PROMOTING EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY THROUGH ECONOMIC CRISIS (PEDEC)

The PEDEC Network brings together scholars, practitioners and activists from the UK, Europe and the US through a series of workshops to explore the implications of the economic downturn, and coming cuts in public spending, for maintaining and progressing equality and diversity standards and for including marginalised groups in economic 
recovery.

PEDEC's interdisciplinary approach draws on core philosophical and methodological traditions from geography, law, business and management, history and politics to provide stakeholders with new, inter-disciplinary research understandings updated to the (post)recession context, to better inform the formulation of new policies and strategies 
for tackling exclusion.

The PEDEC Network's first workshop will be held at Queen Mary University of London (Mile End Campus) on Wednesday 15th December and is entitled 'Mapping the Equality and Diversity Challenges of Economic Crisis'. A copy of the draft programme can be seen at the bottom of this message.  If you would like to participate in this workshop, please contact the Network Administrator Aisling Lyon ([log in to unmask]). Places are strictly limited in order to preserve the workshop format.

For further information on the PEDEC Network and how to join its mailing list, please refer to http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/pedec/ or email Aisling Lyon ([log in to unmask]).

Aisling Lyon
PEDEC Network Administrator
Queen Mary University of London

Promoting Equality and Diversity Through Economic Crisis (PEDEC).
For more information on the PEDEC Network, please go to:
http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/pedec/  

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MAPPING THE EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY CHALLENGES OF ECONOMIC CRISIS: DRAFT PROGRAMME

Council Room, Queens Building, Queen Mary Mile End campus: 15 December 2010
Convenors: Lizzie Barmes & Hazel Conley

PEDEC Network General Research Questions

(a) What happens to competing justifications for equality and diversity in times of economic crisis?

(b) How do regulatory and policy options alter in times of economic crisis?

(c) What can be learned about resisting inequality from contemporary developments and especially from the emergence of distinctive patterns and experiences of structural disadvantage?

PEDEC Workshop 1 Specific Research Questions

(a) To what extent should competing arguments for equality and diversity be differently constructed and understood in conditions of economic growth versus economic crisis?

(b) How does the emergent geography of the current economic downturn compare with geographies of previous UK recessions?

(c) What are the policy implications of the spatially variable and socially uneven impacts of the current economic crisis?

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9h30: Coffee

10H00 – 12H00: MAPPING THE BIG PICTURE

Overview and convening of the session: Lizzie Barmes, QMUL, Law

Anne Phillips, LSE, Political and Gender Theory: ‘Tackling Poverty, Inequality, Discrimination: Do We Now Have to Choose Between These’

Ron Martin, Cambridge, Geography

Jill Rubery, Manchester, Economic Sociology, 'Revisiting 'women and recession': how to conceptualise gender equality in a downturn?'


12h00 – 13h00: Lunch

13H00 – 15H00 MAPPING POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Overview and convening of the session: Hazel Conley, QMUL, Centre for Research on Equality and Diversity
Rapporteur: Tessa Wright

Simon Deakin, Cambridge, Law, 'Inequality, welfare reform and the crisis'

Al James, QMUL, Geography, 'Work-life conflict and the limits to learning (or, why it pays employers to care)'

Iyiola Solanke, Leeds, Law

Anne Power, LSE, Social Policy [Invited]

15H00 – 16H00: CLOSING DISCUSSION

Ceri Goddard, Fawcett Society [Invited]
Chair: TBC