Sahar Heydari Fard Speaks on Strategic Injustice and Social Change

Sahar Heydari Fard from UNC-Chapel Hill will give a talk on “Strategic Injustice, Social Networks, and Social Change.”

The talk will take place on September 29, 2021, from 4-5:30pm in the Assembly Hall of the Holtzman Alumni Center.

The talk is tailored to appeal to both faculty and students, with plenty of time for discussion and interaction with the guest speaker. You are cordially invited to attend.

Here is the abstract of the talk: Is it possible to have injustice and oppression without coercion, collusion, or a tyrant with central power and authority? In this paper, I use the tools of evolutionary game theory to make a case for such a possibility. To do so, first, I introduce the notion of strategic injustice, a system of formal and informal conventions that results in oppression and emerges from individuals’ strategic choices about their social interactions. I provide some simulation models to prove the importance of individuals’ discretion over their social interactions. Then I establish the connection between such strategic choices and various network effects well-studied in the literature on social inequalities. Finally, I discuss the implications of my models for social intervention and social change.