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Helen Berents

@hmberents.bsky.social
895 followers 401 following 191 posts

children & youth. peace & conflict. feminist. academic. baker. probably in that order. researcher @ Griffith Uni. she/her www.hmberents.com | theYPSobserver.substack.com

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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
A joy to have @jmarshallbeier.bsky.social visiting Brisbane and be able to speak together about our work with @bleiker.bsky.social for the @visualpolitics.bsky.social series last week! Recording is now available
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Roland Bleiker @bleiker.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Please join us in person or online to hear @jmarshallbeier.bsky.social and @hmberents.bsky.social discuss their research collaboration about images of childhood as technologies of governance. Wed 22 April, 5-6pm Brisbane time (UTC+10), 39a/501. Zoom Rego: www.rolandbleiker.com/news/upcomin...
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Andrew D Wilson @adw.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
This piece is disturbing because it reads like a press release that had to include a bit of journalism in it. There’s virtually no critical analysis of the danger of what’s happening. The only mention of the word “law” is a UN quote.
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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Gee, ya think.
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Luke Glanville @lukeglanville.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Postdoc alert! I'm looking to appoint a Postdoctoral Fellow in International Relations (2 years) to work on my historically focused ARC project, “Humane Exclusion: How States Justify Excluding Refugees." Please share widely. jobs.anu.edu.au/cw/en/job/56...
jobs.anu.edu.au
Postdoctoral Fellow - Canberra / ACT, ACT, Australia
Classification: Academic Level ASalary package: $89,313 – $112,103 per annum plus 17% superannuationTerm: Part time, Fixed Term, up to 28hrs per week. (2 years) Outstanding opportunity to work on a p...
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Roland Bleiker @bleiker.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Join us in person or online for our new @visualpolitics.bsky.social events to hear about new research from @mtrotem.bsky.social (Manchester), Saffron O'Neill (Exeter), @jmarshallbeier.bsky.social (McMaster) and @hmberents.bsky.social (Griffith). Zoom rego: www.rolandbleiker.com/news/new-vis...
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Jason Wilson @jasonaw.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Look I am not a fan of this arrangement but isn't their head of state King Charles www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended the decision to invite Israel's President Isaac Herzog to Australia, saying, "When the Jewish community asked for their head of state to visit, I think it is appropriate that people be allowed to mourn."
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
It’s been two years since Hind Rajab was murdered. The car she was in hit over 300 times with bullets. This week the IOF recognised the Gazan Health Ministry’s official death toll. 70,000+. 70,000 Hinds. All of whom lived lives. All of whom should still be alive.
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Dr Lindsay Clark @lindsaycclark.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
I am recruiting! Two 4-year postdoc fellow positions for 'Technology and the (future) Human in War: jobs.sussex.ac.uk/job/36e1adc2... #jobs #academicjob
jobs.sussex.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Technology and the (future) Human in War x2 Ref: 43027 & 43028 (Fixed Term) - Job page - University of Sussex Job Search
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
When I wanted my interests in global politics and baking to intersect, I didn’t mean it to happen like this! Unfortunately can now imagine an article called something like: Add a pinch of capitalist imperialism and stir: performative baking and the re-emergence of global fascism
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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
For the past 25 years there has never been a national security law that has done anything other than to give more power to cops and spooks and to ministers to stifle anyone who disagrees with the status quo.
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
What's Ahead for YPS in 2026: No Quick Fix Marking two years of writing the YPS Observer (and my 3rd annual year-ahead post) here is what I'll be watching on #youth4peace. open.substack.com/pub/theypsob...
open.substack.com
What's Ahead for YPS in 2026: No Quick Fix
I often describe myself as a pragmatic optimist; my capacity for persistence is grounded in hope oriented towards the kinder, safer world I want to build. However, such sentiments have been sorely tes...
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The White Rose Society (Australia) @whiterosesociety.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
All of this and not a single cent of funding towards community based deradicalisation programs, support groups for families of radicalised people, harm reduction, anti-racist and respectful relationships programs in schools etc. State oppression is apparently the only answer.
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Absolutely wild. Australia already hugely uncompetitive globally for research funding environment. This just seems destined to dig the hole deeper
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seenfromafar @seenfromafar.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
TMC again with the words. So well put.
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Overland Journal @overlandjournal.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
“The Adelaide Festival’s decision to dump Palestinian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah gives us a grim foretaste of the Australian cultural landscape in 2026.” David Brophy on “ambient antisemitism” and the institutional mechanisms for curtailing protest and political expression.
overland.org.au
Universities and the arts after Bondi: from definitions to “ambient antisemitism” - Overland literary journal
The Adelaide Festival’s decision to dump Palestinian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah from its upcoming Writers’ Week gives us a grim foretaste of the Australian cultural landscape in 2026.
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
You do not need to be a fan of Maduro to think that this is both morally abhorrent and world-historically fucking stupid.
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Caracas is a densely populated capital city of millions of Caraqueños just trying to live their life. This is a horrific attack on a civilian centre with no warning and violating law. Remember when the geopolitics-crowd get going w their hot takes that once again it’s innocent ppl who bear the brunt
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.
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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
"If I could ask one question of the Prime Minister right now, I would like to understand his definition of “hate preachers that promote violence”, because signing missiles that fall on children and hanging out with a genocidal army would absolutely fit the bill if he was of any other religion. "
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Thank goodness for journalists like @davemilbo.bsky.social who will actually critically think and offer us ways of making sense of the world, rather than most Aussie journos this week regurgitating right wing, Zionist talking points that make hay out of tragedy and do not help anyone understand.
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
This is a chilling effort of silencing dissent and will have pernicious and damaging effects across schooling, higher ed, creative industries and more. To push this through by capitalising on a tragedy while families, friends, and broader society are grieving is ghoulish opportunism
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Annual call for feedback for the Academic Workload Tracker if you've been using it before @brkeogh.bsky.social updates it for 2026! He's also added a link you can fill in your details to be notified when it is updated. If you've never used it before, then here is my STRONG ENCOURAGEMENT to do so!
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Jon Piccini @jonpiccini.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
Anyone trying to make political capital from this sickening attack on Sydney's Jewish community should be ashamed of themselves.
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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
You don’t have to look hard in Australia to see how the politicisation of childhood as a time of life is wielded by power hungry politicians. Children—simultaneously too innocent to scroll instagram and always already potentially delinquent with ‘adult’ consequences required.
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Simon Rosenberg @simonrosenberg.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
The Albanese govt's failure to overturn the Morrison government's $50,000 arts degrees can only mean one of two things: - they're happy with LNP higher ed policy, or - they are far more interested in just holding power than doing anything useful with it. #auspol www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
theguardian.com
David Pocock condemns delay in establishing job ready graduates body to end $50,000 arts degrees
Senator accuses the government of not treating reform with ‘urgency it deserves’ – with no modelling done on the cost of reversing or replacing the JRG scheme
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Are you going to #BISA2026? @drswhite.bsky.social, @jmarshallbeier.bsky.social Katie Hodgkinson and I have two CPFs for your consideration: Roundtable: "Integrating a youth lens across Intl Studies". Panel: "Shaping the intl through a lens of accountability to children & young ppl"
BISA 2026 Roundtable: Integrating a youth lens across
International Studies
Always present, often overlooked, youth are not just ‘future promise’ but fundamental
to the contemporary contours of IR as we face uncertain futures. This roundtable brings
together scholars working across multiple sub-disciplines of international studies to
reflect on how global challenges might be differently understood and addressed
through integrating a youth lens. While much progress has been made in integrating
critical intersectional and feminist approaches to international studies, including by
drawing more attention to the role of race, class, gender and sexuality in shaping the
international, less cross-cutting attention has been granted to age, especially children
and young people. This roundtable invites a discussion from scholars across different
sub-fields to both explore how youth perspectives shape the landscape of what is
known, what a youth lens offers to interrogating and deconstructing knowledge in their
field, and how youth-attentive scholarship offers new directions for the discipline in this
moment of multiple crises and uncertainty.
We are keen to include speakers from an array of topic areas, including but not limited
to:
• Peacebuilding
• Development
• Critical security studies
• Conflict studies
• Foreign policy
• Environmental politics
• Mass atrocities
• Critical terrorism
• Feminist IR
To express interest to joining this panel, please email Sabrina White at
S.L.White@leeds.ac.uk by Wednesday 29th October with a short paragraph about why
you would like to be part of this roundtable discussion. CfP BISA 2026 Panel: Shaping the international through
a lens of accountability to children and young people
How would centring accountability to children and youth shift our understandings of this current moment of global crisis and what comes next? Can seeing young people as ‘who counts’ offer new pathways for International Studies to meet emerging challenges? This panel explores what an accountability to children and young people lens adds to approaches to addressing global challenges. Accountability is often equated with punitive and/or technical administrative matters
rather than questions of global justice, normative frameworks and sustainable peace. By centring children and young people as the ‘who counts’ in accountability in theory and practice, this panel explores the contested place and status of children and young people in the international. Amidst rapidly declining investments in peace and
development and vast increases in investments in war and conflict, young people’s rights are rendered optional or deferred until an unspecified ‘later. Threats to promotion and protection of children’s rights and agency exacerbate how we can imagine the scale and impact of global insecurities. This panel reflects on normative, theoretical and
empirical conceptualisations of accountability to children and young people, and draws on how particular formations and applications of youth accountability shape possibilities in countering adultist lenses and opening space for counter-narratives of, for and by young people.
We seek paper contributions from across multiple subdisciplines in international studies, including but not limited to international development, sustainable development, critical security studies, peace and conflict studies, and global governance. 
Please submit abstracts for your papers to Sabrina White at S.L.White@leeds.ac.uk
by Wednesday 29th October.
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
Read @yaguerika.bsky.social & I for @thediplomat.com on youth peace leadership in Southeast Asia & ASEAN’s complex role. If you love this short piece, dive into the open-access article it draws from in The Pacific Review here: doi.org/10.1080/0951...
doi.org
The paradox of youth engagement: the role of young people in historical and contemporary Southeast Asian peace
Young people have been at the forefront of independence and peace movements across Southeast Asia. However, little scholarship has focused on their significant role and contribution to the region’s...
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Daniel Hurst @danielhurst.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
“Allowing the crisis in Gaza to deepen with apparent impunity undermines our messaging about the rule of law — our adversaries use this to accuse us of double standards.” A stark private warning in a DFAT document obtained under #FOI laws www.crikey.com.au/2025/08/06/d...
crikey.com.au
‘Double standards': Confidential DFAT documents warn inaction on Gaza will cost Australia credibility
'Allowing the crisis in Gaza to deepen with apparent impunity undermines our messaging about the rule of law — our adversaries use this to accuse us of double standards.'
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NTEU @nteunion.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
“In short it would be a hammer blow to independence of research and inquiry. We entirely reject that proposal.” Read the full statement: nteu.info/envoy
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Yesterday I joined Austin Pollock on 6 News' Newswire podcast to talk about the UK's decision to lower the voting age to 16 before the next general election, and what it might mean for Australia. 6 News is largely run by young people themselves, so great to speak w Austin! youtu.be/PuB8yIhUpck?...
youtu.be
EPISODE 4: Should 16-Year-Olds Be Allowed to Vote?
YouTube video by SIX News Australia
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Roland Bleiker @bleiker.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Here a video of my keynote at the recent 50th Anniversary #BISA2025 conference in Belfast. I am more writer than speaker, so this was a challenge. But I am grateful for the invitation and glad I did it for - and with - Emma Hutchison. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBWg...
youtube.com
#BISA2025 keynote: Professor Roland Bleiker - Seeing and sensing world politics
YouTube video by MyBISA
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Hannah McCann @binarythis.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
University friends, please read, sign and share this open letter: overland.org.au/2025/07/open...
overland.org.au
Open letter against the adoption of the Australian Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism's Plan - Overland literary journal
We, the undersigned university researchers, educators, students and professional staff, call on the Australian Government to reject the unprecedented attack on academic freedom and the autonomy of uni...
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
⬇️ this. A reminder that no parts of an F35 are non-lethal. The whole damn plane is lethal. All parts of it enable that lethality.
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Andrey X @theandreyx.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Young refuseniks burn their IOF draft papers in the middle of Tel Aviv They refuse to serve in the Israeli Occupation Forces, and are willing to go to military jail for their position. The new generation of refuseniks is supported by the older, many of them spent months in jail already
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Australian Women's History Network @auswhn.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
"The burden is falling disproportionately on the next generation. ... These are just highly talented & idealistic young people seeking knowledge ... & prepared to endure precarious employment conditions & increasingly uncertain career paths to pursue that mission." graemeturner.org/2025/07/20/w...
graemeturner.org
Why do they hate us? That’s the question academics in the humanities are asking. - Graeme Turner
This is the question I was asked last week. Why are government, the media, even university administrations, so carelessly participating in the gradual demolition of one of the foundation stones of our...
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Cautiously pleased that the ARC seems to have listened to an overwhelming number of submissions and added a specific scheme for ECRs to their proposed changes. This was a significant concern I held with the initial announcement of changes. Will be important to see how they do this in practice …
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Jonathan Green @greenj.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Excellent from the routinely clear and courageous Louise Adler.
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Mary Gillis @marygillis.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Yeah, it's quite the paradox that the people who understand AI aren't impressed by it. A real head scratcher.
hbr.org
Why Understanding AI Doesn’t Necessarily Lead People to Embrace It
New research has uncovered a paradoxical relationship between AI literacy and receptivity: Individuals with lower AI literacy are more likely to embrace AI, despite perceiving it as less capable and m...
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Ronni🧂Salt @ronnisalt.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
If you believe your social rights are being threatened by this egregious overreach of public censorship, here is the contact link to let ASECA know what you think Keep it civil. Use your voice Your taxes are funding this - you have a right to be heard 👇🏽 #share www.aseca.gov.au/form/get-in-...
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El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
"This is nearly 800 people who have been killed while trying to access aid," she said, adding that "most of the injuries are gunshot injuries", UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...
abc.net.au
UN says almost 800 people killed near Gaza aid hubs in in six weeks
The United Nations says most of those killed had been close to aid sites managed by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
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Helen Berents @hmberents.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Hello to anyone else going to #OCIS2025 this week in Sydney! I’ll be there and keen for hellos, hugs, awkward waves, coffees, whatever other kind of interaction you’d prefer 🎉
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Lisa Stampnitzky 🤷🏻‍♀️ @lisastampnitzky.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
“That the government’s case for proscribing Palestine Action is both threadbare and blatantly political was on full view in the House of Commons this week.” www.opendemocracy.net/en/palestine...
opendemocracy.net
Palestine Action ban: We must learn from university protests
Government’s proscription of the group follows months of similarly chilling repression on campuses across the UK
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Cold War Steve @coldwarsteve.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
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