The fairly horrible (emotionally) but exhilarating (intellectually) process of The Thesis is coming to an end, overdue and incomplete as they mostly are. While yomping around the park this morning articles with title like "Institutional Logics and Institutional Work: Should they be agreed?" and "How are Management fashions institutionalized? The role of institutional work", I... Continue Reading →
There's a very old joke about a man driving a huge Cadillac through the sticks in the southern States. He stops at an ancient service station for 'gas' (to buy some, not because he has it). The young hick serving him has never seen such a vehicle – sorry – 'vee-hickle', and is awestruck. He... Continue Reading →
There are obvious signs that the species, far from being 'sapiens' (wise) is as dumb as a bag of hammers. Item the first: ignoring climate scientists and biologists for the last three decades (or more), and continuing to burn fossil fuels as if there were, um, no tomorrow. Item the second: building up nuclear weapons... Continue Reading →
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The old saw goes 'give a man a fish and you have fed him for a... Continue Reading →
This was a superb event. A diverse audience of somewhere between 80 and 90 attended a truly excellent event on 'algorithms of oppression' yesterday in Manchester. The event, hosted by Open Data Manchester with the support of The Federation and Manchester School of Art, was centred on a lecture and q and a with Dr Safiya... Continue Reading →
Musing #1 on Molotch, H. 1970. Oil in Santa Barbara and Power in America. Sociological Inquiry, 40, 131-144. In January 1969 the first big Oil Slick That Mattered washed up on the beaches of rich people in California. Sure, there had been the Torrey Canyon in 1967, where someone took an ill-advised shortcut and hit... Continue Reading →
‘Staying with the Trouble’ insists on working, playing and thinking in multispecies cosmopolitics in the face of the killing of entire ways of being on earth that characterise the age cunningly called 'now' and the place called 'here.' Donna Haraway I am the teaching assistant on a VERY interesting course for third year geography students... Continue Reading →
The newspapers and webfeeds are full of stories of the (un)intended consequences of the increased “datafication” of society, and the ways in which people are sorted, silenced and discriminated against by ‘algorithms.’ It is rich terrain for academics and activists (the two beasts need not be totally distinct), and today at the University of Manchester... Continue Reading →
Tom Lehrer celebrated his 90th birthday today - he's definitely old and grey. Born in New York, Lehrer began studying classical piano aged seven. However, popular music caught his eye, and he began writing show tunes . A prodigy, he started at Harvard aged 15. There he began to write comic songs, including a spoof... Continue Reading →
We are losing. All we need to do to keep losing is to keep on doing what we are doing. Simples. Reflecting on the mirror-image of master and slave We can see it in our opponents. And if we denounce them for their condescension and silence, well, our tribe rewards us for seeing it and... Continue Reading →
