Dr Graeme Chesters - Staff Profile

NameDr Graeme Chesters
Contact PositionDeputy Director of the International Centre for Participation Studies, Senior Research Fellow in Peace Studies.
Room and BuildingRoom T1.1f
Email Addressg.s.chesters@bradford.ac.uk

Research Areas

Graeme Chesters is Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the International Centre for Participation Studies. He is trained in sociology and criminology and his areas of interest include social movements, complexity theory, biopolitics, governmentality and participatory democracy. He has published widely in these areas, including a major re-theorisation of global social movements, a ‘seminal’ work on social movements and economic regeneration, and articles and chapters on globalization and security, research methodologies and social theory. His new book Social Movements – The Key Concepts will be published by Routledge in 2010.

At the core of his research is the relationship between agency, participation and social change in the context of global complexity. This includes a focus upon the production and exercise of political power, the establishment of social norms and the analysis and subsequent contestation of these processes by social movements. It also includes analysis of the role ‘radical theory’ plays in shaping and developing the self-understandings and knowledge-practices of social movements (autonomist, complexity and critical theories), as well as the contextualisation of these processes within the multiple ‘crises’ associated with the democratic deficit, market failure, climate change and resource depletion.

A number of these interests came together in his theorisation of social movement and civil society networks using complexity theory, which drew upon participatory research in social movement networks across the UK and Europe. This work was published as Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos (with Ian Welsh, Routledge, 2006).

Graeme is also committed to the ‘co-production of knowledge’ and has worked with various movements, journalists and others to disseminate social movement knowledge on an array of issues. He was part of the editorial collective ‘Notes from Nowhere’ who produced the book ‘We Are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anticapitalism’ (Verso, 2003). On its release The Independent suggested ‘...this book is essential reading for anyone who cares about our future, and weighs enough to throw at anyone who doesn't’, whilst The Times called it ‘an authentic document of revolution’. One of a very few books to be published under a ‘copyleft’ clause it has been translated in to a number of languages and is freely available via the web site www.WeAreEverywhere.org

At present Graeme is working on two further books - an accessible introduction to global social movement theory and an exploration of how new materialist theories can help us understand the operation of power in complex societies.

Outside academia he maintains a passionate interest in anything to do with Rugby League, from watching the game to reading about its history, culture and politics.

Recent Research Projects

  • 2010 Joseph Rowntree Foundation Grant - Recession, Poverty and Sustainable Livelihoods in Bradford. Co-applicant in partnership with Oxfam. £50k.
  • 2009 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Chevening Fellowship Programme – Using Democracy for Peace. Minor partner with Centre for International Co-operation and Security. £750k over 5 years.
  • 2007 Joseph Rowntree Foundation Grant - Participation and Community on Bradford and Keighley’s ‘White’ Estates: £65,000 (with 4 other staff from ICPS).
  • 2007 Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund, Bradford University £10,452 (with staff from SSIS).
  • 2007 FDTL Polis Project – Citizenship Education at University Level. Cascade Partner: £1000.
  • 2006 FDTL Polis Project – Citizenship Education at University Level. Cascade Partner: £3000.
  • 2005 – 2006    Joseph Rowntree Foundation Grant - Participation in South Asian Communities: £25,000 (with 3 other staff from ICPS).
  • 2003 – 2005    Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship - A Civil Society: Understanding Deliberative Processes in a Globalizing World: £38000.
  • 2002 – 2003    British Academy Larger Research Grant – Leadership in the New Social Movements : £19,266.

Students Supervised

I am currently supervising PhD students in the following areas:

  • 1 x ESRC 3+1: 'La Via Campesina, The UN FAO and Food Sovereignty'.
  • 1 x ESRC 3+1: 'The social identity of Britishness'.
  • 1 x Basque Govt Scholarship: 'The role of Civil Society in the Basque Peace Process'
  • 1 x Self-funded: 'Complexity and Community Empowerment'
  • 1 x Self-funded: 'Complexity and Peace Education'
  • 1 x Self-funded: Social Movements and Computer Mediated Communications

Other Professional Interests

Graeme convenes the Politics and Social Change Research Group in Peace Studies and is a member of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 24 (Environment and Sociology) and Research Committee 47 (Social Movements and Social Classes).

Editorial Positions:

Editorial Board – Social Movement Studies

External Examiner:

MA Programme in Activism and Social Change, Department of Geography, University of Leeds.

Bibliography

Books:

Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos, (with Ian Welsh) International Library of Sociology Series, Routledge, London. (2006).

We Are Everywhere: the Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism, Verso, London, (2003). (With Ainger, K., Credland, T., Jordan, J., Stern, A. & Whitney, D.).

Forthcoming Books:

Social Movements: Key Concepts (with Ian Welsh), Routledge, London. (forthcoming - 2010).

Social Movements: A Global Introduction (with Ian Welsh and Michal Osterweil), Routledge, London. (forthcoming 2010)

Neo-materialism: From Biopower to Social Movements (with Ian Welsh), Routledge, London. (forthcoming 2011) 

Other Selected Publications

Book Chapters:

‘Social Movements and Regeneration’ in Diamond, J. and Liddle, J. (eds.) (2009) Regeneration Management: International Perspectives, Routledge: London.

‘What is the WSF’s “Secret of Fire”?’ in Sen, J. (ed.) (2009) Facing the Future: The World Social Forum, the Global Justice Movement, and Beyond, Black Rose Books: Montreal.

‘Counterglobalization Movements’ in Fagan, H. & Munck, R. (eds.) (2009) Encyclopaedia of Security, Sage: London

'Complex and Minor: Deleuze and the Alter-Globalization Movement(s)’ in Malins, P. & Hickey-Moody, A. Deleuzian Encounters: Studies in Contemporary Social Issues, Palgrave-Macmillan: London. (2007).

‘Global Uprisings and the Politics of the Artisan’ (with Michal Osterweil) in Graeber, D. & Shukaitis, S. (2007) Constituent Imaginations, AK Press, Edinburgh.

 ‘Complessita' e movimenti: Processi ed emersione nei sistemi d'azione planetaria’ (with Ian Welsh) in Montagna, N. (2006) La globalizzazione dei Movimenti (The globalization of movements), Franco Angeli: Milano.

'Swarms and Networks: New Modes of Struggle in the Alternative Globalization Movement’, in Johns, S. & Thompson, S. New Activism and The Corporate Response, Palgrave, London, (2003).

Journal Articles:

‘Social Movements and Regeneration: Within, Without, Against?’ Local Government Studies, 35, 3:371-384. (2009) 

‘Complexity and Social Movement: Process and Emergence in Planetary Action Systems’ (with Ian Welsh) Theory, Culture and Society, 22, 5: 187-211. (2005)

‘Global Complexity and Global Civil Society’, Voluntas: The International Journal of Voluntary and Non-Profit Organizations, 15, 4: 323-342. (2004)

‘Rebels with a Cause, Folk Devils without a Panic: Press Jingoism, Policing Tactics and Anti-Capitalist Protest in London and Prague’ (with Fiona Donson and Ian Welsh), Internet Journal of Criminology, http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Donson%20et%20al%20-%20Folkdevils.pdf (2004)

‘Rebel Colours: “Framing” in Global Social Movement’, (with Ian Welsh) Sociological Review, 52, 3:314-335. (2004)