A rare thing: *four* three-year hums/soc-sci posts in animal studies, on the Multispecies Mutualisms project at UoSheffield - with @rosaleenduffy.bsky.social, me, Robert McKay and Alasdair Cochrane; see here for a video explainer: digitalmedia.sheffield.ac.uk/media/Multis...
And some fresh beginnings!! Starting today, I work in a postdoc role at the Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology, Uni Leipzig as part of the DFG Project "Environmental-Mental Health: Experience, Ethics and Poetics of Ecological Mourning Amidst a Wounded Environment in India (ENVIRON-MENTAL)"
Four wonderful years of learning and unlearning came to a close last month with the successful defense of my PhD Thesis. So grateful to my supervisors, Uli Beisel and Maan Barua, for their unwavering support and the many thoughtful, caring, and critical inputs throughout this journey.
"in this vein"
Their ways of life don't conform to the "(Western) European Way of Life", and they are judged for it. This standard is arrogant and harmful, and sucks up the resources that peripheral, marginalized, and rural people need.
Potential workaround if you're already logged in and get prompted by the ToS notification: opening this "privacy policy" link www.academia.edu/privacytakes you to a page where you can access the drop-down menu and reach "account settings." From there I was able to delete my account without agreeing.
Still decompressing from #ESEH2025 week but hey was it good!
@elinetabak.bsky.social @chriskla.bsky.social @charrlotte.bsky.social, Sven Seelinger plus @aberehrlich.bsky.social
(Go “invasive species”! I guess…)
What an excellent moderation. Lots to learn for many, there. Not only was the room really opened up to online participants (incl. me), but ECRs were given space FIRST in the discussion #downwithheirarchies #changingacademia
this was such an amazing experience 💚 the organisers @katiekung.bsky.social @elinetabak.bsky.social, the presenters, AND the audience were so engaging.
some of these reactions cannot be read without the aversion to intl. labour mobility in germany (pervasive everywhere but also in academia), the economy, & the arrogance of the german society in saying 'we won't adapt to a post-migration society one bit, but need to fill our pension gaps'
the responses on this post shared elsewhere is extremely hostile to intl postdocs. there seems to be the expectation that intl folks should master a language + research + adapt in a new society + understand the bureaucratic framework (all within the short contract timeframe)
“International postdocs don’t know their rights or know the [German] law.”
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
I've always been really upfront about my experiences with this. I have encountered accent-based classism (not actually a true assessment of my 'class') at every stage in my student and now academic career. It is RIFE in this country across students and also staff members. Something HAS to change.
I have many a bones to pick with the travel admin, who seems to think it's too much work to calculate petty pennies (INR) for field work periods. None of the forms and systems here are made for international researchers. I'm sorry for the workload, but I can't alter global currency exchange systems
One of the reasons I moved out of this research focus is really just the raw pain from field work with waste workers and street vendors & the guilt at interviewing the most precarious and instrumentalizing their narratives for research
POCs are becoming increasingly tense about the emerging situation in Germany. The media and politicians have done their job exceedingly well - even seemingly mundane conversation are tinted with nefarious hints of racist incitement.
blessed are those who haven't heard the ELSTER hotline's music on hold
>40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study
Petition for UK academics asking govt to facilitate a biometric visa deferral and open a route of safe passage
Sign & share ⏬️
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Yay, so thrilled that my visa has been approved in time for the #RGS-IBG Annual Conference. Will be visiting the UK for the first time and would be around until September 7th. Please reach out if you are around Birmingham / recommend any spots! :)
what a deeply cathartic read on caste and academic collaborations!
On the flattening of brown scholars in the Western Academy, from Patel, S. & Da Costa, D. (2022). “We Cannot Write About Complicity Together”:
Limits of Cross-Caste Collaborations in Western Academy. Engaged Scholar
Journal, 8(2), 1–27. doi.org/10.15402/esj...
Please register for the HSS meeting @NOLA & come meet Ashton Wesner 🐟Sam Muka 🪸 Rebecca Woods 🐒 Aleksandar Shopov 🐫 and + discuss their research on animal mobilities and why such histories of science matter. Thanks to Sonia Wigh, co-organizer of this roundtable with the Osiris editors! #histsci
Looking forward to the ESEH panel by @katiekung.bsky.social and @elinetabak.bsky.social to think together on "Vegetal (hi)stories: more-than-human narratives of invasion and belonging"
looking for literature / leads on how nativism can be far from neat, messy in its circulations, and even outward-looking, or influenced by philosophies or regimes of the Other {tying up some loose threads in the diss}
That was a fascinating talk last eve. Heading over to read "For a Liberatory Politics of Home": www.dukeupress.edu/for-a-libera...
💟 that time of the semester when the quietest student in the seminar takes the ball out of the park with their presentation / term paper 💟
I think the comments on this (very good, if I do say so myself) article are fascinating. If the AI industry has lost the Verge commenter, who do they have on their side? www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
Whenever I hear @meredithmeredith.bsky.social speak it’s like breathing good air after choking on smog for a week.
