iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I'm finishing up in my current role and freelancing once again. Please get in touch if you need: *submission and grant writing (inc. disability, social policy) *academic editing and fact-checking *qualitative research and literature reviews No job too small or too left field!

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Academic Audio Transcription Ltd @aat-transcribes.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Working on a project which engages epistemic injustice, oppression or ignorance as a theoretical framework, or wanting space to explore these concepts with experts and other like-minded researchers? Join us this Thursday at 1pm BST! funnels.academicaudiotranscription.…

funnels.academicaudiotranscription.com

Join our free August workshop on Epistemic Injustice, Oppression & Ignorance

Join us on the second Thursday of the month for our next workshop on Epistemic Injustice, Oppression and Ignorance for Social Researchers

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Liam Thatcher @lthat.ch · 07/08/2026

From Inclusion Australia (peak body for people with intellectual disability) on Centerlink/TCF welfare penalties being switched back on. This will hurt people with disability: TCF must be removed and proper compensation for everyone harmed.

There are at least 3,200 people with an intellectual disability who have compulsory activities in employment services. This is likely to be much lower than the true number because it only includes people who have a primary diagnosis of intellectual disability and who have told Centrelink about their disability.

The Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF) is the system used to stop peoples’ Centrelink payments if they have not done their compulsory activities. These penalties can include suspending, reducing or cancelling a person’s payment.

For people with intellectual disability, these penalties have serious and harmful consequences.

People with an intellectual disability face significant barriers navigating employment services and compulsory activities, especially when services and requirements are not designed to be accessible. Payment suspensions and cancellations compound these barriers by taking away the income people rely on for food, housing, medication, travel and other essentials.

Right now, some parts of the TCF, like payment cancellations are not happening because many were found to be unlawful.

On Tuesday 4 August the Secretary for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) said that they will begin to turn back on more parts of the TCF. This means people could have their payment suspended for more reasons, and their payment could also be cancelled.

DEWR have said this will happen from 26 October 2026.

The Government’s decision to bring these powers back is deeply concerning. We already know that these penalties have caused serious harm to people with an intellectual disability, and there are serious legal concerns about how the TCF has been used.

Inclusion Australia continues to call for:

The removal of the TCF and all compulsory activities

Access to compensation for all people impacted by unlawful payment penalties – while DEWR has said it will contact people who may be eligible for compensation, the Gov…

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Brought up Gramsci in a medical appointment, basically gonna collapse into my own caricatured nature like a black hole now

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The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

thanks to whoever left this awesome giant sheep outside the museum! we're sure nothing bad is going to happen

A giant sheep standing outside the entrance of The Museum of English Rural Life

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Tried to nap but couldn't, paradoxically because I was thinking about Ivan Illich writing in 1974 about participatory low energy societies

Text from Ivan Illich's Energy and Equity (1974): "While people have begun to accept ecological limits on maximum per capita energy use as a condition for physical survival, they do not yet think about the use of minimum feasible power as the foundation of any of various social orders that would be both modern and desirable. Yet only a ceiling on energy use can lead to social relations that are characterized by high levels of equity. The one option that is at present neglected is the only choice within the reach of all nations. It is also the only strategy by which a political process can be used to set limits on the power of even the most motorized bureaucrat. Participatory democracy postulates low-energy technology. Only participatory democracy creates the conditions for rational technology."

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

This is very sad. Any time I've lived in Melbourne and needed escape from grief, trauma, life crises, I would go to Marios, where Massimo was a genuinely comforting presence. One stressful day, as he served my meal he suggested I close my book and really relax over my dinner. He was right of course.

archive.md

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

My former academic library has just been collected for New International Bookshop ahead of their Big Red Book Fair on 18 July at Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St Carlton. Go give my old books good homes 💜

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Extremely useful thread summarising how the amendments to the NDIS bill are faring, for those who lack the spoons or stomach to watch along

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El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

and NDIS Bill report delayed again - this time till next Tuesday www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

aph.gov.au

Media Releases

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El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

report on NDIS bill due today, but in the meantime read some of the incredible submissions from disabled people - all the 'name withhelds' tell you how scared people are about speaking out, but they did it anyway www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

aph.gov.au

Submissions

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King Algamemnon @adamrothman.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

The only acceptable use of Claude

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Dr Cath Feely @cathfeely.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Always, always pause when reading something that doesn't make any sense and think ... my own version was a sentence about reading dialectical materialism as a guide to gaining confidence talking to women. It might be madness but, you know, it's nearly always interesting if you follow it.

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Dr Cath Feely @cathfeely.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

One of the most important influences of The Cheese and the Worms was to notice the odd turn of phrase or the thing that doesn't make sense in a document and poke at it. I always loved that bit at the beginning about the sentence in the Inquisition about putrefaction that he went back to years later.

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Radical Online Archives @radonlinearchives.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

A whole bunch of new collections of radical online archives listed. Check out this 🧵 #historians #archives 🗃️

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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 16/06/2024

Today's the anniversary of the Nazis executing Marc Bloch. Or, someone who could sit with uncertainty, champion inquiry & trying to understand, and recognise plurality & perplexity. And, in that knowledge, made the choice not to remain passive. Bloch, Historian’s Craft (MUP, 1992), pp. 64, 119, 160.

his comrades address him with a look of amazement. "extraordinary! You don't even seem to mind this awful uncertainty!" My friend could have answered that, despite the popular prejudice, the mental climate of research is not so unsympathetic to ready acceptance of the lottery of fate.

Even in action, we are far too prone to judge. It is so easy to denounce. WE are never sufficiently understanding. Whoever differs form us -- a foreigner or a political adversary -- is almost inevitably considered evil. A little more understanding of people would be necessary merely for guidance, in the conflicts which are unavoidable; all the more to prevent them while there is yet time. If history would only renounce its false angelic airs, it would help us to cure this weakness. It includes a vast experience of human diversities, a continuous contact with men. Life, like science, has everything to gain from it, if only these contacts be friendly.

This is in all honesty to acknowledge the subordination of the perspectiv to the peculiar angle of the inquiry. Moreover, lt us take care: in history, the fetish of single cause is all too often only the insidious form of search for the responsible person -- hence a value judgment. The judge expresses it as: 'who is right, and who is wrong?' The scholar is content to ask: 'why?' and he accepts the fact that the answer may not be simple. Whether as a prejudice of common sense, a postulate of logicians, or a habit of prosecuting attorneys, the monism of cause can be, for history, only an impediment. History seeks for causal wavetrains and is not afraid, since life shows them to be so, to find them multiple.

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El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

NDIS Bill Committee report now due Friday (was due today) www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

aph.gov.au

Media Releases

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

This, again, like building castles out of dry sand

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will pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

a machine that can fill in the gaps in the archives! this is distilled essence of so much of the techno-utopianism around LLMs and research. it fundamentally misunderstands: the *gaps* are the meaning. history is not the past, it is the processes of recording, then interpreting those records

research.it

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Just disability things: I have a lovely new mechanical keyboard which feels very satisfying, sounds quiet, and is pleasingly colourful. However I can't use it right now because I'm too sick to move my hands enough to press down keys without the effort making me too tired to type at all. 🙃

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Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 04/06/2026

And let’s not forget the crucial role of Redbridge in message testing how accusations of “fraud” in the NDIS would land with the community on behalf of Bill Shorten. This myth didn’t grow from a single seed, it was a concerted campaign by the people who claim the loudest to support disabled people.

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UK Disability History and Heritage Hub @ukdishisthub.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

CFP alert: We are thrilled to announce the Call for Presenters for a hybrid event in collaboration with @britishlibrary.bsky.social! This will be taking place on 27th November 2026, with presentations happening both in-person and online. Deadline to submit your ideas is: 31st July 2026! #DisHist

Poster for the Call for Presenters for "Collections Uncovered: Disability at the British Library." All text is black typed on cream, yellow and light blue backgrounds (descending down the page in that order). The text reads:
Collections Uncovered: Disability at the British Library
27th November 2026, 10am-4:30pm, hybrid

Call for Presenters

Join the UK Disability History and Heritage Hub to explore disability stories in the collections of the British Library. The day will begin with academic, artistic, or community presentations on all things disability
history. Presentations will be online and in-person.

The afternoon will be a hands-on, in-person workshop with
selected material from the British Library collections.

Topic ideas:
. cataloguing disability
. activist publications
. access
. disability histories in the British Library collections

Presentations may be 5 or 15 minutes.
These can be standard papers or something more
creative, like an interview or performance!
Please submit by text or video:
. Summary (max 200 words)
· Personal or organisation bio (max 100 words)
. Videos may be up to 3 minutes
Email ukdishistheritagehub@gmail.com by 31st July 2026

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El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Liam is doing excellent threads on the details of the NDIS Bill going through Parliament - this one on the amends on the table so far

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Elizabeth Malcolm was my honours supervisor, immensely generous and kind during a horrific time of my life. I still have copies of Patrick O'Farrell's books she recommended to me, after she described how his work had influenced her own. Good teaching is a gift that keeps giving over time and space.

isaanz.org

The passing of Elizabeth Malcolm

19 May 2026. Elizabeth Malcolm died peacefully in Melbourne following a long illness aged 77. Elizabeth was the inaugural Gerry Higgins professor of Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne. Sh…

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Liam Thatcher @lthat.ch · 27/05/2026

QIDAN have done an excellent summary of just how little action has taken place in response to the Disability Royal Commission. Very much worth your time: qai.org.au/wp-content/u...

qai.org.au

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Liam Thatcher @lthat.ch · 27/05/2026

Don't have the time to listen in heaps of detail but Katy Gallagher is discussing the huge NDIS budget reduction at Finance estimates - most of the cuts hinge on this Bill being passed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOKY...

youtube.com

Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee | [Part 1] | 27/05/2026

YouTube video by Australian Parliament House Streaming Portal

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Yung En Chee @yungenchee.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

"The Healing Foundation, an advocacy group that represents survivors, commissioned a report in 2025 titled Are you waiting for us to die?The unfinished business of Bringing Them Home, which found that only 5 out of 83 recommendations had been implemented." 5 out of 83 recommendations in ~3 decades

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The Australia Institute @australiainstitute.org.au · 25/05/2026

“The Freedom Of Information system is broken. It was broken by ministers and senior public servants who delay, deny and obfuscate FOI requests, wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars a year." – Bill Browne Read the full media release 👇 theaus.in/4wOxDsf

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El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

For people with disabilities, extreme heat is more than just an inconvenience - it is a critical health and accessibility crisis. Come to a free, online Heat and Disability Symposium on tomorrow from 1pm AEST events.humanitix.com/heat-and-dis...

events.humanitix.com

Heat and Disability Symposium [online]

Heat is a disability justice issue. Join Sweltering Cities and expert advocates for a vital conversation on a cooler & more just future.

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Restarting a crucial med really gets me using my historian skills, in that I'm surrounded by strange decontextualised traces of how this body was surviving for however many weeks, and now it is up to me to piece together the evidence into a sort of story that hangs together and that I can live with

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Liam Thatcher @lthat.ch · 20/05/2026

luv to cut disability support instead of taxing the gas industry: "[Social License] has been used widely as part of the PR of extractive industries [to signal they] are mindful of their social responsibilities [without] having to meet intrusive government regulations and community expectations"

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Vanessa Smith @normalness.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

From the article: “However, the decision to reduce this budget was preferred over others because it does not impact the health and safety of participants,” it said. As a 99% housebound person, I can tel you this is a lie. Not being able to go out has huge impacts to both health and safety.

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Two points here: 1) Butler describing the NDIS as needing 'social licence' reveals a very sinister attitude to the function of that institution, however: 2) much current Labor policy revolves around not knowing what words mean or what events occured in the recent past, which is a massive problem

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

🚨 PSA for: disability / policy folk, the first part of this piece by Peter McPhee explains the origins of "social licence" as a concept, and is really useful for explaining how inappropriate it is to be used in the contexts Labor is currently doing so: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

tandfonline.com

A social licence to operate?

Published in Australian Historical Studies (Vol. 57, No. 2, 2026)

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Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 20/05/2026

If you want to know more about the government's legislation to enable cruel NDIS cuts, there is an event on tomorrow evening for those who are interested in getting involved in trying to stop it. You can register for the emergency community meeting here:

events.humanitix.com

New NDIS Laws - Emergency Community Organising Meeting

Join Disabled People Against Cuts Australia to hear about the new NDIS laws and take action to tell government why cuts cost lives.

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El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

outstanding and devastating work from QIDAN that also found Qld govt had changed responses with no explanation 'new analysis revealed just 3 per cent of the more than 200 recommendations from the disability royal commission have been implemented.' www.smh.com.au/national/que... archive.md/HSeHX

smh.com.au

‘Huge failure’: Lack of action on disability inquiry’s findings prompts fears of violence

Only 3 per cent of more than 200 recommendations outlined by the disability royal commission have been implemented, a new Queensland-based analysis shows.

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

"It is not always clarifying to explain something new with reference to something old—especially if doing so relies on a two-dimensional view of the past." 🙌

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The Shot @theshot.net.au · 16/05/2026

Tomorrow on The Sunday Shot, @instanterudite.bsky.social and @davemilbo.bsky.social are joined by @grogsgamut.bsky.social, Kalila Welch and @bluntshovels.bsky.social discussing the budget and the cuts to the NDIS. Check it out on Youtube or your podcast app of choice.

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JB_AU @jbau.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Note that property investors get grandfathered changes, but NDIS participants do not. So our Government is effectively saying property investors deserve the dignity of maintaining their current comfort levels, but people with disabilities do not.

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

It's a bad time to work on disability while also having disabilities that respond to stress by trying to kill you 🙃

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Radio Reversal @radioreversal.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Good morning Zedheads! Today on the show Anna and @drnatosborne.bsky.social are in the studio talking about the disastrous cuts to the NDIS, & playing part 2 of Anna's interview with the wonderful Belle from 4ZZZ's 'Only Human', on the transformative impact the NDIS had for them.

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Pour one out for contemporary British historians living in Australia, constantly infuriated by both Labour and Labor parties

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Ben Eltham @beneltham.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

In 18 years of closely watching federal budgets, I've never seen a budget measure with this level of social spending cuts (not even in Joe Hockey's 2014 budget). $36b in NDIS cuts over the forward estimates

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Lauren Pikó @booklearning.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Prediction that this will be me when the budget drops

Winnie the Pooh holding a piece of paper at arm's length with an incredulous expression hinting at mild distaste

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

As @brionyneilson.bsky.social once informed me, Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero have in the past described historians as like grave-robbers.

Introduction: The Crime of History by Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero
History begins where justice ends. Long after the judge finishes a case and sends its record off to gather dust in the archives, a historian reclaims it for his or her own purposes. Few concern themselves so long after the crime with the contested issues of guilt or innocence, since the value of criminal records for history is not so much what they uncover about a particular crime as what they reveal about otherwise invisible or opaque realms of human experience. Nevertheless, it has long been fashionable to compare historical and judicial methods, typically by assigning to the historian a judicial role such as witness, detective, or judge. The comparison is obviously a metaphoric one, useful to the degree that it illuminates something about historical practice. It might be especially illuminating, however, to play with the metaphor by suspending the flattering comparisons. Consider what might be unmasked by seeing the historian as criminal, historical practice as a kind of crime.
What crimes do historians commit? They might best be seen as thieves, as persons who practice a form of grave robbing. Renaissance grave robbers carried off bodies to sell to physicians for dissections, and historians also appropriate and dismember the past, absconding with the words of others to make their own classifications and to write new narratives. Even more than the inquisitors and judges of the criminal record, historians are likely to suborn witnesses, depriving them of their own integrity; at the worst they are even forced to answer historians' questions with words spoken in answer to other questions.
From a slightly different perspective influenced by Foucault, the crime of history, like that of medicine, might be seen as originating in its construction as a discipline. Fulfilling the demands of their discipline,
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