iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 11h

Soul-nourishing evening at Gylly beach, Falmouth.

Reposted by Catherine Owen

Dr Xianan Jin 🍉 @xiananj.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

New article on feminist ethnography method 🧚‍♀️ I started writing this piece probably since 2017 - good that it is finally out for colleagues to read and comment. Feel free to text me about what you think 🫶🏼

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"They argue that merging departments saves money. Then they need someone to lead th larger [department].They need more administrative support. They create associate dean positions. So money moves upward frm student-facing services into senior administration” progressive.international/wire/2026-09...

progressive.international

A notorious consulting firm is selling austerity. Canada’s universities are buying

Australian consulting firm Nous Group profits from public-sector austerity by imposing corporatization across cash-strapped Canadian universities, and is now expanding into health care.

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Hannah Theaker @htheaker.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I was deep in a start-of-semester migraine when the Edinburgh news came out, but I read with trepidation to discover whether my own undergraduate degree (Chinese and History) was among those cut. Its not - but my sense of sadness at this slashing of choice remains.

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Petra Boynton @petraboynton.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

This is really bad news for University of Brighton with wider concerns about staff and student rights and closures (as we know Sussex University is also struggling). The county of Sussex deserves functioning HEIs for the local community and those from further afield. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

University of Brighton considers closing Falmer campus by 2030

The campus houses the university's library, sports and health complex, and two halls of residence.

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Dr Susan Greaney @suegreaney.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

As we say goodbye today to many experienced and wonderful colleagues taking 'voluntary' redundancy, this blog post from our union @exeterucu.bsky.social highlights the unfairness and unequal impact of the decision-making: exeterucu.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/t...

exeterucu.wordpress.com

TERS Survey Report

EUCU received 81 responses to our TERS survey, which was open from 17th till 28th August 2026. Run from the UCU regional office, the survey was circulated to all UCU members and was fully anonymous…

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Solidarity with colleagues at the University of Birmingham

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I loved the dwarves of Wrocław - over 1,200 unique little statues scattered across the city that honour the satirical, absurdist “Orange Alternative” anti-authoritarian movement that began in 1980s, providing citizens with a playful way to oppose the Polish regime 😍

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Reposted by Catherine Owen

Exeter UCU @exeterucu.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The University of Exeter has confirmed that it won’t proceed with compulsory redundancies “at this time”. This means colleagues do not need to complete the pro forma, and there will be no selection process.

photo of Nicole Kidman looking incredibly joyful and free after her divorce from Tom Cruise was finalised

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Incredibly moving and inspiring history of workers’ collective action followed by delicious local craft beer in Gdánsk shipyard. Just what I needed at the end of a long summer of UCU work ✊🍻

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I feel so proud to work alongside these amazing, eloquent and inspiring colleagues 😍✊ The closure of the Geography programme is a loss for the whole Penryn campus, and for young people in Cornwall.

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James Kneale @jameskneale.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I've just heard that the BA/BSc Geography programme is to close at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Geography and Environmental Science (CGES) in Cornwall. This programme was made up of excellent modules with original and content, taught brilliantly—often with real innovation—by extremely 1/9

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Bryce Covert @brycecovert.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Yikes. Women accounted for all of the job losses and all of the labor force decline in July, according to @nwlc.org

WASHINGTON — Women accounted for 100 percent of the decline in the labor force in July, according to a National Women’s Law Center jobs analysis of monthly data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That brings the total net number of women who have left the labor force since January this year to 845,000. In comparison, there are 406,000 fewer men in the labor force now than in January.

A total of 165,000 women, aged 20 and over, left the labor force last month — meaning they are neither working nor looking for work — while men's labor force participation was unchanged. Overall, the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. Women accounted for all of these losses, losing 32,000 jobs, while men gained 9,000 jobs. Women make up 50.1% of the workforce.

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

This is devastating. Working myself in a smaller, "second" campus, I fully empathise with how staff and students in Southend must have felt. The down-sizing and/or closure of universities in smaller, "peripheral" locations will have huge impacts on these communities www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

University of Essex's Southend campus shuts and staff say goodbye

The university says the closure is due to financial pressures, leading to 400 staff redundancies.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 30/07/2026

“proposed cuts of 28 per cent of staff in the department” of history at Exeter.

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Just signed a contract with @edinburghup.bsky.social for our volume "Rethinking Regimes: Time, Space & Governance in Contemporay Politics" with my fab co-editors, Licia Cianetti & Gianni Del Panta! Appearing Autumn 2027, it offers a new framework to understand political regimes in the 21st Century 🥳

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Just listened to part 2 of a 3 part "Culture Power Politics" podcast series on "Universities in Crisis". Fully agree that universities have lost the battle with corporate interests over the production of knowledge as a public good. culturepowerpolitics.org/2026/07/16/u...

culturepowerpolitics.org

Universities in Crisis (part 2)

How have universities changed in the eras of Fordism, post-Fordism and Platform Capitalism?

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Reposted by Catherine Owen

Alasdair MacCaluim @am-broc.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Cuts are currently planned at the University of Exeter, including deep cuts at the Institute of Cornish studies which will do great harm to #Kernewek - the Cornish language. Please sign the open letter and petition. docs.google.com/document/d/1... www.change.org/p/stop-redun...

docs.google.com

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

📣📣Calling all Falmouth and Exeter UCU members! Our Fal-Ex trade union day of action is tomorrow! Members and colleagues in the morning in the Woodlane campus, and all interested members of the public in the afternoon. Let’s fight for jobs and universities in Cornwall!

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Lewis Wade 🗃️ @wadehistory.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

🚨 PLEASE SHARE WIDELY 🚨 If you are an Exeter alumnus, and wish to express your horror at the proposed cuts to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, please sign the Google Doc petition below. Not an alumnus? You can still help by signing the Exeter UCU petition at c.org/msXfsb2g5b 🗃️

docs.google.com

Alumni petition against the cuts to the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Any Exeter alumni who wish for their names to be added to the petition below should please complete the form at this link: https://forms.gle/SpdYvmmsCaJbmZft6. If you are not an alumnus, but still wis...

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

An exhilarating few days of exchange of ideas & research at the Exeter Fudan Global Thought Network symposium, exploring how ideas & materiality spread across contexts, acquiring new meanings in the process. The network is going from strength to strength! @exeter.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social

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Prof Prachi Srivastava 🌈 @prachisrivas.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

This is nearly *everything* - humanities and social sciences AND applied fields. Uni Chicago is suspending PhD admissions in: English, classics, art history, linguistics + Crown School of Social Work, Harris School of Public Policy + Social Sciences, including anthropology and political economy.

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Caroline Lucas @carolinelucas.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Good news! Ministers have finally given green light to new #NaturalHistory GCSE. We’ve campaigned so long for this! Big hats off to tireless advocate Mary Colwell 🙌 Now our young people will have a chance to get to know & love the natural world, to feel awe & wonder, & gain skills to protect it 🌷🌳🦡

theguardian.com

Natural history GCSE to teach teenagers to plant wildflower-friendly gardens

Long-awaited course to examine human effects on natural world and explore everyday ways to aid biodiversity

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

My partner, working in the private sector, just received a surprise cream tea through th post as part of his company's wellbeing week, encouraging him to take time to enjoy it today! Mind = blown. What a difference compared to HE where wellbeing basically involves signing up to another online course

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

I'm a trustee of this wonderful charity, having volunteered with them in 2011. They do essential work training English teachers & facilitating cultural exchange for rural communities & disadvantaged children in Kyrgyzstan. If you can donate to help sustain their future, please do erayim-aid-trust.uk

erayim-aid-trust.uk

Erayim Aid Trust UK

empowering women and children in Kyrgyzstan

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Interesting article on Area Studies in China. While there surely are plenty of mediocre outputs resulting from this Party-driven push, colleagues across China I've met working on post-Soviet region are deeply knowledgeable, providing a fresh, non-Eurocentric perspective jamestown.org/beijings-reg...

jamestown.org

Beijing’s Regional Studies Push Risks Campaign-Style Overreach - Jamestown

Executive Summary: On March 10, the People’s Daily ran an article by Jing Ge (靳戈) of Peking University’s Institute for Area Studies on how the “regional and country studies” (区域国别学) discipline should ...

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Reposted by Catherine Owen

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Absolutely this.

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Ross Carroll @rosscarroll.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

The situation for the political theorists at Essex in a travesty. Please read and share.

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Dr Duncan Robertson @duncanrobertson.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Looks like we've passed peak academia. www.ft.com/content/8097... via @data.ft.com

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

The seagull nesting on the roof opposite our house is really struggling in the heatwave. She looks like she’s panting 😮‍💨 I’m thinking of scaling the building and positioning a small parasol over her till her chicks arrive.

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Just installed '10 Blue Links' Google Chrome extension and it has removed all the AI junk at the top of the page that had been obscuring my search results. Hooray! Recommend💯

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Reposted by Catherine Owen

Eddie Burfi @eddieburfi.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

A very good afternoon to the absolute hero who organised and parked this beauty in the middle of little Tommy’s far-right hate march. ❤️

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Stumbled upon these stunning fossils at Kilve beach in north Somerset at the weekend. Like delicate fragments of golden lace. What a find!! 🤩

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Very happy to have my latest research with my excellent co-author and dear friend, Xuan Qin at Fudan University, into the lasting effects of China's zero-COVID policy on its grassroots governance published in the China Journal!

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

A South West Coast Path scratch off map - a fantastic idea! Only downside is that you have to walk it in the stretches they suggest, and it’s virtually impossible to backfill with the bits you’ve already done. Still, a super cool idea in principle 👍

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Reposted by Catherine Owen

Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 30/04/2026

after a long wait, our forum article on the uses and abuses of the anticolonial in global reactionary politics is finally online! academic.oup.com/ips/article/... for the IPS @20 special issue

Abstract
Drawing on a range of regional expertise and perspectives from international relations, political economy, political theory, and sociology, this collective discussion makes the following contributions to research on global reactionary politics and discussions of decolonization. First, we argue that the erosion of the legitimacy of liberal orders renders the anti-colonial language available for authoritarian and conservative projects in both the Global South and North to articulate a selective rejection of universalism. While framing liberal universalism as imperialist, they remain embedded within neoliberal structures and embrace a market universalism in tandem with claims of cultural particularity. Secondly, the contributions explore a series of ironies, reversals, and convergences not only across regional divides, but also across conventional ideological boundaries. This includes conceptual affinities between the radical right’s emphasis on ontological difference and the nativist temptation within the history of anti-colonial nationalism, as well as the confluence between the radical conservatives, the postcolonial authoritarians, and a certain strand of decolonial discourse in their envisioning of a multipolar civilizational order. Finally, we suggest that for international political sociology, this urges us to deepen engagement with anti-colonial traditions that are radically incompatible with the far right and to center forms of vernacular anti-colonial theorizing from marginalized places.

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Devon Development Education at the Global Centre @devondeved.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Wildfires are a global phenomenon. Speakers: Rayanne Vitali, from wildFIRE lab, University of Exeter, with colleagues Romy Franz Bodenham, Alastair Crawford, Tara Jeffery Further information wildfire-lab.com For Zoom link email dde@globalcentredevon.org.uk #wildfires #onlineevent

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

I'm in @theobserveruk.bsky.social today looking at why so many unis are in financial trouble and what the government needs to do to save HE. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

observer.co.uk

Why saving universities is far more than academic

Modern Britain needs young people with degrees – here’s how to make sure they still have somewhere to study them

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Bude Sea Pool, created 1930. While the surfers ride the Atlantic waves, swimmers enjoy calm waters. Still cold though 🥶

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Peter Magyar has offered a template which can be used, without too much alteration, in defeating populists worldwide open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Leaving beautiful Innsbruck after an intense and exhilarating week at the #ecprjs26, critically discussing the concept of “regime” and how best to study it, with an incredible group of scholars. So many new ideas, collaborations and friendships to take forward! Unforgettable.

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Catherine Owen @catherineowen.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Absolutely thrilled to learn that my article with Licia Cianetti and Giannia Del Panta, "What is a Regime", has been awarded the Frank Cass Prize for the best article in @democratization.bsky.social in 2025! Thank you so much to the editors for this recognition of our work - we're all over the moon!

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Public Administration and Development @journalpad.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

♨️New #OpenAccess Brief report! . Ibrahim Bornoma, Nick Kirsop-Taylor & David Benson argue that administrative traditions in the majority world must be understood through both colonial and pre-colonial institutional legacies. 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/pad....

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