Ha, I now have a column at The Conversation, called "Hot Mess: Unravelling the climate challenge paralysis" (I wanted "unravelling climate (,) policy paralysis" but knew that it would look too tricksy). Anyway, you can read it here. Ten years ago today, Kevin Rudd spoke at the National Climate Summit at Parliament House, in Canberra,... Continue Reading →
Motorcycle Emptiness and emotathons
Too tired (long story) to do any creative work on the Thesis, and having done enough grunt work on it too, for today, I am in the process of writing a paper for a conference here in Manchester about alternative futures and popular protest. It will not be a popular paper. It will slag off... Continue Reading →
“Don’t know much about love”
Ah, this takes me back, to Mozambique, oddly enough (long story, another time). Baby can you teach me - how to Baby can you reach me, I'm calling out for you Underneath your window tonight I know I ain't no romeo, so help me make it right If I can get this message through to... Continue Reading →
That word “laboratory.” I do not think it means what you think it means…
Then again. So, one of the pleasures of being a PhD student is that you get - occasionally - to sit around and talk about stuff you've read (it's less pleasurable when it's something you've written [i.e. supervisions]. But I digress). As part of the cities/urban sustainability reading group, we were getting our thinking gear... Continue Reading →
Men and #feminism – labels and so forth.
So, with a fellow PhD student I've set up a blog called 'feminismandtwoguys'. The about is this We are two guys (Steffen and Marc) who are studying in Manchester. This site is about us trying to learn from different types of feminism. That involves listening, reflecting, honouring the vast amount of physical and intellectual work... Continue Reading →
Me love you laing time… The work of forgetting and suppression
Somewhere in the pile of things-read-awaiting-bookmarking-on-t'website is a recent article on the what the authors called "memory work" - (corporate) work of suppressing past mis-behaviour. It does not use R.D. Laing, but it could. This below is the epigram from Joanna Russ's amazing book 'The Female Man' [my review here] If Jack succeeds in forgetting... Continue Reading →
Thinking institutionally, dialectically, iteratively, recursively #noteasy
Our wetware has missed quite a few upgrades, hasn't it? It left the factory all buggy and in beta, shaped by encounters - over millennia - with sabre-tooth tigers etc that saw us as easy meat. We have cognitive biases up the wazoo, and often lack even the awareness of that [Dunning-Kruger etc etc]. It's... Continue Reading →
The upper crust is just a bunch of crumbs sticking together #Kulturkampf
High culture? "In his cultural studies, DiMaggio's historical research documented the self-conscious creation of "high culture" in the late 19th-century America. DiMaggio argues that, unsettled by the weak class distinctions in growing industrial cities, local elites created a "sophisticated" culture (via the arts,universities, social clubs, and the like) that would separate commoners from those of high standing. DiMaggio says that "high culture" models... Continue Reading →
“Entrench warfare” or “why I don’t bother with one-off trainings” #smugosphere #inertia
A few years ago I organised a one-off training session on research for activists. It went well and had ... no discernible impact on how anyone did anything. So it goes. I reflected on this - and other training I have been part of as a punter. And I came to the conclusion that unless... Continue Reading →
Breaking into Baruch Spinoza’s shop #thesis “lens me your ears”
So, that last post, about the last two and a half years of my life being like stepping on rakes that then smack you in the face? #selfpitying #melodramatic #firstworldproblems And also a bit unproductive. Instead, surely it's better to think of it like breaking into Baruch Spinoza's shop (he was a lens grinder) and... Continue Reading →
