Julie Spray
@juliespray.bsky.social
Childhood & medical anthropologist, child health researcher, Lecturer at University of Galway Ireland, Pākehā New Zealander, she/her, never enough cats. I study people because they fascinate & confuse me. Children make most sense though. We like to draw.
Sharing some delicious student comics from my course "Comics, Childhood and the Alternative." This one is about the experience of ADHD, by the creative phenom Ellie Bradley.
February 10, 2026 at 3:41 PM
Sharing some delicious student comics from my course "Comics, Childhood and the Alternative." This one is about the experience of ADHD, by the creative phenom Ellie Bradley.
The gymnastics sports podcast I follow has some seriously impressive newsletters @gymcastic.com
January 14, 2026 at 6:56 PM
The gymnastics sports podcast I follow has some seriously impressive newsletters @gymcastic.com
"We are not unemployed because we are unemployable.
We are unemployed because we are the first to buckle under exploitation."
We are unemployed because we are the first to buckle under exploitation."
The Hidden Reason So Many Autistic Adults Can’t Stay Employed
The Cost of Asking One Person to Do the Work of Five
kaiblackwood.substack.com
January 8, 2026 at 7:00 PM
"We are not unemployed because we are unemployable.
We are unemployed because we are the first to buckle under exploitation."
We are unemployed because we are the first to buckle under exploitation."
Pluribus is an intense ontological experience for Christmas break
December 26, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Pluribus is an intense ontological experience for Christmas break
Win for political enfranchisement of the young! I teach university students and they don’t know this stuff because our society’s ideologies of childhood and youth prevent us from making the political system universally accessible
Thanks to one of my mutuals, a preteen girl got a legit Mamdani t-shirt and campaign buttons for Christmas.
“Now he’s like us, right?”
That meant someone got to draw this and do an impromptu lecture to an actually interested child. I don’t know who is happier, man or child.
“Now he’s like us, right?”
That meant someone got to draw this and do an impromptu lecture to an actually interested child. I don’t know who is happier, man or child.
December 25, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Win for political enfranchisement of the young! I teach university students and they don’t know this stuff because our society’s ideologies of childhood and youth prevent us from making the political system universally accessible
Reposted by Julie Spray
Discworld QOTD, from Hogfather
December 25, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Discworld QOTD, from Hogfather
It’s hard for many people to learn that things aren’t real. It’s a big worldview shift that can be really triggering and destabilising, overturn identities, undermine cultural sources of moral authority and advice. You can see the barriers preventing that one small epistemic step for man.
December 25, 2025 at 7:26 PM
It’s hard for many people to learn that things aren’t real. It’s a big worldview shift that can be really triggering and destabilising, overturn identities, undermine cultural sources of moral authority and advice. You can see the barriers preventing that one small epistemic step for man.
Reposted by Julie Spray
“The longer I live, the more convinced I am that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.”
- George Bernard Shaw
- George Bernard Shaw
December 23, 2025 at 4:47 AM
“The longer I live, the more convinced I am that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.”
- George Bernard Shaw
- George Bernard Shaw
Is it just me realising like humanity is way way worse than I was led to believe
December 19, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Is it just me realising like humanity is way way worse than I was led to believe
Reposted by Julie Spray
White men, imagine you go for a job. The interview panel is three black women. The board of directors is all black women and has been, without exception, forever. You notice that all supervisors are black women and the only white man you see is cleaning. The company insists they appoint on merit /1
December 11, 2025 at 7:58 AM
White men, imagine you go for a job. The interview panel is three black women. The board of directors is all black women and has been, without exception, forever. You notice that all supervisors are black women and the only white man you see is cleaning. The company insists they appoint on merit /1
Reposted by Julie Spray
Is there a piece of scholarship on your syllabus that students really connected with or really worked well for your semester? You should take some time today to email those authors and tell them. I love sending these emails.
December 10, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Is there a piece of scholarship on your syllabus that students really connected with or really worked well for your semester? You should take some time today to email those authors and tell them. I love sending these emails.
“Anyone who’s ever found a blunt “no” scrawled in the margin of an essay knows that universities force humility upon us.… you realise how much of yourself is inherited or assumed and how freeing it is to rebuild that self from first principles.”
thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-1...
thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-1...
We’ve forgotten what universities are for
With New Zealand universities facing not only a funding crisis but a philosophical challenge to their role, the soul of tertiary education is at stake.
thespinoff.co.nz
November 11, 2025 at 7:11 AM
“Anyone who’s ever found a blunt “no” scrawled in the margin of an essay knows that universities force humility upon us.… you realise how much of yourself is inherited or assumed and how freeing it is to rebuild that self from first principles.”
thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-1...
thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-1...
Frustrating example of #epistemicmirecognition: rejection (after 2 rounds of review and reviewers recommending acceptance) from journal editor because this autoethnographic paper sounds like a story retrospectively told from my experiences (and so cannot be "academically rigorous inquiry"). Sigh.
October 23, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Frustrating example of #epistemicmirecognition: rejection (after 2 rounds of review and reviewers recommending acceptance) from journal editor because this autoethnographic paper sounds like a story retrospectively told from my experiences (and so cannot be "academically rigorous inquiry"). Sigh.
“In the Kalahari, one little boy who would almost certainly be diagnosed with autism in an American doctor’s office is highly valued for his abilities… the boy, his father told me, “is great herding goats. He always knows where they are in the day or night.””
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...
Opinion | Autism Has Always Existed. We Haven’t Always Called It Autism.
www.nytimes.com
September 28, 2025 at 5:46 AM
“In the Kalahari, one little boy who would almost certainly be diagnosed with autism in an American doctor’s office is highly valued for his abilities… the boy, his father told me, “is great herding goats. He always knows where they are in the day or night.””
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...
This is a super helpful and interesting window into the editorial process - I learned a lot! I found the explanation of the relationship between editor and reviewer reports in final decision-making especially helpful to understand.
📢📢📢 New Editorial Alert 📢📢📢
American Ethnologist editors lift the lid on the ‘black box’ of journal submission...
An Editorial Insight: Be wary of making ungrounded “what I call” assertions of novelty. A much better strategy is to trace where your ideas have come from.
American Ethnologist editors lift the lid on the ‘black box’ of journal submission...
An Editorial Insight: Be wary of making ungrounded “what I call” assertions of novelty. A much better strategy is to trace where your ideas have come from.
September 12, 2025 at 2:10 PM
This is a super helpful and interesting window into the editorial process - I learned a lot! I found the explanation of the relationship between editor and reviewer reports in final decision-making especially helpful to understand.
I was a grad student when Trump got elected in 2016, and the next day a very senior professor commented: "just goes to show the dangers of an uneducated populace."
I have always remembered that remark over the last few years of social and political regression. Lest we forget what education is for.
I have always remembered that remark over the last few years of social and political regression. Lest we forget what education is for.
August 19, 2025 at 12:29 PM
I was a grad student when Trump got elected in 2016, and the next day a very senior professor commented: "just goes to show the dangers of an uneducated populace."
I have always remembered that remark over the last few years of social and political regression. Lest we forget what education is for.
I have always remembered that remark over the last few years of social and political regression. Lest we forget what education is for.
Reposted by Julie Spray
#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #OpenScience #AcademicResearch #AcademicWriting #ScholarlyPublishing #AcademicPublishing #AcademicChatter 🧪
August 6, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Reposted by Julie Spray
A valuable checklist. Thanks Julie. And for those seeking to explore further and challenge adultism in research, can I offer some additional resources from my own back catalogue: www.harryshier.net/docs/Shier-A...
www.harryshier.net/docs/Shier-W...
www.harryshier.net/docs/Shier-W...
July 30, 2025 at 8:59 AM
A valuable checklist. Thanks Julie. And for those seeking to explore further and challenge adultism in research, can I offer some additional resources from my own back catalogue: www.harryshier.net/docs/Shier-A...
www.harryshier.net/docs/Shier-W...
www.harryshier.net/docs/Shier-W...
It's hard to see what we're not seeing when working from the dominant or majority (normative) social position. As researchers, we share a normative but rarely critically considered position as ADULTS.
This means our research has likely been shaped by adult-centrism. I made a resource.
This means our research has likely been shaped by adult-centrism. I made a resource.
July 29, 2025 at 8:57 AM
It's hard to see what we're not seeing when working from the dominant or majority (normative) social position. As researchers, we share a normative but rarely critically considered position as ADULTS.
This means our research has likely been shaped by adult-centrism. I made a resource.
This means our research has likely been shaped by adult-centrism. I made a resource.
Reposted by Julie Spray
Reposted by Julie Spray
When I was little, the U.S. military came to our home at gunpoint and took me and my family away. We were imprisoned for years in barbed wire camps simply because we were Japanese American. I have spent my life telling that story, hoping it would never be repeated.
July 21, 2025 at 5:20 PM
When I was little, the U.S. military came to our home at gunpoint and took me and my family away. We were imprisoned for years in barbed wire camps simply because we were Japanese American. I have spent my life telling that story, hoping it would never be repeated.
Watching the US from afar, you realise the frog did notice the water heating up, it just believed the next midterm would turn off the stove.
July 18, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Watching the US from afar, you realise the frog did notice the water heating up, it just believed the next midterm would turn off the stove.
Reposted by Julie Spray
Ireland has had "sELf iD" for 10 years now and not one single issue that the media, government and anti-trans movement predicted has come to pass. Not one.
If it works in Ireland why would it not work here? No one who opposes it can give a good answer, because the real answer is transphobia
If it works in Ireland why would it not work here? No one who opposes it can give a good answer, because the real answer is transphobia
Ten years ago, on this day 15 July, the Irish Oireachtas passed the Gender Recognition Act 2015 (An tAcht um Inscne a Aithint, 2015).
It was a piece of legislation that allowed me to live my life authentically & I'm forever grateful.
Despite what others may have you believe, the sky did not fall in.
It was a piece of legislation that allowed me to live my life authentically & I'm forever grateful.
Despite what others may have you believe, the sky did not fall in.
July 15, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Ireland has had "sELf iD" for 10 years now and not one single issue that the media, government and anti-trans movement predicted has come to pass. Not one.
If it works in Ireland why would it not work here? No one who opposes it can give a good answer, because the real answer is transphobia
If it works in Ireland why would it not work here? No one who opposes it can give a good answer, because the real answer is transphobia
Reposted by Julie Spray
BREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.
July 8, 2025 at 3:31 PM
BREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.
Reposted by Julie Spray
