The Institute’s work in social justice and social transformation reflects the conviction that scholarship should deepen understanding of the conditions under which individuals and communities flourish.
Drawing heavily upon British traditions of radical social work and anti-oppressive practice, this programme examines how power, inequality and exclusion shape human lives.
Particular attention is devoted to the scholarship of Lena Dominelli, whose work on anti-oppressive practice transformed contemporary social work; Paulo Freire’s theory of critical consciousness; the radical tradition represented by Michael Lavalette and Iain Ferguson; Bob Pease’s analyses of privilege and power; Neil Thompson’s work on anti-discriminatory practice; and Paul Michael Garrett’s engagement with critical social theory.
These intellectual traditions are placed in conversation with the work of bell hooks, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins and Kimberlé Crenshaw, whose scholarship has fundamentally reshaped contemporary understandings of race, gender, identity and liberation.
The programme seeks not merely to analyse social problems but to investigate conditions of flourishing.
What enables belonging? What enables participation? What enables dignity? What enables communities to thrive?
Such questions stand at the centre of the Institute’s broader intellectual mission.