Thursday 27 April
7-8.30pm
Join us on Thursday for the launch of the findings from our project Democratising Local Governance!
Legislative changes in the last decade have increased the power of central government over local authorities. Democratic controls (transparency, participation, accountability and so on) have been continuously eroded. Under a culture of cuts and lack of care, cities have become an important site for residents and communities to provide for one another and drive forward the changes they want to see. But, the deep democratic deficits we are facing, and the continuing capture of the local state by private interests, have a direct and damaging impact on people’s ability to exercise individual and collective power in their local areas.
Over the last six months we have undertaken a pilot action research project in Glasgow and Sheffield. Together with project partners from Solidarity Against Neoliberal Extremism (SANE) and It’s Our City! in the respective cities, we examined the relationships between local governance and local activism. Through engaging with the landscapes of grassroots and community campaigns in each city, participants from both cities have been identifying common experiences, themes, and demands for a more democratic local governance, as well as the prospects for more collectivised action.
We spoke to grassroots community and campaign groups in Glasgow and Sheffield between November 2022 and January 2023. Since these co-learning conversations, we have been busy collating these insights and identifying themes that arose. We have worked together with an artist to produce a series of posters representing some of these findings.
As part of the Festival of Debate, we are hosting an online event on Thursday 27th of April, 7-8.30pm, launching this beautiful artwork and sharing our findings from the project.
We invite comments and discussion on these themes, both from project participants and from attendees without prior knowledge of the project. We hope to identify possibilities for better connectivity between the two cities as we explore our common claims for a more democratic way of living and making change.
Please register on Eventbrite to join us on Thursday 27th.
Closed captions will be enabled. If there are other ways in which we could make the event more accessible to you, please get in touch at info(at)researchforaction.uk.