Ben Anderson | Lightnews

Gail Davies @gailfdavies.bsky.social · 4d

New paper outlining a spatial account of #FND and proposing an approach to the co-production of functional symptoms. It draws on my longstanding work on geographies of health knowledges, my recent health experiences, and emerging interdisciplinary conversations www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Screenshot of the front page of an article published in the journal Social and Cultural Geography called Remapping the body: an autoethnography of pain, paraesthesia, and the co-production of functional neurological symptoms

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 7d

Final issue of the year - and so much great work! More next year : )

TIBG @tibg.bsky.social · 7d

📢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 Narayanan

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 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

TIBG @tibg.bsky.social · 7d

📢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...

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 8d

Fantastic that a long interview with @ajsecor.bsky.social and I is the cover story for the January issue of Byline Times - was a pleasure to talk to Hardeep and Peter about the ideas in the The Politics of Feeling! @bylinetimes.bsky.social
@peterjukes.bsky.social @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social

Geography at Durham @geogdurham.bsky.social · 16d

We have a rich and varied programme of Human Geography Research Cluster events scheduled in the Department for the Epiphany term at the start of 2026. Details also available on our website here: www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 19d

Very interesting on variants of post-liberalism and their articulation with Trumpism (tracing the emerging influence on Reform, via Orr, is important)

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 20d

‘Posner and Vermeule argued that “public opinion” would act as the ultimate constraint on a wayward president. That seemed a tad naïve.’

@jwmueller-pu.bsky.social on post-liberal political theory.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Jan-Werner Müller · Caesar wept: Trolling the Libs

All post-liberals have at one point or another declared themselves anti-libertarian. Why is it, then, that once in power...

www.lrb.co.uk

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 20d

‘Posner and Vermeule argued that “public opinion” would act as the ultimate constraint on a wayward president. That seemed a tad naïve.’

@jwmueller-pu.bsky.social on post-liberal political theory.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Jan-Werner Müller · Caesar wept: Trolling the Libs

All post-liberals have at one point or another declared themselves anti-libertarian. Why is it, then, that once in power...

www.lrb.co.uk

Louise Amoore @amoorelouise.bsky.social · 22d

To read more about our vision for the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life - and to explore & apply for our 7 research fellow positions, see leverhulmecal.webspace.durham.ac.uk/call-for-fel... and get in touch if you have questions #MachineLearning #Algorithms #Interdisciplinary #postdoctoral

Call for fellows - Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life

leverhulmecal.webspace.durham.ac.uk

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 22d

Thanks, we’re very excited about it. Just a sketch of an idea sent through to us. We decided this sort of initial discussion and screening would be a way of saving everyone time - so do send through an idea, the blurb on the website sets out what we hope an intervention will do : )

Keir Milburn @kmilb.bsky.social · 25d

Get our Radical Abundance book for just £8!!!

www.plutobooks.com/product/radi...

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 26d

Interesting. U.K. higher education is incredibly vulnerable to Reform policy shocks that are, frankly, easy to enact and would be popular or the public wouldn’t notice or care (50% cut in fees, end dual system of funding, end research grant funding for arts and humanities and social sciences etc)

Luke McGee @lukemcgee.bsky.social · 26d

This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

Luke McGee @lukemcgee.bsky.social · 26d

This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 26d

A brilliant if profoundly depressing piece about Blyth, that gets at so many of the contradictions of the present, and the grounds for Reform support

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

James Meek · Ten-Foot Chopsticks: The North-East Transition

The ghost of the industrial revolution haunts Britain. The language of today’s politicians, of unlocking and...

www.lrb.co.uk

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 28d

That’s great - congrats!

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 28d

A scene from our The Politics of Feeling book launch in London - great discussion on fascist optimisms and nihilism, left structures of feelings, AI and Stranger Things with @ajsecor.bsky.social @jemgilbert.bsky.social @will-davies.bsky.social @geogdurham.bsky.social

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 28d

The Politics of Feeling: Populism, Progressivism, Liberalism - a book of propositions about how politics in the post 2008 impasse works affectively

www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-p...

Thomas Dekeyser @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social · 29d

It's only out in March 2026, but I heard pre-orders are now possible 😏 it's a theoretical history of technological refusal that starts in ancient Greece with the earliest machine breakers, and ends in 1980s France with anarchists bombing computer companies.

www.upress.umn.edu/978151791773...

Mark Griffiths @casesofyou.bsky.social · 29d

for anyone interested, here's a new article (open-access) on geopower and Palestine:

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library

While the majority of geographical work on colonialism in Palestine centres on territory and land, this article foregrounds geopower and geos in the making of spatial relations. It shows how geopower....

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Nov 24

A great example of our 5000 word revamped Intervention format!

Thomas Dekeyser @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social · Nov 24

💥 New publication out on the alignment of AI & authoritarianism 💥

We argue that AI is not simply extending, but actively modulating, key dynamics of authoritarianism, and present a flexible analytical framework to account for these changes.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Thomas Dekeyser @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social · Nov 24

💥 New publication out on the alignment of AI & authoritarianism 💥

We argue that AI is not simply extending, but actively modulating, key dynamics of authoritarianism, and present a flexible analytical framework to account for these changes.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Nov 24

This is outstanding by @nesrinemalik.bsky.social - partly on the use of identity and the politics of absolution for racism

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Shabana Mahmood is an avatar of open Britain – that’s what makes her fable about immigration so seductive | Nesrine Malik

‘She is the daughter of immigrants,’ supporters of her cruel asylum policies say. ‘How can she be wrong?’ Let me put them straight, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

www.theguardian.com

Jonny Darling @jonnydarling.bsky.social · Nov 20

Commentary on govt proposals to further restrict refugee protection, expand removals, and limit support. Talking tough will not fix govt failures on asylum, but it will hinder integration, cause harm, and further drive resentment towards those seeking protection theconversation.com/uk-to-overha...

UK to overhaul asylum policy – will the new measures work?

People who have been recognised as needing humanitarian protection will be under constant review.

theconversation.com

TIBG @tibg.bsky.social · Nov 20

New in TIBG:

'Asylum as artifice: Race, law and capital as regimes of abstractions in the United Kingdom's asylum accommodation system' by Anna Pearce

This paper charts the history of the category of 'asylum seeker' from 1993 to 2023.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Anna Pearce (2025) entitled: 'Asylum as Artifice: Race, Law and Capital as Regimes of Abstraction in the United Kingdom's Asylum Accommodation System' with a red banner at the top.

Taking as its case study the category of the ‘asylum seeker’ in UK law, this paper develops on latent concerns in legal geographies with processes of abstraction. Following Bhandar and Toscano, race, law and capital are here understood as different, co-articulating modalities of abstraction, through which the ‘asylum seeker’ is constituted and reconstituted by spatial practice and law over time. The case study charts the history of the category in UK law with the corresponding developments in the material and spatial infrastructures of asylum accommodation, from the point at which the ‘asylum seeker’ was first codified in UK law in 1993 to the delegitimisation of asylum itself in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023. As well as providing the application of Bhandar and Toscano's innovative methodology to a new empirical area, I further make the case that, as well as functioning as organisational nodes for race and capital, legal objects may also serve as conduits. In this way, these differing regimes of abstraction are put into mutually influential relationships with one another, with particularly concerning implications for the independence of law from capital. Though the case study and its legislative context are necessarily narrow in order to properly trace the contours of this particular legal object, the potential application of the theoretical arguments developed from this tight focus is broad, contributing to studies of immigration law, asylum reception and processing, as well as legal geographies more widely.

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Nov 20

Book launch for The Politics of Feeling with @ajsecor.bsky.social and @jemgilbert.bsky.social @will-davies.bsky.social on 25.11 at 15.00 in London. Details here, last time I checked there were a couple of tickets left

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-politi...

www.eventbrite.co.uk

Prof Katherine Brickell @kbrickell.bsky.social · Nov 20

'We need to get on with this' – Alison McGovern, Minister of State for Local Government and Homelessness.

In advance of the Homeless Strategy, it was an honour to be invited by the Minister to a Summit on its direction: "prevention", "harm reduction" & "recovery".

🧵 What did I say? Read on...

Geography at Durham @geogdurham.bsky.social · Nov 13

Our colleague Gavin Bridge has recently co-created a short animation called the ‘Future of UK Oil and Gas’. The film draws on insights from the Fraying Ties project on Networks, Territory and Transformation in the UK oil sector, and was produced by Seed Creativity: youtu.be/8MPHZAhzzLY

The future of UK oil and gas

YouTube video by DurhamUniversity

youtu.be

Social & Cultural Geography @scgrg.bsky.social · Nov 10

Upcoming Event: Social and Cultural Geography beyond the Academy – Opportunities in Policy and Practice
Friday 28 November, 11.00-12.30, ONLINE (UK)

This event joins academic and non-academic geographers to discuss their transition from the academy into the world beyond

Further info: scgrg.co.uk

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Nov 7

Really important petition here against the terrible situation Leicester human geographers (and others) are facing. Sign, write emails to senior people, protest etc!

www.change.org/p/save-geogr...

Sign the Petition

Save Geography at the University of Leicester

www.change.org

Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Nov 6

Absolutely shocking news, awful for everyone affected.

Angela Last @mutablematter.bsky.social · Nov 6

Human Geography at Leicester is facing closure. Staff contracts are to end in June 2026; students are to be relocated to other universities, or taught out by a maximum of two (!) teaching-only staff. Other departments and subjects are facing closure, too. Please join the demo!

Angela Last @mutablematter.bsky.social · Nov 6

Human Geography at Leicester is facing closure. Staff contracts are to end in June 2026; students are to be relocated to other universities, or taught out by a maximum of two (!) teaching-only staff. Other departments and subjects are facing closure, too. Please join the demo!

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