the disparity

poem/collage: february 9th, 2026 ©

#Poetry
#ŞehîdNamirin
#JinJiyanAzadi

Apropos Fachkräftemangel:
Eine Bekannte ist ausgebildete Erzieherin. Sie muss sich einen neuen Arbeitsplatz suchen. U.a. bewarb sie sich für eine Stelle in einem Gemeindekindergarten. Sie wurde abgelehnt, weil sie Fachkraft und damit zu teuer ist.
Frauenarbeit muss billig sein! Nämlich! #Frauentag

Bridgebuilders and Historians Turned Metal Into Myth Historians often reinforce evolutionist narratives that rank civilizations and nationalize invention.

Bridgebuilders and Historians Turned Metal Into Myth thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/bridgebuilde... #Bridges #Engineering #Evolution #Metal via @mitpress.bsky.social

Bridgebuilders and Historians Turned Metal Into Myth Historians often reinforce evolutionist narratives that rank civilizations and nationalize invention.

Interesting combined material and conceptual history here:

Bridgebuilders and Historians Turned Metal Into Myth thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/bridgebuilde... #Bridges #Engineering #Evolution #Metal via @mitpress.bsky.social

#Anthropology #STS

Einstein - AI Homework Agent Einstein logs into Canvas and does your homework automatically. He has his own computer — he can watch lectures, read essays, write papers, and participate in discussions.

Is this bad

A generative art cat waiting for grant

Day 207: No funding this year? What a gift—extra time to reflect, build character, perfect the syllabus, and cultivate resilience. Cheerful perseverance will fund itself! ⏳ #AcademicChatter

Write me at mgjames at secondordersocialresearch dot de or by DM here or on LinkedIn for the call link!

Also, don't forget that attendees can nominate future readings, host calls, and discuss.

Lastly, save the date for our Spring Planning Meeting: April 10, 2026 @ 1300h GMT / 1400 CET / 0800 EST.

Focus on: Chapter 1 ("Sowing the Oil"), Chapter 3 ("Aspiration and Disparities in the Bolivarian Barrio"), Chapter 5 ("The Moral Life of Revolution"), and Chapter 9 ("Beyond the Magical State").

Please read however much you are able. All are welcome, no matter how much you are able to prepare.

Date: Friday, February 20, 2026
Time: 1400h - 1530h CET (or 1300h - 1430h GMT, 8:00-9:30 AM EST)
Discussant: Eeva Kesküla
Moderator: Satoru Mizuguchi
Place: Online, link upon request
Themes: #Energy, #Economy, #PoliticalScience #PoliticalAnthropology, #Oil

A Blessing and a Curse | Stanford University Press A Blessing and a Curse examines the lived experience of political change, moral uncertainty, and economic crisis amid Venezuela's controversial Bolivarian Revolution.

In one week from today, our 📚 Energy and Social Science Reading Group 📚 will meet online to discuss Matt Wilde’s book A Blessing and a Curse: Oil, Politics, and Morality in Bolivarian Venezuela (2023): www.sup.org/books/latin-...

#Anthropology #Venezuela #Oil

Ten piles of printed academic articles are laid in an arc across a colorful carpet and wood laminate floor. Some stacked folders are seen in the distance.

Writing my journal article:

Dealing with just one subsection at a time 👣

Laying all my sources out, at hand! 🗞🛠

#academicsky #academicchatter #anthropology #sts

I do not recommend Latour for this. With his 2004 piece 'Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam', he became associated with 'post-critical' anthropology, which turns away from attempting to explore the *causes* of harms/inequalities. I found 'Modes of Existence' unreadable. Leave him for the undergrads.

It's bandcamp Friday and you can help support my music. Below is the @etherdiver.bsky.social review of my debut album.

countingcardsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/jormun...

Four paintings featuring multicoloured and significant floral designs on black backgrounds

Christi Belcourt, contemporary Métis visual artist known for her paintings which depict floral patterns inspired by Métis and First Nations historical beadwork art #WomensArt

I still don't have the funding for this particular inquiry, but today I have the courage. I still don't have the help, but now I AM the help. 💪🏼📚

That's right: I have coaxed so many other students forward with their interests, in the meantime; now I will do the same with myself. 💛🧵 #AcademicChatter

At the time, I did not have funding, courage, or advice to help me do better with these micro-details I should have known about before attempting an empirical MA in a humanistic R1 department, after coming straight out of a tech writer role that mainly positioned me as a scribe for men's ideas. 🧵

But at least she knew how to use subfolders with names such as 'Added to bibliography' so I could follow her 👣.

That's a hardworking girl, with faith in the future, sufficient to keep good records for it! 🧵

The unfortunate MA student, whom I used to be, had no idea how to correctly input government and corporate reports into the bibliography and integrate their ideas into the flow of a disciplinary argument. Poor lady 🧵

Returning today to data and unpublished writing that are more than 10 years old, but speak to a phenomenon of ongoing interest. 🥲😶

I am filled with compassion towards my younger self, even while amused at her evident immaturity in the academic profession:🧵

#AcademicSky #STS #Anthropology

There's an image, now, to illustrate the book destruction we wrote about: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/112... 😢

P153: Opacity and Energy Knowledge: Getting to Just, Sustainable Energy Policy in a Polarizing World [Energy Anthropology Network (EAN)] This panel explores changing cultural visibility and opacity of energy in anthropological research and impacts on energy justice and sustainability. It asks

Looking forward to energy #anthropology panel proposals for #EASA 2026! 🔌🔦
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...

P153: Opacity and Energy Knowledge: Getting to Just, Sustainable Energy Policy in a Polarizing World [Energy Anthropology Network (EAN)] This panel explores changing cultural visibility and opacity of energy in anthropological research and impacts on energy justice and sustainability. It asks

Looking forward to energy #anthropology panel proposals for #EASA 2026! 🔌🔦
nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...

Home « A modern dictionary about us. We define our words, but they don't define us.

Interesting resource for enabling the more deliberate use of language in our professional #writing! #AcademicSky #STS #anthropology

www.selfdefined.app

P153: Opacity and Energy Knowledge: Getting to Just, Sustainable Energy Policy in a Polarizing World [Energy Anthropology Network (EAN)] This panel explores changing cultural visibility and opacity of energy in anthropological research and impacts on energy justice and sustainability. It asks how scholars might contribute to “energy w...

Our #energy #anthropology network panel for #EASA Poland 2026! . . . 👁️Thematizing visibility, mediation, and justice🔌🤨 Please send abstracts by 26 Jan.

nomadit.co.uk/conference/e...

Why the ‘interdisciplinary’ push in universities is actually a dangerous antidisciplinary trend Talk of “breaking down the barriers” is all too often a cover for breaking down academic disciplines to create administrative flexibility.

"An interdisciplinary team is not a group of people trained in 'interdisciplinarity'. It’s a group of people who have deep knowledge and sound judgment in their disciplines."

Interesting point I just stumbled across here: theconversation.com/why-the-inte... #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter

I haven't lived in DC for quite a while, but somehow I still was invited to this #Anthropology event, which I am appreciatively watching a recording of now: youtube.com/watch?v=6_1Q...

Special Issue Editorial: Extraction by Design—AI, Value, and the Future of Work

With co-authors @dschiff.bsky.social, @ketraschmitt.bsky.social (& a few more not on Bluesky) I just finished a peer-reviewed editorial about #automation and the future of work that uses the Anthropic case as a jumping-off point: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/112... (2/2)

Anthropic settlement checks are arriving in the mail to book authors who suffered #AI #plagiarism. This reminds us that beyond a one-off check, #AcademicSky authors, #nonfiction #writers and community members need sustainable livelihoods and the ability to hope for a positive 'Future of Work.' (1/2)

Special Issue Editorial: Extraction by Design—AI, Value, and the Future of Work

"Thinking of AI technologies by means of the relationship
between mining (as a practice) and energy (as a concept)
reminds us of how regrettable environmental legacies can
hide behind a clean and innocent-sounding key term set forth
as a social good." #AI #STS

ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/112...