Kurt Iveson
kurtiveson.bsky.social
Kurt Iveson
@kurtiveson.bsky.social

Sydney-based urban geographer + unionist

Political science 24%
Sociology 15%

"clawing shared governance back can help ensure that universities aren’t converted into profit centers for private equity firms. It seems plausible, even likely, that faculty unions will have some success building power off of the growing resentment of ubiquitous AI and its slop products."

Wrote a thing on the hot summer of uni AI adoption for @defector.com

A huge thanks to @nathankhensley.bsky.social and @anniemcc.bsky.social. @brandyjensen.bsky.social is a legend. And anything smart in hear is thanks to hours of discussion, texting, and draft reading by @smosment.bsky.social
Higher Ed’s Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI | Defector
If you don’t work at a university or have college-age kids, you may have missed the flurry of news stories and social media banter about AI adoption in higher ed, stories which have snowballed into th...
defector.com

Straight onto next year's Ludic Geographies reading list, thanks Alison! youtu.be/B0a3IPEZLAI?...
Classic Sesame Street - Around, Through and Over
YouTube video by Sesame Maniac
youtu.be

So much ill shit going on across the world ... but am also feeling devastated waking up to learn that D'Angelo has passed. Voodoo one of those records for me, if the not *the* record. RIP. youtu.be/_RLP0xAjdJU?...
D'Angelo - Africa (Demo)
YouTube video by Music For Listening
youtu.be

"Kids, back when I did my honours, there was no Factiva, just days/weeks of scrolling through microfilm" ... says me every time an honours student does a newspaper search! (Which I am sure is very annoying...) What did the zoomers make of the format and the process?

Reposted by Kurt Iveson

New article!

Acts of energy citizenship in community solar gardens by Judita Hudson, @kurtiveson.bsky.social & Sophie Webber.

doi.org/10.1080/0964...

Reposted by Kurt Iveson

australian street style, 1973

Reposted by Kurt Iveson

AI is changing the way we work, and reshaping higher education.
It must be introduced fairly, ethically & with real consultation so staff aren’t left behind.
How is AI being used in your workplace?
Share your story: nteu.info/aistory

Congrats Brian, awesome news!

Looks awesome, congrats! Will read how you're thinking metabolism and municipalism in relation with great interest.
Call for sessions for the RC21 conference in Vienna, 20-22 July, 2026. Deadline for submissions: 6th of October 2025. rc21-vienna2026.org/call-for-ses... #urban #sociology

Reposted by Kurt Iveson

50 Years of Political Economy. Some fantastic articles, but only one has brought me to tears.

@kurtiveson.bsky.social's generous contribution takes time to dwell on the PhD theses of @natashaheenan.bsky.social, Anna Sturman, and myself.

@ppesydney.bsky.social

1/

www.ppesydney.net/jape-issues/...
Issue 95 (Winter 2025) - 50 Years of Political Economy in Australia - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)
SPECIAL ISSUE – 50 YEARS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN AUSTRALIA Complete issue JAPE95 complete Contents The Editors: Editorial Voices of Former Students of Political Economy: Anthony Albanese; Thalia Antho...
www.ppesydney.net
It is massive. Thanks to Peter Deppeler on Twitter for the footage. #GazaGenocide #MarchForHumanity

Re-posting in the wake of this week's news that YIMBY Melbourne has secured a $760,000 grant from US-based Open Philanthropy to progress their housing agenda locally...
arena.org.au/yimby-or-nim...
YIMBY or NIMBY? Both are worse… – Arena
Critical * Radical * Australia * Earth
arena.org.au

If you haven't already, please sign this petition in support of awesome sociologists at Macquarie Uni whose discipline is about to be decimated: www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/sa...
SAVE SOCIOLOGY AT MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY
We urge Macquarie University management to reverse this decision and preserve the vital disciplines of Sociology and Politics. Sociology has a key place in the social sciences as the broadest and mos...
www.megaphone.org.au

Job Alert! 3-year Post-Doc to work with me and Marilu Melo Zurita on our "Wiring Australian Cities" project. It's an ARC-funded infrastructure geographies project 'following the infrastructure' of urban telecommunications across time and space. Details👇 usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/USYD_EXTERNA...
Postdoctoral Research Associate - Wiring Australian Cities
Full time, 3-year fixed term position, located on the Camperdown Campus at the School of Geosciences Opportunity to work with a team of ARC-funded researchers seeking to generate new knowledge about A...
usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com

We had B.U.G.A.U.P. here in Sydney hacking billboards in the 1980s, now generally lauded by public health professionals for their role in banning tobacco advertising in public space. I especially love their stories of technical innovations to reach inaccessible spots www.bugaup.org
BUGA-UP
www.bugaup.org

Empty for over four years during a housing crisis ... nice job Sydney Uni. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...
Why this grand building on Sydney’s busiest street is derelict
Sydney University’s International House could accommodate 200 students, but amid a rental affordability crisis, it sits abandoned.
www.smh.com.au

Reposted by Kurt Iveson

A timely reminder by @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social of the necessary ingredients to build the powerful and sustained movements we need today: the power to withhold and the power to promise.
Why Protests Should Be Promises
Modern movements that aim to advance racial equity should withhold and promise, rather than perform, writes Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
time.com

Reposted by Kurt Iveson

This #EarthDay, hear how working-class Aussies fought to save the environment. In the 1970s, construction workers + locals stopped billions of dollars of destructive development with Green Bans. Listen to their story: workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e47-...

Open letter signed by 60+ researchers on prioritising household clean energy over nuclear energy in current Australian election: www.ppesydney.net/open-letter-...
Open Letter: The Coalition’s Nuclear Plan Doesn’t Add Up—Spend the Money on Household Clean Energy Instead - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)
In the wake of the Government's announcement of its Cheaper Home Batteries Program, 60 Australian economists have signed a letter comparing the economic consequences of pursuing nuclear energy against...
www.ppesydney.net

Reposted by Kurt Iveson

New article!

Prefiguring multispecies justice, by Anna Sturman, @danycelermajer.bsky.social, @freyagrace.bsky.social and
@blancheverlie.bsky.social.

This article considers the ways critical feminist thought and multispecies justice intersect.

doi.org/10.1080/0964...
Why are minerals so central to geopolitics? How green are electric cars? Why is anti-mining protest increasing? Can the inequalities of the global economy be transformed?

I tackle these topics in my book EXTRACTION: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism

👀 September 2025 @wwnorton.bsky.social

Perfect placement of 3 items on Sydney Uni's staff page today: one celebrating Mardi Gras (which started with a militant 1978 protest), one celebrating the Freedom Ride of 1965, one on new Campus Access Policy which curtails protest on campus. Protest is great as long as it's in the past, I guess?

Thanks for this, and for the inspiration! Only about a decade or two behind you in realising how fascinating and important this stuff is...! :-)

Big thanks to Kathy Mee and the team at Australian Geographer for their support and for publishing the piece!

We focus in particular on a story from the archives about the initial efforts to 'underground' telephone wires in the 1890s, and how the conflict over that process - especially its labour and its impacts on the surface - have shaped urban governance ever since.