The Politics of Inequality: why should we focus on resistance from below?

While it is now widely accepted that inequality is the defining issue of our time and there is growing research on the drivers and impacts of inequalities, there has been less focus on how inequalities are experienced and resisted by ordinary people and communities. The newly launched Politics of Inequality research theme at the International Inequalities Institute explores the practices of resistance, mobilisation, and contestation from a bottom-up perspective.

This panel will discuss the following questions

• why we established this theme
• why research on collective action and everyday resistance against a wide range of social, cultural, economic and political inequalities is important in advancing our understandings of not only how inequalities are experienced, but also how they can be tackled
• how research on this theme brings together interdisciplinary perspectives to contribute to on-going research and teaching across LSE as well as engaging with wider global debates.

The theme is linked with the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, which is based at LSE, and is committed to building a community of people committed to using collective leadership to work towards social and economic justice for all.