Documentation

New Social Movements
Open Museum 2011/2012

The waves of social movements can sometimes rise very high and change our lives quite profoundly.

They are not ordinary quotidian phenomena but run in high and low tides, slowly carving the bottom of the sea. Sometimes they accumulate into one stormy wave which for a long time runs unnoticed only to finally climax when approaching the shoreline.

Social movements should be watched with attention wherever we feel changes coming. Just like now, when all we hear is crisis, or even crises. The guest of the first seminar of Zespoł Analizy Ruchów Społecznych (19 May 2011) was Prof. Alain Touraine: the three-hour debate provided an invigorating insight into the phenomenon of social movements and has become an inspiration for continued research – no matter where but definitely now.

ZARS was activated by academics from different colleges and communities with the support of the European Solidarity Centre and Centre d'Analyse et d'Intervention Sociologiques. The team was established with the intention of starting up a new and politically independent platform of dialogue and research of social movements. ZARS is not an institution and is has no formal status.

The form of the seminar is open to sociologists, anthropologists, students, activists of social movements and non-governmental organisations, as well as journalists - all are welcome to attend.