SOCI2027 Precarity and Possibility: Creating Social Change for the 21st Century

This topic is part of the suite of multidisciplinary Grand Challenges topics which focus on a range of complex issues facing the world. Throughout this topic, you will critically examine challenging societal contexts and make recommendations as to how to best tackle them.

How will we survive the 21st century? Humans, those with whom we share the planet and the planet as a whole system face major challenges and we need to imagine how they can be met. This topic brings attention to environmental, political and socio-economic case studies that illustrate the diverse meanings of precarity and survival to highlight the creative solutions that have been enacted and will need to be developed to build more hopeful and sustainable futures. It facilitates students’ exploration of what is possible to change and create rather than what is wrong with our world and its future(s).

This topic aims to:

• Gain a broader understanding of global challenges
• Critically examine challenging societal contexts and make recommendations as to how to tackle them
• Develop students’ capacity and commitment to imagining different worlds and creatively planning and pursuing them

1. Critically analyse challenging contexts
2. Develop and recommend solutions to tackle specific challenges
3. Evaluate dominant and alternative or emergent understandings of 21st century challenges and potential solutions
4. Evaluate their own capacity for planning and pursuing positive change
5. Collaborate with others in planning and pursuing positive change