Dr. Sophie Scott-Brown

Sophie Scott-Brown completed her PhD at the Australian National University and is currently a fellow at the Institute of Intellectual History, St Andrews University. Her work addresses the histories of contemporary political thought, specialising in radical politics and social movements. She is the author of "The Histories of Raphael Samuel" (Australian National University Press, 2017), "Colin Ward and the Art of Everyday Anarchy" (Routledge, 2022), and "The Radical Fifties: Activist Politics in Cold War Britain" (Oxford University Press, 2025). Her next book, "New Anarchist Portraits" examines contemporary anarchism in Britain and America. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4 'Free Thinking' and a host and speaker for the Institute of Art and Ideas.

Research project

Should you think global and act local or think local and act global?

Sophie Scott-Brown's research will examine shifting registers of humanism in European social movement strategy during the 1980s and 1990s. To better illuminate the dynamics of change, she focuses on two contemporaneous movements: European Nuclear Disarmament (END, 1982–1991) and the Slow Food Movement (1986–). While the pair addressed distinct problems (the threat of nuclear weapons and food security/environmental crisis), both mobilised concepts of humanity and notions of the good life to frame their political interventions and justify popular direct action. END's 'détente from below' strategy took for granted that peace was a universal human good that only required translating into local idioms and reintegrating. By contrast, Slow Food's 'Right to Pleasure' manifesto started by rejecting universalism as a facet of global capitalism in favour of hyper-locality as the only substantive basis for a good human life. The project will examine the distinct moral orders informing the two approaches and assess the impact of these for their long-term political legacies.