Description

'Re-thinking the Local and the Global in an Age of Ecological Risk, Democratic Estrangement, Societal Fragmentation, and Predatory Capitalism'. Since retiring in 2009, Paul Kennedy has been a Senior Research Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University. During a long career he taught at three African universities – in Ethiopia and Ghana in 1964, 1967- 1970, and 1977 – and in the UK at the universities of Sussex, South Bank, and Manchester Metropolitan University, where he became a Reader in Sociology and Global Studies. He has conducted research and published widely on African entrepreneurship, petty production and development issues, on green/ethical businesses in Northern Britain, on transnational professionals working in global building- design companies, and skilled EU migrants living in Manchester. From the late 1990s he wrote extensively on themes relating to globalization including three editions of Global Sociology, with Robin Cohen, two co-edited books as well as Local Lives and Global Transformations: Towards World Society published in 2010. In 2017 he published Vampire Capitalism: Fractured Societies and Alternative Futures – which seeks to question whether neoliberal global capitalism as presently constituted can take humanity safely and fairly through the many perils unfolding in the 21st century. In 2000 he played the leading role in founding the ‘Global Studies Association’ – based both in the UK and North America - and acted as the UK secretary for eight years. He has been happily married for over 50 years and has three children and two very lively granddaughters.