THE NORWICH RADICAL IN 2020

Posted on December 31, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community, Inter|national, Perspectives, Student and tagged arts, asexuality, black lives matter, black rebellion, covid, defund, dictionary, Donald Trump, education, featured, future, glinner, highlights, hope, iraq, LGBTQIA+, mr ripley, mutual aid, Norwich Radical, noughts and crosses, Orban, pandemic, Poland, police, retrospective, review, Roma, transphobia, Yangon, year in review, yir, ZAD du Carnet.

by The Norwich Radical team

At year’s end, many of us feel the pull to try and put a positive spin on the preceding 12 month period – to celebrate its joys, while recognising its difficulties in order to put them behind us as we look to the new year with a hopeful eye. At the end of 2020, it is particularly difficult to find a positive angle from which to look back, or forward. The slow-motion explosion that is Brexit has rolled on, the UK government that came to power just over a year ago has taken every opportunity to demonstrate its incompetence and corruption, and the mainstream media has continued to side with the powerful over the marginalised. And then there’s the elephant in every room – the Covid-19 pandemic, which has pushed many of the institutions we rely on to breaking point, revealing just how little many governments care about the lives of their more vulnerable citizens.

HIGHER EDUCATION IN A POST-FEES WORLD – BEYOND TUITION FEES #1

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academics, activists, Beyond Tuition Fees, Bright Green, consumerism, cost of living, democracy, diversity, education, employability, featured, Free Education, future, government, HE policy, higher education, jeremy corbyn, Labour, Lib Dems, marketisation, mental health, NUS, postgraduate tutors, progressives, representation, sexual harassment, social justice, social mobility, strike action, student activism, student debt, student experience, student life, students, students' unions, Tories, trade unions, tuition fees, UCU strike, uk, universities, university staff, utopianism, welfare.

By Bradley Allsop and Calum Watt

It is a time of extraordinary potential for change in UK Higher Education. Labour’s promise to end tuition fees has defied the critics and united many behind Corbyn’s political project. But what will the implications for universities be if this comes to pass? And what can we do to leverage this progress? In this new series, the Norwich Radical and Bright Green are bringing together perspectives from across the sector to explore these questions.

Politics is in a very different place than a few years ago. Radical change feels possible, tangible, close. The Labour Party’s pledge to scrap tuition fees is one of many signs of this – welcome, and necessary to salvage higher education from the marketised juggernaut it has become. But just abolishing fees is not enough to fix all of higher education’s problems.

IT’S OUR ‘YOUTHQUAKE’ – WHAT WILL WE MAKE OF IT?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged activism, capitalism, collective action, consumerism, corporate power, crisis, democracy, ecological crisis, ecology, economic crisis, economics, elites, featured, future, GE17, government, housing crisis, individualism, inequality, jeremy corbyn, Labour, mental health, momentum, neoliberalism, organise, Oxford Dictionaries, political apathy, political parties, politics, possibility, poverty, snap election, society, technology, tuition fees, uk, wage stagnation, westminster, word of the year, young people, youth culture, youth engagement, youth politics, youth turnout, youthquake.

by Bradley Allsop

Young people can’t catch a break. On the one hand, we’re scolded and ridiculed for our apparent lack of engagement with traditional political institutions, which is generally assumed to be a result of our ‘laziness’ or ‘apathy’, with our disillusionment and distrust with politicians that have continually failed us apparently precluding our ‘right to complain’. On the other hand, when we do engage politically, in those rare moments when we do seek to take an active role in our futures, we’re painted as thuggish, fragile or naïve. In short, the message we continually get is: “engage – but not like that!”

THE FATAL FLAW IN ECONOMICS FUNDING

Posted on December 19, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academics, bias, campaign, climate change, curriculum, department for education, economics, education, finance, financial crisis, funding, future, gender, higher education, inequality, Laura Bannister, learning, market, post-growth, quality of life, REF, reform, research, Rethinking Economics, students, teaching.

by REFunding Economics

As the old saying goes, ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’. This week, a coalition of economics students, academics and campaigners gathered to get inside the piper-paying process – the funding of economics research – to create an economics fit for the real world.

IGNITING STUDENT ACTIVISM #3 – WORKING TOWARDS THE FUTURE

Posted on September 1, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged activism, burnout, call to action, campaign planning, campaigning, campaigns, change, commitment, conferences, deadlines, democracy, determination, direct action, divestment, Education Act 1994, email campaigns, empowerment, energy, fossil free, Fossil Free QUB, fossil fuels, future, future focus, goals, handover, health, Igniting Student Activism, justice, leafleting, local media, machinery of state, Margaret Mead, mental health, MPs, networking, petitions, politics, progress, protests, Queens' University Belfast, raising awareness, recruitment, research, sabbatical officers, sacrifice, self care, social justice, social media, state, strategy, student activism, student media, student union elections, students, students' unions, tactics, targeting, the good fight, training, universities, workshops, young people.

by Bradley Allsop & Calum Watt

Rarely in our lifetimes has there been a more exciting time for young people to engage in politics. Change is in the air and nowhere else offers more opportunities to engage in this conversation, to learn valuable skills and to help shape society than university campuses. This series of articles seeks to offer some guidance for those aiming to ignite student activism at their institutions. Drawing on our experiences as campaigners we hope to highlight some common challenges and give you some advice on how to combat them.

THE ROAD TO FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM: PART 2

Posted on August 22, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 3D printing, AI, automation, communism, FALGSC, future, luxury, M-Pesa, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, post-capitalism, RepRap, sci-fi, singularity, technology.

For part 1, click here.

Content warning: links contain references to white nationalism and Charlottesville.

By Zoe Harding

Unfortunately, I can’t provide a full road map to the future from our current Nazi-sodden economically unstable world of earthbound, cishet-dominated capitalism (at least, not in 600 words). If the 20th century taught us anything, it’s that traditional revolutions are messy, violent and frequently impossibly complex things, and, even if their intentions are good, they tend to make things worse rather than better. A violent uprising with the fat cats first against the wall is perhaps a good daydream while you’re stressed and trying to pay your rent on time, but in practice we’d get another Stalin.

As such, this article will be much more hypothetical, looking at the kind of technology necessary for a global, fully automated and luxurious communist society, and then looking at ways we might potentially create and distribute it.Continue Reading

THE ROAD TO FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM: PART 1

Posted on August 10, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged arab spring, automation, basic income, capitalism, communism, culture, FALC, FALGSC, future, Ian M Banks, mechanisation, revolution, space, The Peripheral, UBI, unemployment, utopia, utopian, william gibson.

by Zoe Harding

Let’s leave the sordid world of Earth behind for a bit, and explore the potential of a concept that’s kind of easy to dismiss out of hand.

In his venerable Culture series, Iain M Banks describes a future society based around Minds, unimaginably super-intelligent AIs that control vast ships and space-going habitats, on which a massive collection of alternately hedonistic and depressed lesser-biological beings (assumed to be human, although it’s never made explicit) live pampered and comfortable lives. The Culture is semi-utopian, although, if it resembles any society, it resembles the US in its relations with other civilisations, The books frequently focus on both the skulduggery necessary to keep the civilisation running and the injustice of being born outside it. Nonetheless, it is a portrait of a society in which humans (probably) are protected, cared for and treated equally through advanced technology.

Because utopias aren’t easy or fun to write, few societies like the Culture have appeared in fiction before or since. There is one notable version, however, in the form of an oddly idealistic leftie meme: Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism.Continue Reading

THE DEPTHS OF COMMUNICATION – NUA DEGREE SHOW 2017

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Student and tagged Alice Leon, artistic media, arts, arts education, capitalism, Carl Rowe, communication, craft, deconstruction, degree, degree show, exhibition, fine art, future, history, human condition, John Berger, language, literature, meaning, non-verbal communication, Norwich University of the Arts, NUA, past, perspective, society, students, text, textiles, Tina Hannay, translation, writing.

by Laura Potts

This year’s degree show was of striking magnitude. The work in all departments was of a very professional standard, with the textiles department in particular showing great craft and display skills with their breathtaking exhibition. These high standards were maintained throughout, even into the degree show shop, which housed snippets of work for sale.

WHY THE TORIES DON’T CARE ABOUT NURSES

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #MayDUP, #OurNHS, activism, Brexit, Brexit negotiations, bursary cuts, crisis, cuts, DUP, employment, EU, EU students, EU workers, European Economic Area, european union, Free Education, frontline services, future, government, government cuts, health, healthcare, hospitals, How Come We Didn't Know?, Institute of Employment Studies, King's Lynn, magic money tree, Marion Macalpine, migrants, migration, NHS, NHS bursaries, NHS Norfolk Action Group, norfolk, norwich, nurse horror stories, nurses, nursing, nursing student applications, nursing students, politics, privatisation, Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn, research, Royal College of Nursing, St Margaret's Church of Art, staff shortage, student applications, student debt, student loans, students, Sustainability and Transformation plans, The Telegraph, Tories, tuition fees, UEA, underfunding, universities, workers rights, workforce, workforce crisis.

by Robyn Banks

CW: death, disease, corpses.

Last week we heard that the number of people applying to become nursing students has fallen by 19% in the past year. As this is the first application cycle since government cuts to NHS bursaries, for many this will not be much of a shock. It’s clear that the government’s decision to take away this provision that allowed many students to attend their courses will have serious detrimental effects, not only for the institutions that train nurses but for the NHS as a whole.

OUR LEADERS ARE DRAGGING US BACK TO THE COAL AGE

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged activism, barack obama, climate, climate change, coal, collectivism, COP 21, corporations, creative subjects, creativity, democracy, Donald Trump, Earth Day, environment, environmental literacy, environmental sustainability, environmentalism, equality, fossil free, free thought, freedom of expression, future, future generations, global warming, government, individualism, media, national interest, paris, Paris Climate Agreement, people and planet, people's climate march, Pittsburgh, progress, progressive, qualifications, selfishness, student activism, trade deals, UKYCC, USA, West, youth movements.

by Laura Potts

We expect time to encourage positive progression, as new minds surface and opportunities ripen. But recently we are seeing more of the opposite achieved by the leaders of some of the greatest western ‘powers’. Last week, the current president of the United States announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate deal. This will have seriously detrimental effects on the environment and the future of our planet.

future

THE NORWICH RADICAL IN 2020

by The Norwich Radical team

IT’S OUR ‘YOUTHQUAKE’ – WHAT WILL WE MAKE OF IT?

THE FATAL FLAW IN ECONOMICS FUNDING

THE ROAD TO FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM: PART 2

THE ROAD TO FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM: PART 1

THE DEPTHS OF COMMUNICATION – NUA DEGREE SHOW 2017

WHY THE TORIES DON’T CARE ABOUT NURSES

OUR LEADERS ARE DRAGGING US BACK TO THE COAL AGE

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