Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity

How can policymaking become more inclusive, participatory, and grounded in lived experience?

The next case study from our Academic-Practitioner (AcPrac) project is written by Danilo Ćurčić, and it explores the role of deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) in shaping more inclusive social protection policies in Serbia.

Drawing on collaboration between academia and practitioners, the paper examines how DMPs were designed and implemented with some of the country’s most vulnerable individuals.

Who sustains those sustaining the environment? 🌳 🌊

Grassroots conservation depends on people who quietly carry enormous responsibility, protecting ecosystems while also holding together trust, relationships, and community life. Yet the well-being of these leaders is rarely treated as part of conservation itself.

In his blog, AFSEE Fellow Eko Octavianus reflects on this imbalance and the initiative that he set up to create spaces of care and support for those sustaining their communities.

📢We are excited to launch 'Pedagogy and Social Change', a new podcast series exploring the impact that diverse pedagogical initiatives can have on contemporary education!

Pedagogical approaches have real power to shape how we engage with social change, justice, and inequality. But expanding that work requires ongoing dialogue around the theories, strategies, and practices that inform transformative teaching.

The series explores themes such as pedagogy of discomfort and critical pedagogy offering practical and conceptual insights into how educational practice can contribute to broader efforts for social justice.

🎧 Listen to the first episode 'Global Citizenship Education and Safetyfication' with Marta Estellés: https://buff.ly/kw2ANAP

What happens when a well-designed research plan meets the realities of practical implementation? What can academic research and front-line practice learn from each other when priorities shift, timelines tighten, and real-world pressures take over?⏰

In their new paper, Lionel Sakyi and AFSEE Fellow Lyla Adwan-Kamara reflect on these questions through a four-year national disability and mental health programme in Ghana.

This is the first publication from the second round of AcPrac Case Studies, commissioned through our Academic–Practitioner Collaborations for Social Change (AcPrac) project.

📚 Read the paper: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/138358/

As far-right violence rises, from the US Capitol attack led by supporters of Donald Trump to extremist mobilisation in Spain and Latin America, the left often responds with outrage, fact-checking, or cancellation.

📚While understandable, these reactions can deepen division and reinforce an us-versus-them logic. We need to acknowledge that democracies cannot be rebuilt through confrontation, argues Laura Roth on the AFSEE Blog.

Caring Across the Divide: A Feminist Response to the Far-Right As far-right violence rises, from the US Capitol attack led by supporters of Donald Trump to extremist mobilisation in Spain and Latin America, the left often responds with outrage, fact-checking, or cancellation. While understandable, these reactions can deepen division and reinforce an us-versus-t...

How can we bridge research and practice to save democracy?

Across four episodes, the latest season of AFSEE Fellow Barbara van Paassen's People vs Inequality Podcast explores how academics and practitioners can (better) collaborate in times of autocratisation.

The podcast season was funded by AFSEE as part of our Academic-Practitioner Collaborations (AcPrac) - project, which investigates how academic-practitioner collaborations can tackle inequalities and contribute to wider social transformation.

🎧 Listen to the episodes here: https://buff.ly/WzAnxuB

Inclusive education is widely recognised as a cornerstone of an equitable and just society. Yet for many children with disabilities in Nepal, the promise of education remains out of reach, not because of a lack of legal guarantees, but due to persistent failures in implementation, writes AFSEE Fellow Dev Datta Joshi.

📚️ Read Dev's piece 'From Rights to Reality: The Implementation Gap in Nepal’s Inclusive Education System' on the AFSEE Blog: http://buff.ly/vQhsqeM

How does infrastructure shape belonging in cities?🏙️

In the final episode of our collaboration with the LSE Middle East Centre's Instant Coffee podcast, AFSEE Fellow Ahmad Abu Hussien brings together academics and practitioners to explore the concept of infrastructural citizenship, a framework that helps us understand infrastructure not simply as roads, public spaces, water or sewage networks, but as a political and social system that shapes belonging in the city.

🟡Listen to the episode on Spotify: https://buff.ly/KbUPtp0
🟡Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts: https://buff.ly/ksiTAe5
🟡Listen to the episode on SoundCloud: https://buff.ly/YL1twAd

Gender equality discourse has a profound blind spot. Women behind bars are nearly absent from mainstream conversations about empowerment, rights, and justice. Yet their exclusion is not incidental; it reflects how narrowly we define who counts, argues Mirilove Tay Acquah-Hagan.

📚️ Read Mirilove's piece 'Invisible Behind Bars: Why Gender Equality Must Include Female Prisoners' on the AFSEE Blog: https://buff.ly/QQHIkOi

In an era defined by the converging threats of climate change and biodiversity loss, staggering inequality, and decaying democratic trust, how can the bonds between people, power, and the planet be rewoven? 🌍

📚Eco-social contracts offer a crucial tool for systemic change, enabling the creation of social agreements that reflect ecological interdependence, historical justice, and a plurality of worldviews, explains Najma Mohamed on the AFSEE Blog.

Eco-social contracts can help us reweave the bonds between people, power, and the planet In an era defined by the converging threats of climate change and biodiversity loss, staggering inequality, and decaying democratic trust, how can the bonds between people, power, and the planet be rewoven? Eco-social contracts offer a crucial tool for systemic change, enabling the creation of socia...