Manuel Castells: Alternative Economic Cultures
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2012
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Paul Mason interviews renowned sociologist Prof Manuel Castells about the rise of alternative economic cultures since the financial crisis. Recorded in front of an audience at the London School of Economics on Monday 8th October.
The financial crisis which has unfolded since 2008 marks more than an economic downturn, according to Prof Castells. The problems which caused the crisis are so deep rooted that they have provoked a profound reassessment of our economic beliefs and institutions. They have also given rise to social movements such as Occupy and alternative economic cultures opposed to financial capitalism. These ideas are explored in "Aftermath: The Cultures of the Economic Crisis", a book edited by Prof Castells.
Manuel Castells is Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), in Barcelona. He is also University Professor and the Wallis Annenberg Chair Professor of Communication Technology and Society at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Paul Mason is the Economics Editor of BBC 2's Newsnight programme. His books include Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed; and Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions.
The hashtag for this event is #LSECastells.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
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| 0:36.0 | Thank you for downloading this program from the BBC. |
| 0:40.0 | In this week's analysis Paul Mason talks to the internationally renowned sociologist |
| 0:44.9 | Professor Manuel Castels about the financial crisis and the new networks of solidarity and |
| 0:51.3 | protest it's inspired in a special program recorded at the |
| 0:55.4 | London School of Economics. |
| 0:58.7 | Good evening and welcome to the London School of Economics. I'm Paul Mason and tonight |
| 1:06.6 | in front of a huge audience, about 800 people here, I'll be speaking to Professor Manuel Castels. |
| 1:13.2 | Professor Castels is one of the most cited sociologists in the world and it's easy to see |
| 1:18.2 | why. |
| 1:19.4 | He is University Professor and Wallace Annenberg, Chair in Communication, Technology and Society at the University of Southern California. |
| 1:27.0 | When most of us were still struggling to connect our modems in the 1990s, Professor Castells was documenting the rise of the network |
| 1:36.4 | society when the sociology of protest was still dominated by political parties, trade unions and men. |
| 1:44.9 | Castels was theorising what he calls the power of identity, |
| 1:49.0 | studying the interaction between internet use, |
| 1:52.0 | counterculture, urban protest movements and the self. |
| 1:57.2 | When these two phenomena, protest and the network, came together in mass social movements during the Arab Spring and with the Occupy |
... |
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