The absence of society
The podcast of this event is now available to download (MP3, 25MB)
Date and venue: 21 October, York
Speaker: Zygmunt Bauman,
Respondents: Gary Craig, Thomas Baldwin
Chair: Debby Ounsted
“… consuming more is the sole road to inclusion; whereas the inability to consume more is a sure recipe for exclusion.”
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman argues that modern-day ‘ills’ are products of the withdrawal of the traditional conception of ‘society’ and are rooted in the way of life of today’s individualised society of consumers.
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds.
His latest publications are: ‘Has ethics a chance in a society of consumers’ (Harvard University Press) and ‘The Art of Life’ (Policy Press), both 2008.
Thomas Baldwin
Thomas Baldwin was born in 1947. He studied Philosophy at Cambridge where he received his Ph. D. in 1971. Thereafter he has pursued an academic career, with teaching positions in Uganda, Cambridge and York, where he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in 1995.
He is currently editor of Mind, the leading philosophy journal. Other appointments include membership of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2000 – 6), of the HFEA (2001 – 5: Deputy chair 2002 – 5), and of the UK Stem Cell Bank Steering Committee (2002 – 6). He is currently a member of the Government’s Expert Advisory Committee on obesity.
Gary Craig
Gary Craig is Professor of Social Justice at the University of Hull, Head of the Centre for Social Inclusion and Social Justice and Associate Director, Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE).
Prof. Craig was formerly at the Universities of Bradford, York and (as Professor of Social Policy and Head of the Policy Studies Research Centre), the University of Lincoln. Prior to this, he worked in local government and the voluntary sector, mainly in large-scale community development projects.
He was the first person in the world to hold a Chair in Social Justice. He has been a member of the Carnegie UK Trust Commission on Rural Community Development for which he has written several papers and is a research adviser to the Big Lottery Fund. He was elected Academician to the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences in 2002 and has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts since 2002.
His major research interests include children and young people, community development, social security, income maintenance, poverty and anti-poverty work in local government, ‘race’ and ethnicity, rural policy issues, local governance, the voluntary and community sectors, and evaluation methodology. His two hundred-plus publications include 7 edited books, more than thirty chapters in books, and forty academic journal articles.
Debby Ounstead
Debby has been a Trustee since 2002 and was appointed Chair of the Foundation and the Housing Trust in 2006. Educated at Girton College, Cambridge and with a postgraduate diploma in publishing from Oxford Brookes, Debby worked in housing and local government until 2001. During that time she was chief executive of Habinteg Housing Association, which is especially concerned with housing for people with disabilities. She was also CE of the Octavia Hill Housing Trust, a long established community-based association with a particular interest in the care and support of older people. She has also served on a number of housing association and voluntary sector boards including six years as chair of KIDS, the charity concerned with children with disabilities and their families.
Now a freelance management consultant and writer she specialises in governance, strategic development and inspection. Debby is a member of the Housing and Almshouse Committee of the Mercers livery company.
Debby chairs the Bradford Strategy Group and the Nominations Committee. She is a member of the Poverty Strategy Group, Finance and Personnel Committee, Derwenthorpe Partnership Advisory Committee and the Remuneration Committee.