failed Again: The Fault-lines in Utopia” workshop in September 2024, Mack Sproates, Bethan and Miranda Iossifidis presented the project, ‘Exploring Speculative Climate Justice Futures with Creative Methods’. The project emerged from a desire to explore the possibility of creating methodological approaches that allow for the co-production of alternative climate justice presents and futures rooted in collective action, in a context of growing climate anxiety and mainstreaming of reactionary environmental ideas. Our perspectives are coming from abolitionist approaches and intertwined justice movements.

04/07/2025

Practical utopias: A creative methods workshop

On 11th June 2025, members of the “Utopia and Failure” network joined Rebecca Coleman in a creative methods workshop. Rebecca is Professor in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at Bristol University. She led academics and researchers in a creative exercise of building utopias as part of a teach-out at Newcastle University. Against the backdrop of a Higher Education sector that is in crisis, with UCU strikes at Newcastle, people gathered in the local pub to create a space where it might be possible to engage in alternative utopian worldbuilding.

06/11/2024

Reflections on our second workshop in Newcastle by Martin Greenwood (II)

Here is a second set of reflections on our meeting in Newcastle. Martin is a recent PhD graduate at Newcastle University.

01/11/2024

Reflections on our second workshop in Newcastle by Oscar Horton Chandler (I)

Here is a first set of reflections on our second meeting in Newcastle. Oscar is a PhD student in Sociology at Newcastle University.

08/05/2024

Reflections on our first workshop in Edinburgh by Cat Wayland (II)

And here is a second set of reflections on our initial meeting in Edinburgh. Cat recently completed a PhD in Political Theory at the University of Edinburgh and works as a research assistant and tutor at the School of Social and Political Science.

08/05/2024

Reflections on our first workshop in Edinburgh by Ming Kit Wong (I)

Here is a first set of reflections on our initial meeting in Edinburgh. Ming is a DPhil student in Politics at Magdalen College, Oxford. His doctoral project examines postwar anti-utopian liberal thought.