Why this book
The audience for this work and website is broad and crosses equality and environmental communities. I want to be part of shifting conversations about climate change beyond climate science and into everyday life. I want to be part of the process of pointing the compass in the direction of transformative change
Click here for a short working paper Creating and Eco Social Welfare Future_0.pdf (maynoothuniversity.ie)
Since 2007 I have worked in the Department of Sociology, Maynooth University, where I am currently Professor and Head of Department. My research interests spread across ecosocial welfare, gender, care and social security, globalisation and welfare states, and power and civil society. Over nearly four decades I have been an active advocate for social justice and gender equality, have worked in social organisations. I continue to volunteer in welfare policy and campaigning organisations. I was appointed to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (2013-217) and I am currently a member of the Council of State in Ireland. I am a board member of Oxfam Ireland and a trustee of St Stephen’s Green Trust, and in the past decade I have worked with Focus Ireland, Forsa, National Women’s Council and Family Carers Ireland .
Over my working life I have crossed the boundaries between the academic world, voluntary social activism, paid work in civil society, and elected positions in politics in political parties and local government, and as an academic l believe in engaging with civil and political society and influencing different pathways to power and transformation. The personal is political, as a woman in Ireland, I know how hard we fought for all the change that has happened, largely through political struggle.
I am the mother of two young adults in their mid-20s, a sister, aunt, niece, a friend, colleague and partner. I care about our collective futures. Nearing the end of a multifaceted lifetime of work for change, I believe it is necessary to take risks and to imagine practical alternatives as first steps towards the systemic transformation we need.
I have, like others, come late to working on ecosocial policy, but I passionately believe that inequality and environmental degradation are opposite sides of the same coin and have to be tackled together. The possibility of contributing to an understanding that challenges current policy, practice and thinking motivates me. .
I have published widely in leading journals and co-edited (with Fiona Dukelow) The Irish Welfare state in the 21st Century Challenges and Changes (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2016) and (with John Hogan) Policy Analysis in Ireland 2020 Policy Press. My sole authored forthcoming book Creating an Ecosocial Future was published by Policy Press in May 2023