iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

If you know me, you know I joke that I want to be @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social when I grow up. So when she popped up on one of my favourite podcasts, I had to listen and illustrate some lessons from the episode. @truthout.org @mskellymhayes.bsky.social truthout.org/audio/hope-i...

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

When the world’s on fire, I always look to @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social’s words. The Beginning Comes After the End is a timely (and necessary) addition to the Solnit canon. @haymarketbooks.org

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

There is a lot of (academic and public) scholarship on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). But, there is a difference between doing something and doing something well with care. TILBIRL is my little way of shedding light on books I think do the job well with care. @luciaoc.bsky.social

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

After years of living, stressing and surviving, the blog’s back with a new series, Things I’ve Learnt from Books I’ve Read and Loved (TILBIRL). Part 1 features @luciaoc.bsky.social’s amazing and powerful books. fieldnotesfromafeministresearcher.wordpress.com/2026/03/07/t...

fieldnotesfromafeministresearcher.wordpress.com

Things I’ve Learnt from Books I’ve Read and Loved (TILBIRL) 1: Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Things I’ve Learnt from Books I’ve Read and Loved or TILBIRL (catchy, isn’t it?) is an attempt to spotlight writers whose work inspires me to keep going. Part 1 features Lucia Osb…

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Such a great book! I read an ARC last month. Highly recommend!

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

As Mariame Kaba says, “Hope is a discipline.” Given the state of the world, don’t you wish practicing hope right now was as easy as writing it out on a worksheet? Despite and inspite of the difficulty, we must imagine and strive towards a better world. @interruptcrim.bsky.social @procreate.com

digital illustration of sheets of paper and a pencil. The top sheet of paper is a worksheet with the title, ‘Hope is a discipline.’ The rest of the sheet is filled with doodles of ‘Hope’ in various fonts.

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Dr. Lorgia García Peña @laprofelgp.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Love is not a feeling. It is a act that requires commitment, tenderness, active listening and acts of care and support.

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Over the past month, I read an advanced copy of Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis, a collection edited by @mskellymhayes.bsky.social. Truly a care package for the soul! I highly recommend it. Thank you to @akpress.org for the ARC!

Photo of a kindle alongside a vase of Lego flowers against a table cloth. The kindle is open to the cover of “Read This When Things Fall Apart.”

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Breaking my nibling-imposed break to say that my Fletcher experience has greatly benefited from @tomdannenbaum.bsky.social’s mentorship and support, literally from day 1 as my MALD academic advisor to now serving on my PhD committee. Finishing up at Fletcher will be strange without you around!

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John Green @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

I seriously think the Social Internet is 21st century cigarettes. Complete with secondary smoke causing a lot of harm in nonusers.

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AF the Virologist @afthescientist.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I swear the horrors aren’t even daily, they’re hourly. And simultaneously so we don’t see all that is happening.

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Seems like a lot of people are choosing not to travel for ISA next year! Will miss you! But I would love to figure out a way to have this conversation elsewhere and/or online at another time.

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Seems like a lot of people are choosing not to travel to the U.S. for ISA next year! Will miss you!

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Hi hi! Since there’s an #ISA2026 deadline extension, @sindujaraja.bsky.social and I are wondering if anyone would be interested in joining a roundtable on academia as/and activism? The conversation is as necessary as ever with global trends of growing fascism and repression. @isanet.bsky.social

Academia And/As Activism Redux: Tensions and Reciprocities in a Changing World

This roundtable explores the relationship between academia and activism in a world increasingly drawn towards authoritarianism, fascism, and attacks on free speech and progressive action. Academia and activism may seem like a symbiotic relationship, especially in the social sciences where the focus is on contending with critical social and political issues. On the one hand, academia can offer theoretical insights and analyses to issues that activists then utilize in their work. Similarly, activists hold rich grassroots experiences that can be theorised and analysed by academics. However, there are a multitude of tensions at play in the relationship: 1. Power (and resource) imbalance between academics and activists, 2. Risk of exploitation and instrumentalization of interlocutors and activists by academics, 3. The applicability and practicality of theories to the field, 4. Increased government repression towards dissenting voices in academia and activism. Additionally, academic-activist identity is vital for feminist, intersectional and decolonial scholars. These scholars have stressed the need for more applicable research, while advocating for social change within academia, and for conceiving of and acting within academia as an inherently political and therefore contested sphere as well. Building on the experiences of participants and an ethic of care, this roundtable will also conceptualize the way forward for academics as activists.

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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Another Storm, by Lee Krasner, 1963, 📸 by Adam Davy

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Kevin Jon Heller 🇺🇸🇩🇰 @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

I know I'm woke -- proudly so -- but I'm tired of hearing @arsenalwfc.bsky.social's players being referred to as "girls" or "gals" or "ladies." They are women playing the sport at the very highest level and deserve more respect. #Arsenal #COYG

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Oof, I love that phrase: “empty and joyful at once.” It perfectly describes the sense of release (and maybe acceptance?) that I felt.

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Five, respondents admitted to being bad at taking care of themselves given the demands of activism, funding issues, overwork and the state of the world. All wanted to know other respondents’ answers to figure out practices of care (any ideas outside of my dissertation welcome! Comic? Podcast?) 6/6

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

[Oops, I was part way through this and had to stop to put my little baby nephew (who has a cold) down for a nap while also battling a cold myself. This break only adds to my point about balancing work-life and prioritising care!]

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Four, they decide their own canvas of impact. While the ultimate goal is a world with no violence, they defined success in smaller ways: 1. focusing on cities/states with friendly governments, 2. their work leading to open conversations with family about gender norms ie “slow/soft activism.” 5/6

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Three, everyone’s motivation was deeply personal and came from their own or a loved one’s or experience with SGBV. Some jumped into anti-SGBV work to heal/deal with their experiences and some took time to heal and then jumped into the work. 4/6

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Two, almost everyone I talked to sees what they do as being tied to who they are as humans. While a few were hesitant to label themselves as “feminist” or “activist,” they all said the work was important. “Once you see it [SGBV], you can’t unsee it” so you decide to do something. 3/6

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

First, they’re all exhausted. Everyone brought up being close to burnout or suffering from it in the past. Not only is the work hard to do because social change is slow, the space for non-profits doing violence prevention work is shrinking so they’re all fighting for funding/space/attention. 2/6

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

What an important piece! Some further thoughts because a big part of my PhD dissertation research at @fletcherschool.bsky.social is on how activists sustain themselves while sustaining social movements. I interviewed feminist activists working on ending SGBV in India. 1/6

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Read this a week ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it: “I am asking them, as I am continually asking myself, to imagine a heart that feels a connection to the hearts of others, even others you do not know. I would like to think that this is what nudges me forward, more than…hope.”

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

The world’s a lot right now so here’s a little reminder to stay soft and remain tender. I read @monaeltahawy.bsky.social’s substack piece with this quote in February but I keep returning to it. @procreate.com

digital illustration of red poppies taped together with a bandaid, accompanied by the quote, “tender is the fight… and there is power in such tenderness.”

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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

I keep seeing variants of “what an exciting time for political scientists.” We are not excited. An epidemiologist isn’t excited when, after warning for years about an impending epidemic, the epidemic strikes. No one thinks the thing that’s been keeping them up at night is thrilling to watch unfold.

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

…and despite it all, there are still cherry blossoms. #noticing

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

“Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you” is in my top 3 favorite lines of poetry!

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

“Tender is the fight... And there is power in such tenderness.”

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Sara Koopman @spaceforpeace.bsky.social · 17/10/2024

🧵⬇️Check out the great papers in our new special issue of Geopolitics (29, 5: 2024): Making Space for Peace in Contexts of ‘Non-war’ Violence: Challenging War-Peace Binaries Through Feminist, Spatio-Temporal, & Decolonial Approaches doi.org/10.1080/1465...

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Making Space for Peace in Contexts of ‘Non-war’ Violence: Challenging War-Peace Binaries Through Feminist, Spatio-Temporal, and Decolonial Approaches

Peace is often represented as a matter of time, as a political state that happens after war. This special issue contests this linear and binary view by giving an account of being and thinking betwe...

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Living in this world is a lot right now. Here’s a little attempt to remind myself to remain soft, gentle and tender amidst all the violence and uncertainty. It’s also a hope that one day we’ll live in a world with only the gentle. #digitalart #illustration @procreate.com

Digital illustration of heart, bows, Totoro, books, butterflies, flowers and mirrorball.

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

As a bonus, I also illustrated putting ourselves into the 'I' of International Relations. Never thought I'd see one of my illustrations in an academic journal!

Digital illustration of silhouettes of 2 women in the letter, I

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Dipali A @dipali17.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Happy to share my piece for International Politics' book forum on @drljshepherd.bsky.social's The Self and Other Stories. I urge us to move towards an International Relations that is more relational, personal, caring and yes, messy! Read here: rdcu.be/d8jsk #feminist #internationalrelations

rdcu.be

Writing our stories with care and hope

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