Category democratic politics
New Frontiers #2: Energy Infrastructure
This is the second in a short series of posts about new sites of contestation that are emerging outside of the city – the usual focus for Dublin-based activists and social movements. While these sites of contestation are outside of the city, this doesn’t meant that they aren’t intimately connected with the city. Just think […]
New Frontiers #1: Fish Farming
Nearly all of the articles we publish on this blog have an urban (Dublin) focus. That isn’t really surprising when Dublin is where we live, work, rent, and socialize. More generally the city has been (and continues to be) the site of new and politically significant transformations – particularly the relationships between real estate, the […]
Vulture Landlords: an in depth interview with Desiree Fields
The crisis in Ireland’s private rented sector keeps gathering steam, and recent additional regulations introduced by Alan Kelly are not going to make much of a difference. One of the most novel aspects of what’s happening currently is the emergence of a new type of landlord: financial institutions buying cheap real estate and becoming mega-landlords. […]
From Edenmore to El Alto: How Water is Transforming How Politics Happens in Our Communities
Originally written for Focus: Action for Global Justice. Back in February, Comhlámh hosted a First Wednesday debate which put the ongoing resistance to water charges and Irish Water into a global context of popular struggles for water justice. The evening debate ‘From El Alto to Edenmore’ opened with a screening of Muireann De Barra and Aishling […]
Municipal revolution, part II: Dublin
This is the second of two blog posts on ‘municipal revolution’, reflecting on the victory of ‘citizens’ platforms’ across Spain and what it might mean for Dublin. While much attention has recently been focused on next year’s general elections, it seems to us that the municipal scale currently offers more possibilities for a variety of […]
Municipal revolution, May 2015
Feeling the euphoria of the municipal elections in Spain, we’ve decided to scribble out a few notes on what happened there and to think through what it might mean for Dublin. What follows is a bit sketchy, but we think it’s worthwhile to add to the debates currently going on and to get our heads […]
provisional university 