With 
the rise of “new municipalisms” across the world, the launch of the #FearlessCities movement in Barcelona last year, and the recent renewal of commitments to “municipal socialism” by the UK Labour Party, it is timely to consider what municipal socialist ideas, practices and projects can contribute to struggles for justice in the 21st century.
The Centre for Urban Research on Austerity is hosting a one-day conference to discuss these issues at De Montfort University on Wednesday 27th June. Please see the draft programme below. If you have any queries or requirements, please contact Adrian Bua at Adrian.bua@dmu.ac.uk.
Attendance is free and open to all, though we can only cover expenses for speakers. Please register for the conference at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/municipal-socialism-in-the-21st-century-tickets-45438001285?ref=estw.
Find the conference programme below. We look forward to welcoming you on 27th June.
09:30 – Registration and Welcome
10:00 – Setting the Scene (Jonathan Davies and Miguel Robles Duran)
10:30 – 12:15: Resistance and transformation: State, Commons and Class
Paul O’Brien (Association for Public Service Excellence): Community Wealth Building: Towards a New Municipalism
Simon Parker (Redbridge Borough Council): Limits and potentialities of municipal socialism: the case of Redbridge.
Hannah Gardiner (Shared Assets): Reframing Public Land
Dan Durrant (University College London): The Potential and Limits of Time Credits
Joe Beswick (New Economics Foundation): Municipal Housing and Municipal Socialism
12:15 – 13:00: Lunch
13:00 – 14:45: The Feminisation of Urban Power and Resistance
Liliana Almanza (Independent Workers Union of Great Britain): The organising power of women in outsourced worker struggles
Irantzu Varela (Activist/journalist from Bilbao): 8-M and its aftermath
Hilary Wainwright (Transnational Institute/Red Pepper): Feminism and the deepening of Local Democracy
14:45 – 15:15: Coffee
15:15 – 17:00: Whither Municipal socialism in the 21st Century?
Neil Barnett (Leeds Beckett University): Lessons from British Municipal Socialism
Bertie Russell (University of Sheffield): A Counter-History of Municipalism
Mike Geddes (University of Warwick): Implications of Radical Localism in Latin America
Frances Northrop and Adrian Bua (New Economics Foundation): What can a think tank do to advance Municipal Socialism?
17:00 – 17:15: Closing Discussion