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saskia papadakis

@sazpaps.bsky.social
397 followers 243 following 29 posts

geographer / sociologist / oral historian interested in race, gender, class, life stories, place, gay stuff

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Reposted by saskia papadakis
History Workshop @historyworkshop.org.uk · 03/03/2026
How can we use oral history to capture the diverse history of the UK environmental movement? Barbara Brayshay (@bbrayshay.bsky.social) and Saskia Papadakis (@sazpaps.bsky.social) introduce the OHEM archive which is now available @britishlibrary.bsky.social
historyworkshop.org.uk
The Archive as Activism
How can we use oral history to capture the diverse history of the UK environmental movement?
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
exciting events coming to manchester, oxford and london!
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Northumbria UCU Branch @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social are on strike 12, 13, 17-19 Feb and 2-6 March to stop bosses @northumbriauni.bsky.social slashing pay and pensions forever. Please donate to the branch fighting fund here: Unity Trust Bank, UCU Northumbria Univ NE119, Hardship Fund, SC 608301, AN 20295578
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
getting back into finishing my book on the english north-south divide and delving into the government's plans for AI in the north - my friends, it is a bleak task
ft.com
There might be good reasons for Britain to build data centres. Job creation isn’t one of them
Estimate*estimate
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Reposted by saskia papadakis
TIBG @tibg.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
📢December Issue of TIBG📢 Our latest issue gathers papers around 3 broad themes: the more-than-human, borders, and working from home. It also features the third collection in our 'Geography in the World' series. 23/24 papers are #OpenAccess ⬇️ rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14755661...
A graphic showing the title page of Transactions on a read background with TIBG in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are nine tiles sharing 6 papers in a Themed Intervention and 3 standard articles, with the names of papers in the issue.

1) Worlding geography, area studies and the study of area
Han Cheng,  Deen Sharp

2) Egypt's geographical tradition: The post-independence moment and shifting regional imaginations
Aya Nassar

3) Constructing and contesting meta-geographies in Russian area studies debates
Vera Smirnova

4) Geography and area studies as critical bedfellows? The view from Singapore
Brenda S. A. Yeoh

5) Global China's spatial ambition and area studies with geography
Han Cheng

6) Beyond the Limpopo: Geography and the worlding of South(ern) Africa
Maano Ramutsindela

7) Unseasonable seasons: Shifting geographies of weather and migration mobilities
Kaya Barry

8) Staged ecologies: Aesthetics, nature and infrastructure in the late-modern metropolis
Zuhri James

9) Multispecies slavery–environment nexus in resource extraction and animals' ecological politics: Coercive donkey labour in Indian river sand mining
Yamini NarayananA graphic showing the title page of Transactions on a read background with TIBG in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are nine tiles with standard articles, with the names of papers in the issue.

1) Before it's too late: The extinction script, multi-species reproductive futurism and Extinction Rebellion
Amy Robson

2) Infrastructure as archive: Examining the colonial geographies of rivers
Austin Read

3) Infra-culture and infrastructures: Relational placemaking at the coast
Julian Clark

4) Hotels, refuge, and the rise of carceral hospitality
Jonathan Darling,  Andrew Burridge

5) On the natural border: A bio-geo-political reading
Matteo Proto,  Francesco Buscemi

6) Postimperial melancholia and the English North–South divide: Reading the life stories of Northern women of colour in London
Saskia Papadakis

7) Theorising legal gaps geographically: Exploring the transition from asylum seeker to refugee in the UK
Sarah M. Hughes

8) On the politics of movement: Borderscapes, choreopolicing and choreopolitics
Charlotte Veal

9) High-resolution property: Drone enclosures in digital India
Thomas CowanA graphic showing the title page of Transactions on a read background with TIBG in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are six tiles with 4 standard articles, 1 commentary, and a Themed Intervention with the names of papers in the issue.

1) Post-pandemic geographies of working from home: More of the same for spatial inequalities?
David McCollum

2) The place where we live: Children, families, play, neighbourhoods and spaces of care during and after the pandemic
Alison Stenning,  Wendy Russell

3) Living a ‘shadow life’: The disorientations of losing orientation and agency while waiting through furlough
Victoria J. E. Jones

4) What does it mean to be present at work? Negotiating attention, distraction and presence in working from home
David Bissell,  Elisabetta Crovara,  Andrew Gorman-Murray,  Elizabeth Straughan

5) Subtractive, ambient and bifurcated attention at work and when working from home: Towards a geography of workplace attention

6) Crisis of imagination/(re)imaginations for a (climate) crisis
Ankit Kumar,  Chandni Singh,  Lauren Hermanus,  Lalitha Kamath,  Wangui Kimari,  Mark Pelling,  Harriet Bulkeley
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naoise murphy @naoisemurphy.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
My book is coming out soon and you can ask your library to order it! edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-queerin... If you have loads of money, you can also order it yourself, and use the code NEW30 to get a 30% discount, but I recommend the library route 📚📚
edinburghuniversitypress.com
Queering Twentieth-Century Irish Women’s Writing
Queering Twentieth-Century Irish Women’s Writing
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Reposted by saskia papadakis
Ethnic and Racial Studies @ersjournal.com · 11/08/2025
#ERSNew 🐣🔓 What links Ugandan Asian refugees, a US multinational corporation that made its money from imperial warfare, a typewriter factory in Leicester, and a group of black revolutionaries? #1974ImperialTypewritersStrike. Article: doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2025.2539908
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
super happy that my article on Race Today and the Imperial Typewriters strike is out now and open access in @ersjournal.com! doi.org/10.1080/0141...
doi.org
Black struggles, black workers? Race Today and the 1974 Imperial Typewriters strike
In May 1974, around 500 ‘Ugandan Asian’ workers walked out of Leicester’s Imperial Typewriters factory. For the recently formed Race Today Collective (RTC), which published the radical journal Race...
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Reposted by saskia papadakis
TIBG @tibg.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
#OpenAccess in Transactions: 'Postimperial melancholia and the English North-South divide: Reading the life stories of Northern women of colour in London' by @sazpaps.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in TIBG by Saskia Papadakis (2025) entitled: 'Postimperial melancholia and the English North–South divide: Reading the life stories of Northern women of colour in London'

The trope of the English North–South divide has come to frame a plethora of national crises in recent years, with the supposedly white working-class North understood as having been ‘left behind’ by London's ‘metropolitan elite’. Bringing together geographies of England's socio-spatial inequalities, emotional geographies, and postcolonial understandings of Englishness, this paper theorises the contemporary English North–South divide as a form of ‘splitting’, a psycho-spatial strategy born out of postimperial melancholia. In an attempt to contain the contradictory impulses towards helplessness and omnipotence produced through Britain's former global supremacy and its imperial decline, dominant imaginaries of England separate ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and locate them in either the North or London, with implications for socio-spatial inequalities within the nation. Reading life stories recorded with women of colour from the North of England who are living in London through Avtar Brah's conceptualisation of England as a ‘diaspora space’, this paper destabilises binarised imaginaries of North and South. Contributing to geographies of race, class, and nation, this paper demonstrates that, through an attentiveness to individual biographies, identities, and experiences, the binaries of migrant and native, past and future, North and South, are rendered untenable.
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Jenni Hyde @wallyberry.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Goodbye to the history department at Lancaster University, where the @socialhistsoc.bsky.social was founded 49 years ago. From tomorrow we are part of a School of Global Affairs. Next year, who knows what will be - please sign our petition against mass redundancies chng.it/PZfTFDjNcr
chng.it
Sign the Petition
Stop Mass Redundancies at Lancaster University – Hold Senior Management Accountable
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
Great to be interviewed for the @rgsibg.bsky.social Ask the Geographer podcast series! Toby Butler and I chat to Rachel about oral histories and research. It's a lovely resource for A Level students and anyone interested in how oral history can be used in geography!
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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 09/06/2025
🚨 Lincoln Uni staff vote to strike after nearly 300 redundancies announced. 🔺 86% backed action 🔺 95% no confidence in management 🔺 220 jobs already lost last year Send your support and solidarity to @uculincolnbranch.bsky.social www.ucu.org.uk/article/1404...
ucu.org.uk
University of Lincoln staff vote for strike action
Staff at the University of Lincoln have voted to take industrial action in a dispute over plans to threaten nearly 300 staff with redundancy, the University and College Union has announced today.
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
with reports that the north of england has missed out on £140bn of transport spending over the past 10 years, i've written about how the imagined white working class northern man is linked to infrastructural violence and the north-south divide blog.geographydirections.com/2025/06/03/t...
blog.geographydirections.com
The myth of the white working-class Northern man
By Saskia Papadakis, Royal Holloway, University of London In 1999, Prime Minister Tony Blair dismissed the English North-South divide as a ‘myth’. Calling the North-South divide ‘simplistic’, he po…
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
new blog! on why everyone is obsessed with the idea of the white working-class northern man! this continues to be depressingly relevant with reform in the ascendant, starmer's 'island of strangers' and blue labour's attacks on EDI 🙃🙃🙃 blog.geographydirections.com/2025/06/03/t...
blog.geographydirections.com
The myth of the white working-class Northern man
By Saskia Papadakis, Royal Holloway, University of London In 1999, Prime Minister Tony Blair dismissed the English North-South divide as a ‘myth’. Calling the North-South divide ‘simplistic’, he po…
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
Sign the petition against redundancies at @newcastleuni.bsky.social! Totally unnecessary and hugely damaging to staff, students, the uni, and to geography and other affected disciplines. All solidarity with @newcastleucu.bsky.social www.change.org/p/end-unnece...
change.org
Sign the Petition
End unnecessary redundancies at Newcastle University
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Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London @rhulgeography.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
🎉 New Journal Article Alert rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... by @sazpaps.bsky.social #RHULGeogResearch #royalholloway #royalhollowayuniversity #rgs_ibg
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Sarah Marie Hall @smhall.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Please show your solidarity for Disability Studies colleagues at Liverpool Hope, who've recently been informed of plans to cut their team by half. Open letter to sign: docs.google.com/document/d/1... [docs.google.com]
docs.google.com
An Open Letter from the Disability Studies Community Regarding Proposed Redundancies at Liverpool Hope University
An Open Letter from the Disability Studies Community Regarding Proposed Redundancies at Liverpool Hope University To the Leadership of Liverpool Hope University, We, members of the international Disab...
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
last week i published a journal article for the first time and i fainted for the first time! a week of firsts. luckily the journal article will have the more lasting impact! read it now on @tibg.bsky.social rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library
The trope of the English North–South divide has come to frame a plethora of national crises in recent years, with the supposedly white working-class North understood as having been ‘left behind’ by L...
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Reposted by saskia papadakis
Good Law Project @goodlawproject.org · 16/05/2025
🚨 NEW 🚨 We don't believe the EHRC's 'interim update' on trans people's rights is lawful. So we’re bringing a legal challenge
goodlawproject.org
We're bringing a legal challenge to the EHRC’s ‘Interim Update’
A number of trans and intersex individuals have today begun a legal challenge to the EHRC’s ‘Interim Update’ following the For Women, Scotland decision
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
It's out! It's here! My first ever journal article 'Postimperial melancholia and the English North–South divide: Reading the life stories of Northern women of colour in London' is out today with @tibg.bsky.social 🤩 rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library
The trope of the English North–South divide has come to frame a plethora of national crises in recent years, with the supposedly white working-class North understood as having been ‘left behind’ by L...
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Oli Mould @olimould.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
NEWS!!! If you're in #Glasgow in June and want to hear about the history Scottish environmental movement, we've assembled a 'witness seminar' of activists and policy makers, and the event is public - get your free ticket here: www.tickettailor.com/events/oralh...
tickettailor.com
Select tickets – Witness Seminar - Oral History of the Environmental Movement - Glasgow – Graham Hills Building, University of Strathclyde, 40-50 George Street, Glasgow
How has the Environmental Movement developed in Scotland? A Witness Seminar. We invite you to observe a Witness Seminar explori...
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Jay Todd 🏳️‍⚧️ @jaytoddgla.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Amidst the bleakness, I've just published an article exploring how young trans people are dealing with life in the UK @geographers.bsky.social. Do read to understand more about how trans youth are navigating & thriving in these times. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Exploring Young Trans and Non-binary People’s Strategies and Spaces for Navigating Marginality in the United Kingdom: A Novel Resilience, Resistance, and Restoration Framework
Amid recent, unprecedented sociopolitical scrutiny and hypervisibility of young trans people in the United Kingdom, this article considers how trans youth develop individual and collective mechanis...
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Ruth Pearce @notrightruth.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Super chill lunch break with colleagues outside the offices of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Glasgow 🥰
Photo of people protesting outside a Victorian building. A woman wearing jeans and t-shirts stands on steps speaking into a megaphone. Two people hold a trans flag, and others hold placards that read: trans people belong here.
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Ruth Pearce @notrightruth.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Just announced by a coalition of Glasgow groups - lunchtime protest outside the local office of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, opposing their call for trans segregation. Friday 2nd May, 12pm-2pm.
Against segregation - protest the EHRC. 2nd May, 12pm, 140 West George Street Glasgow
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
proud to have signed - thank you to everyone who put this together 💙🤍♥️ look forward to @rgsibg.bsky.social taking a stand to protect trans people
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Jay Todd 🏳️‍⚧️ @jaytoddgla.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
This morning, 533 academic geographers have written to @rgsibg.bsky.social calling for them to respond to UK Supreme Court and EHRC events, and take action to protect trans and gender diverse members of the geographical community and people across the UK. Please share docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
Open letter to RGS on Supreme Court and EHRC events April 2025
Dear Professor Dame Jane Francis and Professor Joe Smith, Re: The response of the Royal Geographical Society to the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling and EHRC interim update We are currently witnessing ...
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QM_UCU @qmucu.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Almost as if “we have no choice but to slash a stupid amount of jobs” isn’t, as it turns out, the only choice…. Still dreadfully high number though.
bbc.co.uk
New Dundee University plan aims to scale back job cuts - BBC News
Under the proposals, the university would shed around 300 roles through a voluntary programme.
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QM_UCU @qmucu.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
AND THAT IS THE SECOND MANAGEMENT OF THE DAY THAT HAS TO ADMIT THAT THE IMPOSSIBLE IS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE AFTER ALL, NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT, LOUDLY WITH STRIKE MANDATES. #UKHE
nation.cymru
Cardiff University withdraws compulsory redundancy threat
Martin Shipton Cardiff University has withdrawn its threat to make academic staff compulsorily redundant as part of its cuts programme, signalling the likely end of an industrial dispute involving str...
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
If you're interested in the Scottish environmental movement and you're around in Glasgow on 5 June, this is the event for you! www.tickettailor.com/events/oralh...
tickettailor.com
Select tickets – Witness Seminar - Oral History of the Environmental Movement - Glasgow – Graham Hills Building, University of Strathclyde, 40-50 George Street, Glasgow
How has the Environmental Movement developed in Scotland? A Witness Seminar. We invite you to observe a Witness Seminar explori...
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Aine Bennett @ainebennett.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
I have just signed the open letter "Not In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against Transphobia" in response to the recent hateful and harmful Supreme Court ruling I hope others will too: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Not In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against Transphobia
We call on all trans-inclusive feminist academics and educators to sign this statement: ‘Not In Our Name’ We are non-trans feminist academics and educators. We write in support of trans rights, tran...
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
always time to join the union excellent from @qmucu.bsky.social's Zara Dinnen www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ap...
lrb.co.uk
Zara Dinnen | A Sector in Freefall
The Queen Mary University of London branch of the University and College Union, of which I am co-chair, hosts a webpage...
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Jeremy Millar @jeremymillar.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
“The drones would come down and pick off civilians – children”, retired surgeon Nizam Mamode told British MPs in November. “We [were] operating on children who would say: ‘I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me’”, he added.
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Ash Watson @awtsn.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Had a great time at #britsoc25 - many fab papers on futures, subjectivity and/in space, creative methods +++ I lowkey love going to a conference and not presenting. so much more brain space for ideas @sazpaps.bsky.social @sociodigfutures.bsky.social @britsoci.bsky.social @socrevdev.bsky.social
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
My heart is feelingvery full after 3 days at #britsoc25! A truly beautiful and joyful gathering 💖 thank you to @britsoci.bsky.social and everyone who made it happen!
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Had the best time presenting on Northern masculinities and the English North-South divide at the @britsoci.bsky.social conference today with my favourite ever slides 🍆👯‍♂️👷‍♂️
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Yara Rodrigues Fowler @yararf.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
The anti-trans/GC movement is one of the most successful divide & conquer, distraction techniques ever. It has consumed and divided three generations of feminists while women around the world get poorer, our access to abortion is threatened and it becomes harder to escape domestic violence
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Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 16/04/2025
My analysis of today's UK Supreme Court judgment. The UK Supreme Court Rules That Trans Women Aren't Women Under the Equality Act 2010 www.wearequeeraf.com/uk-supreme-c...
wearequeeraf.com
UK Supreme Court Rules That Trans Women Aren’t Women under the Equality Act 2010
The legal definition of a woman in the UK now excludes trans people: This is what it means for Trans+ rights in the country
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
it's taken me 3 [three] years since handing in my phd but last week i finally had an article accepted by an academic journal ☺️ can't wait to share it and get over my complex about publishing
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
All power to the Serbian students! www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...
aljazeera.com
The protests in Serbia are historic, the world shouldn’t ignore them
Amid democratic backsliding across Europe, Serbian students have shown the way to reimagining democracy and governance.
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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Masters scholarships for Palestinian students at Sussex. Please disseminate? www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/re...
sussex.ac.uk
University announces new scholarships for Palestinian students
These scholarships will provide fully-funded support for two Palestinian students, with a particular focus on those impacted by the conflict in Gaza
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naoise murphy @naoisemurphy.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Not unrelatedly... signalling my availability for freelance projects! I'm an interdisciplinary researcher - specialised in queer/gender studies, but broadly interested in radical histories, literature and queer culture. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
researchprofessionalnews.com
Four UK universities announce plans to cut over 750 jobs - Research Professional News
Cardiff, Durham, Kent and UEA the latest institutions to join wave of sector redundancies
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naoise murphy @naoisemurphy.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
www.justgiving.com/page/qmpf2025
justgiving.com
Queer Migrant Pride Fest 2025
Help Seb Aguirre raise money to support iceandfire
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Zoe Gardner @zoejardiniere.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
There could be nothing more important for Syria's future stability than supporting their civil society right now. Huquqyat is Syrian women building a justice framework to heal from the crimes against humanity Syrians have suffered THEY NEED OUR SUPPORT👇 www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...
justgiving.com
Help raise £25000 to support women-led justice in Syria
Iʼm raising money to support women-led justice in Syria. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.
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Ruth Pearce @notrightruth.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
BUILD YOUR OWN POWER Look at this incredible gig we are running in Glasgow for the Transfem Electrolysis Project! We are using it to help fund affordable community healthcare providers. Tickets here: wegottickets.com/event/645050/
Poster, with text in vibrant colours and shapes against a black background. Text reads as follows. 13th February, Mono, Glasgow. Love Electric - Valentine's fundraiser for the Glasgow Transfem Electrolysis Project.  R.AGGS, pictureskew, comfort, Chanterelle, Girl of Swords, hosted by Medea. DJs till late. Doors 8pm, Tix £5-£10 pay what you can. We are raising money to train and equip community healthcare providers.
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saskia papadakis @sazpaps.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
back at my desk today and trying not to let 2024's repeated rejections get me down! solidarity with all the ECRs out there trying to do radical and creative things despite the current state of HE
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Caroline Gonda (she/her) @liederfollower.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
21 December: an excellent day and night to celebrate @naoisemurphy.bsky.social being brilliantly queer about haunting in Irish culture 🥳
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Dr Ruby (she/her) @paperwhispers.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
**Black UK PhD students** Fully funded PhD study - fees and stipend -Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences -Faculty of Health and Life Sciences **Tell everyone** www.bristol.ac.uk/study/postgr...
bristol.ac.uk
Black heritage PhD scholarships | Study at Bristol | University of Bristol
We welcome applications for full scholarships to postgraduate research programmes starting in 2025.
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