Ian G. Williams
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igraywill.bsky.social
Ian G. Williams
@igraywill.bsky.social
800 followers 2.2K following 370 posts
Personal account. Social worker, PhD student @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @gcsocialwelfare.bsky.social. I read & think a lot about tech ethics, digital literacy, innovation, inequality, & social change. I find refuge & inspiration in the humanities.
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igraywill.bsky.social
Double-dipping IRL & on Zoom so I can simultaneously follow Celina Su's book launch talk & the expert panel downstairs about Zohran Mamdani's election victory last week, both occurring at @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @humanitiescuny.bsky.social @gcsocialwelfare.bsky.social #budgetjustice
Photo of Celina Su's Budget Justice book launch and livestream of an expert panel on Zohran Mamdani's election to NYC mayor, both at The CUNY Graduate Center.
November 13, 2025 at 12:22 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Celina Su #budgetjustice: Kesi Foster (Partners for Dignity & Rights) links budget justice & direct democracy to contemporary struggles against top-down data center development, where massive public $ subsidies & antidemocratic policies fuel resource extraction practices & ecological harms.
Kesi Foster talking at Celina Su's "Budget Justice" book launch at The Graduate Center, CUNY
November 13, 2025 at 12:00 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Celina Su reflecting on the simultaneous emergence of participatory budgeting and direct democracy, and her experience of Occupy Wall Street (and the wider movement of the squares) in the wake of the Great Recession. @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @humanitiescuny.bsky.social
A photo from Celina Su's book talk on Budget Justice
November 12, 2025 at 11:45 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
Full house at @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social Skylight Room for this talk! #budgetjustice
Photo from the audience for Budget Justice book talk with Celina Su.
November 12, 2025 at 11:16 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
She references Roussos & Malamidis' very interesting paper on social movements & the commons (2021).

mobilization.kglmeridian.com/view/journal...

#10EMESconf #ScalingThroughCommunities
November 7, 2025 at 11:03 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
#10EMESconf closing plenary at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social: Donnatella Della Porta discusses her work on social movements & its implications for thinking about the social economy: relationships between markets welfare states, & civil society; commons & solidarities; crises & austerity.
November 7, 2025 at 10:50 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Juliana Rodrigues, EMES PhD student board rep, starts by remarking on her feelings of responsibility that set in while preparing for this plenary, situating her work on north(s)-south(s) dialogues with her dual PhD studies at universities in Finland & Brazil, & decoloniality as praxis. #10EMESconf
Juliana Rodrigues speaking at a plenary at the 10th EMES International Research Conference on Social Enterprise in Utrecht.
November 6, 2025 at 1:45 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
I bought a copy of Laville's book, "The Solidarity Economy," the other day & had a fascinating conversation with him about the history & origins of EMES, & his long standing interest in the relationships between economies & democracies. Really enjoying his plenary remarks. #10EMESconf
A photo of Jean-Louis Laville and Ian G. Williams at the 10th EMES Conference Jean-Louis Laville giving his opening remarks for the 10th EMES Conference plenary in Utrecht.
November 6, 2025 at 1:22 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
Jean-Louis Laville opens up the #10EMESconf afternoon plenary in Utrecht, focusing his remarks on EMES as a space for dialogues & exploring tensions between the SE sector & the importance of heterogeneity in this space. He looks back to a dialogue between Walter Lippmann & John Dewey on democracy.
November 6, 2025 at 1:02 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
#10EMES A packed room for the Civic Values and Indirect Impact session. First session: "Civic wealth creation: Scale development and validation" with Sophie Bacq & Georgios Polychronopoulos. Lots of deep questions about measurement & model creation.

#ScalingThroughCommunities
November 4, 2025 at 3:02 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
#10EMESconf afternoon session: S. Violeta Bouzada Novoa shares her ongoing doctoral research & systematic literature review on social enterprises & circular economies.
November 4, 2025 at 1:52 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
Prof Tina de Moor at @rsmerasmus.bsky.social discussing historical perspectives on citizen collectives, long views of the commons & Ostrom, & why orgs become types. Referenced her 2021 article on the "three waves of cooperation"

doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...

#10EMESconf
#ScalingThroughCommunities
November 4, 2025 at 11:19 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Now learning about Collectieve Kracht, a digital platform for collective citizen power & #citizenscience

www.collectievekracht.eu/en/default.a...

#10EMESconf
#ScalingThroughCommunities
November 4, 2025 at 10:44 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
In a session on commons creation: urban heat islands adaptation via digital twins & living labs, a citizen science platform, & visualizing the citizen collective movement. Some overlaps w/ @cunypitlab.bsky.social & @beta.nyc's PIT Pop-up (www.nycpitpopup.org) & @metagov.bsky.social

#10EMESconf
Screenshot of EMES Conference Program Cover of 10th EMES Conference Program
November 4, 2025 at 10:23 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
First audience question: who gets to define social enterpreneurship, & what it means in different contexts. Touches on questions "what is social?" & "based in what values?"

Diagram from another recent paper of Bacq's on SE research: doi.org/10.1111/ijmr...

#10EMESConf
#ScalingThroughCommunities
Diagram from https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.70001
November 4, 2025 at 9:33 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Dr. Bacq's keynote is an extended overview of her work on civic wealth creation & regimes of support, starting from her many projects on social entrepreneurship. See this more recent paper:

journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/...

#10EMESconf
#ScalingThroughCommunities
#SEBoostingSocietalTransitions
CIVIC WEALTH CREATION: BYPASSING MONOPOLIES THROUGH COLLECTIVE ACTION G. T. LUMPKIN University of Tennessee University of Oklahoma EDUARDO MEL ENDEZ University of Oklahoma SOPHIE BACQ IMD Business School The market power of monopolies can severely restrict citizens’ freedom of choice. In the case of utilities, often portrayed as natural monopolies, such power may result in high prices and unreliable or absent services, especially in marginalized communities such as low-income neighborhoods or remote rural villages. While government regulation has been the traditional remedy to curb natural monopolies’ power, in this paper, we address a different solution: monopoly bypassing through collective action. We present two types of monopoly bypassing—partial and complete—through the lens of civic wealth creation (CWC): the generation of social, economic, and communal endowments that benefit communities. Through our analysis of three water and sanitation utility services cases, we demonstrate howCWC is used to catalyze the collective action of engaged citizens to effectively bypass monopoly power. The cases highlight the three stakeholder categories involved in CWC initiatives—communities, enterprises, and regimes of support—and illustrate how they act collectively to provide credible market-based solutions.
November 4, 2025 at 9:27 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Day 1 of the NYC Public Interest Technology Pop-Up was great. Check out Day 2's demos from 2-6pm! Attaching a screenshot of how to locate it in The Oculus.

@thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @cunygcdi.bsky.social
@beta.nyc
A screenshot of a map of The Oculus, showing how to find The NYC Public Interest Technology Pop-Up.
October 28, 2025 at 5:57 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
Helping staff this awesome space today (Climate w/ @asrc-gc.bsky.social ), tomorrow (Innovating For Inclusion), & Wednesday (Community Engagement), with @beta.nyc, @cunypitlab.bsky.social . Check out the schedule & come by, or watch the stream at twitch.tv/cunypitlab! @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social
A photo of the NYC Popup storefront in The Oculus. A photo the BetaNYCLibs game to explore NYC Open Data at the NYC PIT Popup A phot of the Floodnet interface at NYC PIT Popup. A photo of sensors for FloodNet at the NYC PIT Popup
October 27, 2025 at 8:31 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
I'm hosting the 10/29/25 talk from 3-4pm at @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social in the @gcsocialwelfare.bsky.social space. It'll be a fun conversation about a good book and a very interesting nexus of activism and scholarship. Come check it out if you're around.
A flyer for a 10/29/25 talk with Benjamin Shepard about oral history, friendship, and social movement research at The CUNY Graduate Center.
October 26, 2025 at 8:42 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
In the midst of all that is going on, there is nothing quite like reveling in the pleasure of photographing Chloe, my parents' cat, rolling around outside before she slinks off into the raspberry bushes, in search of prey.
A cat rolling in the grass A cat rolling in the grass A cat rolling in the grass A cat rolling in the grass
October 4, 2025 at 4:54 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
Fall equinox 2025: move over watermelon ale, it's pumpkin time.
A picture of Montauk Brewery's Pumpkin Ale next to Watermelon Season Ale.
September 23, 2025 at 4:31 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Wandering through @bkbookfest.bsky.social today was a delight. Glad to see @milmundosnyc.bsky.social in the lineup this year. I don't *need* more books, but it is always nice to add more to my rather full shelves and never-ending reading list.
Banned book reading garden from Brooklyn Book Festival A photo from Brooklyn Book Festival A photo from Brooklyn Book Festival
September 22, 2025 at 4:08 AM
igraywill.bsky.social
Closer and closer to Idiocracy we come...
September 20, 2025 at 4:51 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
If you see this, quote with the energy you bring to Bluesky.
A picture of a striped gray short-haired bodega cat standing outside a store, in front of a sign that says "NO PETS ALLOWED".
September 16, 2025 at 8:26 PM
igraywill.bsky.social
Description for The Age of Spectacular Death, edited by Michael Hviind Jacobsen. Seems quite relevant to this week's events.
This book explores death in contemporary society – or more precisely, in the ‘spectacular age’ – by moving beyond classic studies of death that emphasised the importance of the death taboo and death denial to examine how we now ‘do’ death. Unfolding the notion of ‘spectacular death’ as characteristic of our modern approach to death and dying, it considers the new mediation or mediatisation of death and dying; the commercialisation of death as a ‘marketable commodity’ used to sell products, advance artistic expression or provoke curiosity; the re-ritualisation of death and the growth of new ways of finding meaning through commemorating the dead; the revolution of palliative care; and the specialisation surrounding death, particularly in relation to scholarship. Presenting a range of case studies that shed light on this new understanding of death in contemporary culture, The Age of Spectacular Death will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, psychology and anthropology with interests in death and dying
September 12, 2025 at 8:24 PM