Democracy, Social Justice and Social Agency in the Global Age

We are delighted to welcome Geoffrey Pleyers as our next speaker at Ramsay Garden. Geoffrey is a researcher at the University of Louvain in Belgium and an expert in the multifarious manifestations of the global justice movement that has sprung up in recent years to protest against neoliberal globalisation and offering constructive alternatives. The Occupy movement, arising out of the financial crisis, is the latest prominent example. Unlike most commentators, Pleyers has ‘conducted extensive field research’ since 1999, in Europe, Latin America and at eight world social forums. His is the thoughtful voice of experience. His book Alter-Globalisation describes the tension he has observed in the movement between ‘the way of objective reason’ (trying to change the world through rational argument with those in power) and ‘the way of subjective experience’ (being the change we wish to see in the world, as an example and demonstration to others). Those tensions were clearly evident in the Occupy movement last year – including in how it was viewed by outsiders. But the tension is also clear much closer to home - in all attempts at policy-making and social change.