Dr. Rachel Ainsworth

Modern scholarship on revolutions is contextualized as a linear sequence and process. However, in a world of interconnected environmental, economic and political crises, referred to as a polycrisis, the effects of these crises weaken trust in governments, increase inequality and drive polarization. As our polycrisis continues, the chances of revolutionary social movements grow. This also fundamentally shifts our ideas of what revolutions mean. David Graber points out that recent revolutionary movements, “no longer seek to see state power. There has been a fundamental change in our very conception of what a democratic social movement is.” The radical refusal to engage with existing political structures, allows groups to envision new systems of governance outside of our current neoliberal system, even if there is no guarantee of their success. Structural inequities caused by our modern polycrisis will inevitably spur radical movements, both good and bad. One of the key tenets of revolutionary social movements is the demand for social justice. One of the great ironies is that different actors with competing visions – democratic, authoritarian, individualist, collectivist, secular and religious – have all championed social justice (Reisch 2014:1). Michael Reisch argues: “achieving social justice requires more than the elimination of injustice. It involves envisioning what a just society would look like. (ibid.)”. This project proposes a new understanding of revolutions and mass social movements in an age of polycrisis. Our project answers the question of what social justice means and for whom, and how this relates to new forms of governance and emancipatory politics.