Maria Berghs

@mariaberghs.bsky.social

Associate Professor, Director of TASC Unit https://tascunit.com/ and drinker of too much coffee. Sickle cell, thalassaemia, medical sociology, medical anthropology, disability studies and chronic illness.

Videos

Public Health 32%

Psychology 21%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Maria Berghs

The Guardian @theguardian.com · Jun 26

UK schools and offices not equipped for impact of global heating, report warns

Exclusive: UK Green Building Council calls for adaptation of millions of buildings and warns of flood threats to towns The UK’s schools, care homes and offices are not equipped for the effects of global heating and face lengthy heatwaves even in optimistic scenarios, according to a groundbreaking report that calls for climate resilience to be declared a national emergency. The report by the UK Green Building Council also predicts that towns including Peterborough and Fairbourne will be uninhabitable by the end of the century because of flooding. The appointment of a minister for resilience within the Cabinet Office A new legal objective to ensure all planning decisions deliver climate safety. A more ambitious future homes standard to protect against increasing climate hazards – overheating, flooding and water scarcity. A comprehensive retrofit strategy to make homes and buildings climate safe. The protection of all communities with trees, parks and ponds. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Maria Berghs

The UCU branch at De Montfort University Leicester @ucudmu.bsky.social · Jun 25

Thank you to all who attended our protest against DMU cuts held at Trinity House this afternoon, students, staff, members of the public. The message was clear: #DefendDMU

Maria Berghs @mariaberghs.bsky.social · Jun 19

World Sickle Cell Day. Patients, clinicians and researchers have been saying it for decades. Patients with sickle cell get worse care than people with similar conditions and they don't get the same funding. #sicklecell #care #patients #NHS #inequalities www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

UK sickle cell patients ‘get worse care than sufferers of similar disorders’

Study commissioned by NHS finds that sickle cell disease care lags behind that for conditions such as cystic fibrosis

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Maria Berghs

The UCU branch at De Montfort University Leicester @ucudmu.bsky.social · Jun 18

Engagement from our students is deeply encouraging: we are fighting these cuts because staff working conditions are student learning conditions. #DefendDMU

Reposted by Maria Berghs

The UCU branch at De Montfort University Leicester @ucudmu.bsky.social · Jun 17

Fantastic to see this kind of solidarity from students!

#DefendDMU #NoConfidence

Maria Berghs @mariaberghs.bsky.social · Jun 11

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how critical it is to invest in healthcare systems and develop professionals as assets to our local and global public health resources. www.frontiersin.org/journals/soc...

Frontiers | Editorial: Voices from the frontline: the lived experiences of healthcare professionals in the workplace

Genova and Lombardi's commentary picks up on the idea of public health investments in General Practitioners (GPs) or family doctors as cornerstone of pri...

www.frontiersin.org

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Rachel Brooks @rachelbrooks.bsky.social · Jun 11

Apply by Friday (13 June) to become a member of the @bjse.bsky.social editorial board

Expertise in digital technologies and/or quant methods particularly welcome

think.taylorandfrancis.com/editor_recru...

Editorial Board Members needed for British Journal of Sociology of Education

think.taylorandfrancis.com

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Katie Munday - Autistic and Living the Dream @kmunday.bsky.social · Jun 11

Today is the day!

@cripmadsymposium.bsky.social is hosting our first symposium!

Intersections of Sociology with Crip Theory and Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies

See those who have signed up very soon!

#MadCrip2025

Reposted by Maria Berghs

The UCU branch at De Montfort University Leicester @ucudmu.bsky.social · Jun 5

Thanks again to the Gazette for allowing a colleague the space to explain the situation so many academics are dealing with at DMU right now

www.leicester.news/i-work-at-dm...

I work at DMU – the job cuts are a betrayal of everything we stand for

DMU has vast sums of money in its cash reserves… Sadly, this money is being stripped away to fund vanity projects outside of Leicester.

www.leicester.news

Reposted by Helen Jarvis, Maria Berghs

University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · Jun 4

📢 National Demo Announced at Newcastle University

UCU members from across the UK will descend on Newcastle on Wednesday 11 June for a national demonstration against job cuts.

✊ Join us and make your voice heard

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

Newcastle University academics to strike for 30 more days

Industrial action among academics at Newcastle University has been extended again, alongside a national demonstration in Newcastle next week

www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · Apr 23

No NIH Grants for Colleges With DEI Programs or Israel Boycotts

Colleges will have to comply with new certification requirements in order to receive any funding from the NIH, effective immediately. #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/3S0baoS

No NIH Grants for Colleges With DEI Programs or Israel Boycotts

Colleges will have to comply with new certification requirements in order to receive any funding from the NIH, effective immediately.

bit.ly

Reposted by Maria Berghs

The Guardian @theguardian.com · Apr 23

Nominate a friend to go to Glastonbury festival 2025 and be in with the chance of winning a pair of tickets

Nominate a friend to go to Glastonbury festival 2025

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · Apr 23

Towards a Sociology of Healthcare Robots
#academicsky #digitalhealth 🧪
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Maria Berghs @mariaberghs.bsky.social · Apr 22

Intersections of Ageing and Disability during the COVID-19 pandemic edited by Bethany Simmonds and myself www.frontiersin.org/research-top...

Intersections of Ageing and Disability during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The sociology of ageing, disability, and health/illness are fields of research which have many crossovers, intersections and convergences, and these connections have been under-researched, which refle...

www.frontiersin.org

Maria Berghs @mariaberghs.bsky.social · Apr 22

Rest in Peace. Graham Sergeant was a giant in sickle cell research. He was also responsible for introducing me to the Sierra Leone Sickle Cell Society. I remain very grateful www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Graham Sergeant obituary

Physician and researcher who dedicated his life to the study of sickle cell disease and its variants

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Ian Loader, Maria Berghs

Oxford Criminology @oxfordcrim.bsky.social · Apr 22

Our Annual 'Roger Hood' Lecture will be given this year by Didier Fassin, Collège de France and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton: www.law.ox.ac.uk/content/even... In Person only - sign up to attend at: bit.ly/4jfDiAk

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Robin Ince @robinince.bsky.social · Apr 22

If you are anywhere near #camberwell today - why not visit Lala Books - have a browse, but a book, be lovely

South London bookshop owner's heartfelt plea after raid and the sweet offer she's making
A window was smashed and goods stolen from the solo-female owned store
SHARE
BY KATHERINE GRAY
16:30, 21 APR 2025
• See news near you
In介介俞
Your Area

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Chris Uggen @chrisuggen.bsky.social · Apr 22

A truly great sociologist, who made big wide-ranging contributions. His 1988 ASA presidential address called for a “public sociology” that directly engaged non-academic readers. Such a shame to lose giants like Michael Burawoy and Herb Gans in the past few weeks. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/b...

Herbert J. Gans, 97, Dies; Upended Myths on Urban and Suburban Life (Gift Article)

A leading sociologist, he explored American society up close — living in a Levittown at one point — to gain insight into issues of race, class, the media and even the Yankees.

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Mad Crip Symposium @cripmadsymposium.bsky.social · Apr 18

Save the date!!!! 📢

Intersections of Sociology with Crip Theory, Critical Disability Studies, and Mad Studies.

One-day hybrid symposium for researchers and community members.

11th June 9.30 - 4.30

Centenary Building, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ. And online!

#MadCrip2025 #AutRes

Poster for

Intersections of Sociology with Crip Theory, Critical Disability Studies, and Mad Studies.

One-day hybrid symposium for researchers and community members.

11th June 9 30 - 4 30

Centenary Building, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ. And online!

Save the date: 11th June

Reposted by Maria Berghs

UK Politics News // Papernaut @ukpolitics.papernaut.co · Mar 26

THE INDEPENDENT: Reeves defies poverty warnings as welfare cuts loom, insisting reforms will boost jobs instead of pushing families into hardship. Disability advocates brace for a potential crisis amid government insistence on ‘reform’.

- by Kevin Schofield

Reeves rejects own government’s findings of cuts pushing 250,000 into poverty

An impact assessment, published today by the Department of Work and Pensions, said 3.2 million families will lose an average of £1,720 a year as a result of the changes

www.independent.co.uk

Reposted by Maria Berghs, Jennifer Hook

Frank van Tubergen @frankvantubergen.bsky.social · Mar 26

We're hiring! Vacancies for 3 permanent research positions at the Assistant/Associate Professor level at NIDI (The Hague), in the field of labor market studies, inequality, and human geography/spatial studies. #Sociology #Demography #SocialSciences #Economics
nidi.nl/en/about-us/...

Vacancies - NIDI

Vacancies Are you interested in joining our interdisciplinary team of ambitious researchers studying population issues? Then we welcome you to reply to the vacancies at NIDI advertised below. 3 Resear...

nidi.nl

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Dr Dyi D. Huijg @drdyidhuijg.bsky.social · Mar 23

Does anyone have access to Barkley (1997) "Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, self-regulation, and time: toward a more comprehensive theory" and is able to send this to me?https://journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/abstract/1997/08000/Attention_Deficit_Hyperactivity_Disorder.9.aspx
#ADHD #AcademicSky

Maria Berghs @mariaberghs.bsky.social · Feb 27

This for our #DMU #students: #Design #Intern needed starting in Autumn 2025 using any medium like #photography #drawing #graphicart #art #multimedia There's loads of opportunities via #frontrunners on #Mygateway Apply by 3rd of March #paid #internship

The Social Study of Thalassaemia and Sickle Cell (TASC) Unit – The Unit for the Social Study of Thalassaemia and Sickle Cell was formed by Professor Simon Dyson in 2001. The current director is Dr Mar...

tascunit.com

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Unremarkable Me @unremarkableme.bsky.social · Feb 27

Living with a chronic illness at work can be tough—but asking for help shouldn’t be. Learn how to advocate for yourself, access support, and navigate workplace challenges.
#EDS #Unremarkableme
#ChronicIllness #InvisibleIllness #DisabilityRights
www.unremarkableme.com/post/chronic...

Chronic Illness in the Workplace: Finding the Strength to Ask for Help

Living with a chronic illness often means balancing two worlds: the invisible battle with your health and the external demands of work. In competitive and stressful environments, it’s easy to feel lik...

www.unremarkableme.com

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Aude-Marie Lalanne Berdouticq @audeberdouticq.bsky.social · Feb 27

📢 Call for paper: "Body and care in the ordeal of war"
📍Prague, November 12-14 2025
📅 Deadline: May 5, 2025

In contrast to perceptions of the war phenomenon as a situation of exception and, as such, a shocking and obscure object, apprehending the war from an ordinary perspective and through a socio-historical approach is a fruitful entry point for understanding the functioning of societies, the solidity of social ties that sustain them, the solicitude they manifest for their populations exposed to the outbreaks of violence, and, in particular, for the violated, displaced, exhausted, sick, wounded, mutilated, or people experiencing disabilities. The relationship between wars, their bodily/mental impacts and care has been studied extensively in the history of medicine, welfare policies, veterans, and disability, but mainly from the perspective of Western European or North American societies. Research highlights a constant concern of health professionals, supported by charity and voluntary organizations for bodies affected by violence from WWI, not to mention earlier conflicts, to international military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. Those efforts range from providing training for soldiers and civilians, professionals, and ordinary actors (e.g., fighters, civilian defense volunteers), as well as the deployment of (para)medical logistics and emergency first aid near the front line, to the supply of medicines, in-hospital care, development of new care infrastructure and body-repairing techniques.
Analyses focusing on care for bodies impacted by wartime violence in East-Central and East-Southern European societies remain scarce to date. Existing research points to difficulties in developing an adequate and comprehensive medical response because of the scale of bodily and mental injuries on the Eastern front(s), as well as to a long-standing tendency for social disregard for incapacitated veterans and civilians who are marginalized in redistributive schemes, reduced to poor-quality prosthetic services, or even to begging on the streets as in the USSR. This draws, in essence,…

The aim of this conference is to fill an important gap in our understanding of the relation between war, violence-affected and thus fragilized bodies and care in East-Central and East-Southern European societies in a long-term perspective, that of the armed conflicts of the 20th-21st centuries. East-Central and East-Southern European societies have historically been disrupted by the brutality of war violence and confronted with the short- and long-term challenges of managing its consequences, evolving in a context of collapsing empires and emerging new states in the borderlands, of constantly redrawn borders and changing political regimes, but also engaged in an intense circulation of ideas, norms, models, people, and practices. Therefore, East-Central and East-Southern European societies constitute a laboratory for social innovation in caring for violence-affected bodies on various scales (community, associative, humanitarian, municipal, state, national, international). The conference’s objective is also to shed light on multiple entanglements between body and care in the ordeal of war through a resolutely interdisciplinary dialogue between historians and sociologists, but also open to other social scientists, and through both “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches, or multi-scalar analysis.
We define care broadly, both as curative treatment (cure) aimed at recovering and, by extension, a system of organized provision of medical care (healthcare), and as social relations, attitudes, policies, and practices of assistance to others, that are exercised in a variety of settings (charity, voluntary help, family, paid work…) and rely, at the level of social care, on interventions by public authorities, communities and private actors in support of people considered as vulnerable (welfare). In the context of armed conflicts, care also involves a significant militarization of actors (patients, care-providers) and the renegotiation of what taking care and providing care means…

Among the topics we would offer for consideration are:
Body and mental health. What are the main impacts of military strategies (bombing, blockades, occupation), technologies (equipment, transportation, housing), weapons or ammunition, and protective gear (bulletproof vests, helmets, masks) on bodies and mental health? How are these bodily impacts (diseases, wounds, mutilations, disabilities) medically treated and socially cared for during the war and in its aftermath? How are psychological traumas and mental disorders, which have long been marginalized and now statistically dominate the spectrum of illnesses observed in many wartime contexts, assessed, and managed? What correlations can be observed between the evolution of the warfare means and the injuries sustained, from the mass shelling of the First World War to the intensive use of drones and rockets in the Russian-Ukrainian war? What physical and mental after-affects do the lived experiences of wartime violence leave in the long term? How do they impact individual and collective trajectories of those concerned? Finally, how are dead bodies handled?

Hygiene, nutrition, epidemics. By bringing extremely precarious living conditions, the war results in major health problems for both the military and civilians and in spreading of water, sanitation, and hygiene- associated diseases. What kinds of solutions does the war favor at the political, military, scientific, medical, industrial level in face of epidemic outbreaks and hygienic vulnerability? What is the role of technological innovation, sanitation programs and education in sanitary policies?

Healthcare institutions and actors. How does the war affect healthcare institutions and actors, both military and civilian? How do institutions and actors respond to wartime emergencies: huge contingents of sick, violated, wounded, mutilated bodies; propagation of epidemics; threats to the most vulnerable categories (children, the elderly, people with disability)? How …

Reposted by Maria Berghs

Z2K (Zacchaeus 2000 Trust) @z2ktrust.bsky.social · Feb 27

It’s disappointing to see the DWP announce that it has no plans to publish the responses to the upcoming consultation on health & disability benefit reform, despite pledging to increase transparency. Thanks to Ayoub Khan for raising this.

questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques...