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Kevin Donovan

@kevindonovan.bsky.social
354 followers 1.2K following 47 posts

anthro & history in e. africa | book: doi.org/10.1017/9781009501385

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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
The New School -- an absolutely essential space for scholarship -- is being unmade through brutal cost-cutting and restructuring. Learn more here: docs.google.com/document/d/1... And sign the petition: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
SIGN ON: Petition Demanding TNS Management Stop The Cuts
Sign on to demand transparency and accountability for our students, staff, and faculty. Find the petition here. Questions? Email us at jgeiger@actuaw.org
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
New semester. Offered to print all the readings for students who wished to try to work in a less distracted way. Did not appreciate how long actually doing that printing would take...
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
"There is something... self-defeating about an approach to political strategy that takes so much of our political life as fixed and preordained and thereby minimizes the significance of doing actual politics"
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
from citizens to subjects, alas.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
@spokes.org.uk I recall seeing something about e-bikes not being allowed overnight at Waverley. Is that the case?
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
the newest issue of Hau has a special collection on the late, great economic anthropologist Jane Guyer: www.haujournal.org/index.php/ha...
haujournal.org
Vol 15, No 2 (2025)
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
"Looking across all sectors, the key dynamic appears to be a well-worn story: women opt in much greater numbers for healthcare jobs, where employment continues trending steeply upwards... Perhaps “learn to care” could replace “learn to code” as the go-to career advice for the next generation."
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Indeed. Runciman made the case for an even larger expansion, though as a father of a five year old I’m suspicion of six year olds: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Votes for children! Why we should lower the voting age to six | David Runciman
The long read presents Reconstruction after Covid: The generational divide is deforming democracy. But there is a solution
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
There are also some good books focused on the river and its inhabitants, including Stephen Most’s River of Renewal and Kari Marie Norgaard’s Salmon & Acorns Feed Our People www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/salmon-and-a... osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/river-o...
rutgersuniversitypress.org
Salmon and Acorns Feed Our People - Rutgers University Press
Finalist for the 2020 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems Since time before memory, large numbers of salmon have made the...
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
See also the documentary work of Swiftwater Films: www.youtube.com/@swiftwaterf...
youtube.com
Swiftwater Films
We are a full service production company who specialize in documentary nonfiction storytelling and branded films that inspire, activate and engage. We have a diverse team that works from concept thro...
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
hakaimagazine.com/features/the...
hakaimagazine.com
The Other Side of the World’s Largest Dam Removal | Hakai Magazine
Removing dams from the Klamath River in Northern California seems like a clear win for fish and rivers. Why do some locals hate it?
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
VOA www.youtube.com/watch?v=skok...
youtube.com
The Inside Story | Undamming the Klamath
YouTube video by Voice of America
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
@opb.org's archive of reporting www.opb.org/search/#gsc.... Including these films: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLnI... www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZMS...
youtube.com
After the dams: What’s next for the Klamath River? | Oregon Field Guide
YouTube video by Oregon Public Broadcasting
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Mongabay.org's news.mongabay.com/2024/10/larg...
news.mongabay.com
Largest dam removal ever, driven by Tribes, kicks off Klamath River recovery
KLAMATH, CALIFORNIA—Brook M. Thompson was just 7 years old when she witnessed an apocalypse. “A day after our world renewal ceremony, we saw all these fish lined up on the shores, just rotting in pile...
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
@americanrivers.bsky.social did a terrific podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0IKmzyD...
open.spotify.com
Undammed: The Klamath River Story
Podcast · American Rivers · The history of water in the West has been shaped by conflict, greed, and scarcity, but in a remote pocket of Southern Oregon and Northern California, a different Western wa...
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Grist's lengthy retrospective: grist.org/project/indi...
grist.org
How the Klamath Dams Came Down
Last year, tribes in Oregon and California pulled off the largest dam removal in U.S. history. This is their story.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
The Klamath saga has been subject of excellent journalism, including from @highcountrynews.org, @opb.org, @ahofschneider.bsky.social of @grist.org, @jacquesleslie.bsky.social, and @mongabay.com. I'll include some links below.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
As the Trump regime works to eliminate such programs, the Klamath has important political lessons, some of which I tease out in the essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social www.bostonreview.net/articles/wha...
bostonreview.net
What Does It Take to Topple a Dam? - Boston Review
A new politics of rivers is emerging.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
When I visited, I was surprised at how much heavy machinery goes into restoring ‘nature’—bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, and quite a bit of dynamite were needed. But so did a lot of scientific and indigenous knowledge, carefully selected seeds, and legal manoeuvring.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
A 2020 agreement — between states, power companies, tribes, and others — paved the way for an incredible project of deconstructing four dams. This has been a highly contentious project but also a remarkable project of engineering and re-wilding.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Salmon are a keystone species, essential to ecological flourishing, but they’re also at the core of indigenous identity—diets, ceremonial life, and leisure. When dams inhibit nutrient flows, raise the temperature of water, and block upstream salmon habitats, it is therefore an issue of sovereignty.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Native Americans (from @yuroktribe.bsky.social and others) have fought for decades to restore the Klamath River which runs from Oregon through California to the Pacific. Central to this are salmon which used to be bountiful and are now threatened with extinction.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Dams, in other words, are sacrifice zones. In the American west, they were central to colonisation; in postcolonial states, they were what Nehru called “temples of modernity.” Countries from China to Ethiopia to Brazil have, in recent years, seen them as ‘clean’ energy.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
In the 20th C, humans built a large dam a day. Some are controversial; some are charismatic mega-infrastructure. Many are relatively small. But damming a river is always a partisan act. What dams offer in electricity, irrigation, or flood control comes with displacement and ecological costs.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
I wrote about dams, using new books by @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social, James C. Scott, and Yuvan Aves to discuss a remarkable transformation on the Klamath River where four large dams have been removed to restore the watershed. 🧵 www.bostonreview.net/articles/wha...
bostonreview.net
What Does It Take to Topple a Dam? - Boston Review
A new politics of rivers is emerging.
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Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
“When Jawaharlal Nehru called dams ‘temples of modern India’ in 1954, he was expressing a belief shared by all the dominant faiths: to dam a river was to develop a nation. Over the course of the twentieth century, humans built, on average, one large dam a day.” New from @kevindonovan.bsky.social:
bostonreview.net
What Does It Take to Topple a Dam? - Boston Review
A new politics of rivers is emerging.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
while Cooper shows how this changes 'capitalism', there's must less insight into how it changes 'families'
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
the stuff on 'family capitalism' in Cooper's book is really important--hope it gets more attention
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
this is excellent!
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Thea Riofrancos @triofrancos.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
🚨 My next book, EXTRACTION: THE FRONTIERS OF GREEN CAPITALISM is out 9/23 with @wwnorton.com Today and tomorrow, you can pre-order it at 25% off 😊 Use code PREORDER25 at www.barnesandnoble.com/w/extraction...
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Adanedhel🌹 @danielwaweru.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
He identified as Ugandan when he was like 12, as his father mentions in one of his books (published well before Zohran ran for office; this from the 2011 second edition with Pambazuka Press). Real RTFM moment.
My first encounter with popular perceptions of the New Indian Question came in 2004 when I took a sabbatical from Columbia University and came to Makerere. I brought my son along and put him in the Aga Khan primary, a local school where up to 5 per cent of the student body were of South Asian origin. One day, I went to see the teacher about how Zohran was doing. ‘He is doing well, said Mr Mwesigye, 'except that sometimes I do not always understand him.' I asked him to elaborate, and he told me the following story. One day, Mr Mwesigye asked in class that all Indian students raise their hand, since the headmaster had asked for a count of Indian students in each class. When the hands went up, he saw that Zohran had not raised his. When questioned, Zohran responded: 'I am not Indian, I am Ugandan!' The revelation to me was that Mr Mwesigye found this unusual.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
www.usgs.gov/special-topi...
usgs.gov
Floods and Recurrence Intervals
A major storm or hurricane hits your area and on the radio you hear reference to a "100-year flood". But what exactly is a "100-year flood"? The term "100-year flood" is often used to describe a flood...
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Not that Cornyn cares but… a “100 year flood” does not mean it happens once a century. It means there is a roughly 1% chance annually of such a flood. That means over the course of 30 years, there is a roughly 25% chance of such a flood.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Thanks! Let me know if you need a copy
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
“The postwar order rested on three pillars: American hegemony, the fossil-fuel energy system, and an open, multilateral trading order. America has now attacked each pillar at the foundation of its hydrocarbon global order.” — New: @katemac.bsky.social & I www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...
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Stanford University Press @stanfordpress.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Drawing on a comparative ethnography in South Africa and the United Kingdom, Clawing Back by Deborah James explores how notions of reallocation and payout are intimately connected with those of compensation for a loss. #ReadUP www.sup.org/books/sociol...
Book cover of Clawing Back: Redistribution In Precarious Times by
Deborah James
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Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
“Hayek’s call for means-testing social insurance invites the very moralism and arbitrary bureaucratic judgment he decries. Such intrusive, punitive, shaming regulations, based on suspicion of malingering and fraud, trap families in poverty.” —Elizabeth Anderson
bostonreview.net
Common Property - Boston Review
How social insurance became confused with socialism.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
If Sheffield is the direction of travel, it’s a disaster. Might be worth roping in UCU migrant committee
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
That’s terrible. Edinburgh’s is restrictive if it’s for more than one month: human-resources.ed.ac.uk/working-abroad
human-resources.ed.ac.uk
Working Abroad | Human Resources | Human Resources
As a leading international university we engage in a diverse range of activities and projects that require staff to be located overseas, from short-term assignments to permanent appointments. This req...
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Andrea Pollio @andretwp.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Black, magenta and an edge data center on the cover of my book about Nairobi, smartphones, platforms, standards, venture capital and digital China. Out in the boreal fall this year 🪩 with U California Press (and OA)
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Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Another £40 million is being given to the University of Dundee by the Scottish government to secure the future of the crisis-ridden institution, reports @julietterowsell.bsky.social #AcademicSky
timeshighereducation.com
Dundee given £40 million bailout following ‘unprecedented’ crisis
Money for ailing institution from Scottish Funding Council comes on top of the £22 million previously made available
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Tom Fisher @drsamaki.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Fascinating article on accountancy - wait! It really is! - and how it’s alleged “objectivity” played out in nationalisations in Tanzania, Chile. www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
bostonreview.net
The Politics of Price - Boston Review
How accounting protocols undermine public goals—from decolonization to climate action.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
!! I had aimed to do more work on that border at one point… I suspect your interlocutors exemplify the arguments about credible citizenship, too.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Thank you! Let me know if you have troubles
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
(lots of gratitude to those who helped along the way to this) (and if you have trouble getting access to this, especially in East Africa, don't hesitate to be in touch)
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
I've also put some material relevant for teaching parts of the book -- such as archival sources -- here: kevinpdonovan.com/book/
kevinpdonovan.com
Money, Value, and the State
I wrote a book entitled Money, Value, and the State: Sovereignty & Citizenship in East Africa (Cambridge UP, 2024). It examines decolonisation in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda as a problem of eco…
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Ultimately, I think Money, Value, and the State has something to say to historians and anthropologists, but also scholars interested in debates about money and capitalism, including those thinking about 'monetary sovereignty'
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Smugglers refused the borders and predations imposed by states. But they also impeded more beneficent efforts to navigate a volatile and unequal world system.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
It also discusses the rise of smuggling economies, as well as other activities like 'hoarding' and counterfeiting that were criminalized by states desperate to control how value circulated.
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Kevin Donovan @kevindonovan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
he book covers *the role of the Bank of England in protecting Kenyan settlers, *the exuberant embrace of bank branches in Idi Amin's Uganda, and *the nationalization of Barclays in socialist Tanzania (discussed here: www.bostonreview.net/articles/the... @bostonreview.bsky.social)
bostonreview.net
The Politics of Price - Boston Review
How accounting protocols undermine public goals—from decolonization to climate action.
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