Gerald Roche
@geraldroche.bsky.social
AuDHD & PhD. anthropology, language, power. he/him
New book: The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501777783/the-politics-of-language-oppression-in-tibet/
ORCiD: 0000-0002-2410-351X ..
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AuDHD & PhD. anthropology, language, power. he/him
New book: The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501777783/the-politics-of-language-oppression-in-tibet/
ORCiD: 0000-0002-2410-351X
Political science
56%
Sociology
24%
Pinned
Gerald Roche
@geraldroche.bsky.social
· Nov 15
It's publication day! The Politics of Language Oppression sheds light on a global crisis of linguistic diversity that will see at least half of the world's languages disappear this century.
Use 09BCARD for a 30% discount from @cornellupress.bsky.social www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
Use 09BCARD for a 30% discount from @cornellupress.bsky.social www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
Between Recursive Monolingualism and a Thousand Multilingual Plateaus: Thinking With Tibetan Sociolinguistics
Click on the article title to read more.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
After publishing my book in 2024, I was dreading the possibility that someone might write something even vaguely negative about it. Now that a critical review has been published, I find that I kind of appreciate their thoughtful engagement with the work?
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Key Facts
Visit the post for more.
addressingfilicide.org
See also research from the Monash Deakin Filicide Research Hub, including this helpful discussion of key facts about filicide.
addressingfilicide.org/key-facts/
addressingfilicide.org/key-facts/
🧵 content warning: murder, violence against disabled people
Here's a thread from last year about filicide in Australia, including more on sympathetic media portrayals of people who murder their disabled children.
bsky.app/profile/gera...
bsky.app/profile/gera...
Sympathetic portrayals of parents who murder their children "sends a message that homicide is a normal, understandable response to any discomfort one might experience while parenting a disabled child, and we can’t pretend that other parents of disabled kids aren’t hearing that message."
2026 Anti-Filicide Toolkit - Autistic Self Advocacy Network
In the past five years, over 548 people with disabilities have been murdered by their parents, relatives or caregivers. On Sunday, March 1st, the disability community will gather across the nation to ...
autisticadvocacy.org
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network has recently published an "Anti-Filicde Toolkit" which contains warnings and advice about media reporting on filicide of autistic children.
autisticadvocacy.org/anti-filicide/
autisticadvocacy.org/anti-filicide/
Preventing Filicide in Families With Autistic Children - Mark T. Palermo, 2003
Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that affects social behaviors and parent-child interaction. It has been associated with an increased risk of soc...
journals.sagepub.com
After I learned (somewhat late in life) that I am autistic, one of the terms I was introduced to in my learning about autism was 'fillicide' - "the killing of one's own child".
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Yesterday in Australia two autistic children were murdered by their parents. @australia.theguardian.com felt compelled to report that "The family were described on social media as a lovely couple and a good family." Lovely couples don't murder children.
amazing - I just learnt who Louis Real is, like, a week ago
excellent, thank you
Please send recommendations for historical/ political graphic novels that you have enjoyed, if you have them.
there's a definite link that I'm too lazy to think about between the goofy, absurd, silly quality of British humor and their historical role as violent empire builders and the birthplace of capitalism
Five Key Concepts for Autistic Linguistic Justice: Securitization, Revitalization, Rights, Planning, and Ethics - Gerald Roche, 2025
This perspective article draws on my own lived experience as an autistic person, combined with my academic research at the intersection of languages and politic...
journals.sagepub.com
My article 'Five Key Concepts for Autistic Linguistic Justice' is currently the most-read article in the journal Autism in Adulthood. Thanks to everyone who has shown interest in this work - I hope you're finding it helpful.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
an excellent turn of phrase
Solidarity with People, Not States.
Normalize calling out genocide denialism.
peoplenotstates.wordpress.com
And finally, if you want to learn more about actual anti-imperialism that takes a consistent approach to state violence, a good resourc is the website 'People Not States.'
peoplenotstates.wordpress.com
peoplenotstates.wordpress.com
Xinjiang Denialists Are Only Aiding Imperialism
Denying China’s oppression of Uighurs helps empire—both China’s and the US’s.
www.thenation.com
So my last reading recommendation on pseudo-anti-imperialism is something I wrote back in 2021 that explores how this philosophy actually contributes to empire-building and oppression.
www.thenation.com/article/worl...
www.thenation.com/article/worl...
As I outline in the articles above, my own thinking about this goes back to my time living in China and observing reactions to the 2008 Tibetan uprising. Support for China, and denunciations of Tibetans and Uyghurs, is an important facet of pseudo-anti-imperialism today.
While my 2025 article helps identify the methods used by pseudo-anti-imperalist propagandists, the 2024 article helps identify individuals who subscribe to this idea, by looking at the tells in their discourse and their history of selective commentary.
"...the solidarity that [pseudo-anti-imperialists] build now by defending the Palestinian people will be extracted and later used as a weapon against other victims engaged in struggle with oppression elsewhere."
Gerald Roche, Rogue Journalists Are Denouncing The Gaza Genocide Because They Want You To Deny The Next One - positions politics
As thousands of bodies are blown apart in Gaza and children starve to death in the city’s rubble-strewn streets, numerous groups are exploiting this suffering in order to advance oppressive agendas su...
positionspolitics.org
Back in 2024, I argued that pseudo-anti-imperialists were exploiting the Gaza genocide to build their support base, which in turn would be mobilized later to enable atrocities elsewhere.
positionspolitics.org/gerald-roche...
positionspolitics.org/gerald-roche...
We are indeed seeing another surge in passivity propaganda as pseudo-anti-imperialists react to the Iran protests.
"Far away, a protest breaks out. Crowds amass in the streets, calling for freedom. Protestors take to social media, calling for support. As your thumb hovers above a post to share it, a passivity propagandist appears, saying: ‘This is fake news!’"
"Passivity propaganda is the lowest hanging fruit on the propaganda tree. To succeed, it just needs to convince you to do nothing. Passivity propaganda asks you to not help people you will never meet, in a place on the other side of the world, where you will almost certainly never set foot."
Beware Passivity Propaganda: China and the Left in the Times of Trump 2.0
Gerald Roche critiques pseudo-anti-imperialism and its deployment of passivity propaganda, which seeks to convince us to ignore state violence and abandon solidarity.
interregnum.ghost.io
Last year, I argued that during Trump's second term we should expect to see increased activity from pseudo-anti-imperialists, engaging in what I called 'passivity propaganda'.
interregnum.ghost.io/beware-passi...
interregnum.ghost.io/beware-passi...
How to Avoid the Anti-Imperialism of Fools
The logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a recipe for empty cynicism.
www.thenation.com
A third author that I think writes really well on this topic is Gilbert Achcar. This article in The Nation gives a good overview of his perspective on the topic.
www.thenation.com/article/poli...
www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Multipolarity, the Mantra of Authoritarianism, by Kavita Krishnan – 20 December 2022 – Left Renewal Blog
leftrenewal.org
Kavita Krishnan's writing on this topic is also great. For example, in this essay she discusses an increasingly influential idea promoted by pseduo-anti-imperialists - 'multipolarity'.
leftrenewal.org/articles-en/...
leftrenewal.org/articles-en/...
Indefensible
A defence of democracy at national and international levels, and critique of attacks on it in the name of "anti-imperialism."
www.haymarketbooks.org
I take the term 'pseudo-anti-imperialism' from Rohini Hensman, who has written an excellent account of it in her book "Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism"
www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1164-i...
www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1164-i...
Given the ongoing protests in Iran and the US attacks on Venezuela, it seems a good time to once again revisit the idea of "pseudo-anti-imperialism" - the idea that supporting dictators and oppressive regimes is good if undermines the US or even just contributes to a critique of the US.
New publication alert! Out article 'Big Impact or No Advantage? Raciolinguistic Framings in Australian Media Coverage of Young People's Multilingualism' is now available in early online view in the Journal of Sociolinguistics @jslx.bsky.social 🧵
Raciolinguistics in Australia "While White, monolingual children's language learning is consistently celebrated through neoliberal ideologies of competitive advantage & cognitive benefit, racialised children's ...multilingualism is constructed as a deficit, barrier or threat requiring intervention."
Reposted by Gerald Roche, Lauren Hall‐Lew
New publication alert! Out article 'Big Impact or No Advantage? Raciolinguistic Framings in Australian Media Coverage of Young People's Multilingualism' is now available in early online view in the Journal of Sociolinguistics @jslx.bsky.social 🧵