Katherine Mackinnon
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kamack.bsky.social
Katherine Mackinnon
@kamack.bsky.social
3.3K followers 890 following 480 posts
Writer and PhD researcher interested in oral history, migration and methodology. Also radical history walking tours, books, social history, Glasgow kmackinnon.org radicalglasgowtours.com she/her
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kamack.bsky.social
I'm writing about dawn raids on asylum seekers of the early 2000s, and how the communities who organised against them were part of a longstanding Glasgow tradition of grassroots housing struggle. The housing activism histories are often missing from work on asylum and vice versa
November 11, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
suchmayer.bsky.social
Citation is how we knit the world.
pickwick.bsky.social pickwick @pickwick.bsky.social · 8h
Was listening to the new ep of the Allusionist this morning, and Helen was interviewing So Mayer who promptly name-checked @carriem.co.uk because the Internet is a tiny tiny village
November 11, 2025 at 2:03 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Research assistant
A lovely tabby cat called Susan with white feet and kind eyes, sitting on top of a pile of notes on a table. In the background are various coffee mugs, a pile of books and a computer. It’s cool Susan I wasn’t even using those notes anyway
November 11, 2025 at 12:24 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Did a @radicalglasgowtour.bsky.social tour for some young people from the Uni of Wisconsin today and one of them drew these amazing notes including a portrait of me 😭
Beautiful pen and ink notes with a portrait of me with notes and words in different scripts surrounding me including “Glasgow: city of defiance” , “Nelson Mandela” “the past we inherit the future we build” and then in big capitals at the bottom it just says RADICAL. I love it so much
November 10, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
regretteruane.bsky.social
Was really struck by what a lovely inspiring exercise this is, like a primary school version of Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it
Page from a 1960s primary school English textbook with a lovely cartoonish illustration of a red haired white girl in blue shirt looking at a cockatoo on a black perch. It is in the centre bottom and takes up about a third of the page, above is black serif text which reads Have you ever noticed? Every day we "see" things without really looking at them at all. On the way to and from school look at just one thing that you have often passed but never looked at very closely - it may be a street lamp, a small plant in a hedgerow, someone's front gate, the wall and windows of an ofice building, the balcony of a house, an object in a shop window. You are a secret service agent, and exact knowledge of this object is your password. Your life depends on it. Learn it by heart, and then describe it to the fellow agent who has to test you by your knowledge.
November 10, 2025 at 9:35 AM
kamack.bsky.social
I’ve been rereading a load of Alan Moore comics. Full of tremendous sentences:
Photo of a page from Swamp Thing book 1 showing a guy in green scrubs and face mask holding up something that looks a bit like a marrow with text beside his face that reads I WONDERED ABOUT THE UNWORKABLE PSEUDO-KIDNEYS
November 9, 2025 at 8:22 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Current reading while hanging about outside kids gymnastics classes: this beaut new book edited by @suchmayer.bsky.social celebrating maps in the work of Ursula K Le Guin 💙
Front cover of The Word for World: the Maps of Ursula K le Guin with the title in a beautiful font with curling lines around the words, in glossy cobalt ink on a matt black background Highly detailed map of the islands of Earthsea with gorgeous names like Havnor and Karego-At. My favourite are two wee islands shaped quite like hands labelled The Hands Sparse drawing of the the continents of Anarres from The Disposessed Snakey map of the labyrinth from The Tombs of Atuan looking a wee bit like Celtic knit work with no symmetry at all
November 7, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
gavinbrewis.bsky.social
Book sale, raffle and refreshments tomorrow at Unity Books, Glasgow.

Get yourself along if you're in the city. it will be worth it!
November 7, 2025 at 4:44 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Marie Curie was one of the very few women to ever receive the Freedom of the City of Glasgow (Curie and Elaine C Smith are the only two women who weren't royals or gentry to get this honour). There's a signed copy of her doctoral thesis in @uofglasgow.bsky.social library
rcpsgheritage.bsky.social RCPSG Heritage @rcpsgheritage.bsky.social · 4d
Marie Curie was born #OnThisDay 1867.

Madame Curie visited Glasgow in 1929, being hosted by Professor Archibald Young and Mrs Anna Young.

Here is a photo of Irene Curie, Madame Curie, and Mrs Young enjoying the fresh Scottish air at Loch Fyne 😅

#heritage #mariecurie
Black and white photo showing three women standing in front of a rock face. The women are wrapped up in big coats and don't look particularly thrilled to be out in the fresh Scottish air!
November 7, 2025 at 12:05 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Me aged 15, with short hair gelled into spikes, sporting baggy denims and a bowling shirt out of Flip: I am the height of fashion and coolness
pastglasgow.co.uk Past Glasgow @pastglasgow.co.uk · 6d
Loved by Glasgow's youth for nearly 3 decades, Flip brought American clothing to the city after being set up as a franchise arm of Flip on London's King's Road by Jean Brown and Colin McNaught in 1980.

#glasgow
November 5, 2025 at 10:38 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Incredible Jan Pieńkowski looking sunset over Pollokshields yesterday
Black silhouettes of roofs and trees against and incredible gradient sunset sky of orange pink and pale purple One tree and the roof of some flats in silhouette against the sky which here is more pink and blue Trees in front of an incredible wash of vibrant colour across the sky
November 5, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
74frankfurt.bsky.social
Autumn pines and Stac Pollaidh.
Pic: Damian Shields
November 4, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
suejohn.bsky.social
We pay tribute to Elspeth King (and Smudge, the People's Palace cat) on our East End Heritage Walk. Rest in Power Elspeth.
womenslibrary.org.uk/discover-our...
November 1, 2025 at 12:48 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Love Halloween. Great to see Pollokshields is full of militants keeping the old ways alive - no sweeties without doing a turn, dooking for apples means your head is going in the cold water
Group of children guising (tradition in Scotland where they need to do a turn - tell a joke, do a dance etc - before they get a sweetie) at a house covered in cobwebs with witches hats hanging from the ceiling A pals flat which contained a huge inflatable squid the full height of the tenement leftover from an art project. They played haunted music in the background as well A lovely wee friendly pumpkin sitting on a dark step with a smiley face and fairy lights round it Blurry photo of some kids dooking for apples by sticking their heads in a basin of cold water and trying to grab apples with their teeth
November 1, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
katekatewilson.bsky.social
A new article from me about writing groups, class, culture and radical adult education in Glasgow in the 1980s and 1990s Glasgow: scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol50/is...
Writing Loss, Culture and Change: Deindustrialisation and Community Writers’ Groups In Glasgow
By Kate Wilson, Published on 10/01/25
scholarcommons.sc.edu
October 29, 2025 at 10:58 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Glaswegians, did you know the library has a decent app (better than the website) where you can request books from any city library be sent to your local one for pickup? There's also a barcode scanner which lets you check in the bookshop if they have the book in the libraries. Really useful!
October 29, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
acsheridan.bsky.social
Discovered that my lecture for the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust from 2023 is on YouTube! Its a history of working-class living conditions, renting, the development of slum neighbourhoods and the responses by authorities in Old Edinburgh from c.1750s - 1919.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEXI...
Tenements, the working class and slum clearance in Old Edinburgh
YouTube video by Scottish Historic Buildings Trust
www.youtube.com
October 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
sslh.bsky.social
Join us for the launch of
Henry Dee’s ‘Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951’. Published with @livunipress.bsky.social.
Marx Memorial Library, 29 November
sslh.org.uk/2025/10/27/b...
October 28, 2025 at 7:02 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Spending my extra hour working on a new pair of gloves. The excellent pattern is Shine mittens by Pia Kammeborn, drawing on patterns found in Baltic knitting traditions (and elsewhere I’m sure).
Half knitted Latvian mitten in plum and grey wool, photo shows the front with a repeating geometric tumbling blocks pattern that is very old. Back of the same mitten showing highly satisfying patterned thumb increases. Thumb stitches are held on a piece of spare yarn which is a nice duck egg blue colour
October 26, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
lighthousebks.bsky.social
beautiful flyers to go along with fun chats & powerful speeces at #ScotlandDemandsBetter rally in Edinburgh yesterday!

Dignity, fairness, collective power all refrains of the day (and echoed in many Radical Book Fair events in a couple weeks, join us!)
October 26, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
katrinanavickas.bsky.social
It's here!
Get your copy at reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/contest...
Books in box
October 25, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
austinkelmore.com
If anyone is in or around Glasgow on Saturday and wants to hear me talk about my most recent essay on Video Game Worker Unions and Revolution, I'd love to see you there!

notesfrombelow.org/article/vide...

6pm at Broadside in Glasgow!
Broadside & Variant Notes from Below Pictures of the cover art for the Notes from Below issue called Dispassions: Class Struggle in Arts & Culture. Issue Launch & Discussion 25.10.25 6pm Boradside 123 Allison St Glasgow
October 23, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Katherine Mackinnon
netpol.org
Front page of this morning's 'The National'.

"Extreme Violence – Police Scotland used excessive restrictions to protect the interests of arms firms during Palestine protests, says new report".

The SCALP/Netpol report launches this evening in Glasgow
Front page of this morning's 'The National'. "Extreme Violence – Police Scotland used excessive restrictions to protect the interests of arms firms during Palestine protests, says new report".
October 23, 2025 at 7:14 AM