Rich Nisa
@rnisa.bsky.social
Geography and Architecture and History and Empire and Infrastructure and Prisons and he/him
Program Lead, Sustainability in Carnegie Mellon University’s IDeATe Program.
Affiliated faculty: CMU School of Architecture
www.crisisofenclosure.com
Program Lead, Sustainability in Carnegie Mellon University’s IDeATe Program.
Affiliated faculty: CMU School of Architecture
www.crisisofenclosure.com
Reposted by Rich Nisa
My Global Corridor newsletter #4 featuring stories, data, opinion + academic work from digital cables to Artic sea routes to private equity funds to AI supply chains....Out now
globalcorridor.substack.com/p/global-cor...
globalcorridor.substack.com/p/global-cor...
Global Corridor #4
Google's digital corridors for Africa, Carlyle Group's new global infrastructure fund, China-Europe Arctic shipping route, Trump's real estate interests in Saudi, Chinese road film, AI supply chains
globalcorridor.substack.com
October 1, 2025 at 7:59 AM
My Global Corridor newsletter #4 featuring stories, data, opinion + academic work from digital cables to Artic sea routes to private equity funds to AI supply chains....Out now
globalcorridor.substack.com/p/global-cor...
globalcorridor.substack.com/p/global-cor...
Reposted by Rich Nisa
The Trump administration has unleashed a massive domestic surveillance apparatus, thanks to AI systems supplied by major tech firms
I wrote about its origins and impact on the ground for @dissentmag.bsky.social and the @theintercept.com
www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
I wrote about its origins and impact on the ground for @dissentmag.bsky.social and the @theintercept.com
www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
The AI Dragnet - Dissent Magazine
The U.S. government is activating a suite of algorithmic surveillance tools, developed in concert with major tech companies, to monitor and criminalize immigrants’ speech.
www.dissentmagazine.org
May 1, 2025 at 2:21 PM
The Trump administration has unleashed a massive domestic surveillance apparatus, thanks to AI systems supplied by major tech firms
I wrote about its origins and impact on the ground for @dissentmag.bsky.social and the @theintercept.com
www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
I wrote about its origins and impact on the ground for @dissentmag.bsky.social and the @theintercept.com
www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
Reposted by Rich Nisa
Hi! We just released three new pages. First up, we break down the devastating defunding of medical research in the US, including grant terminations and delays representing nearly $5B in funding losses, cuts to future funding, and attacks on training programs: unbreaking.org/issues/medic...
Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking
How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.
unbreaking.org
May 30, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Hi! We just released three new pages. First up, we break down the devastating defunding of medical research in the US, including grant terminations and delays representing nearly $5B in funding losses, cuts to future funding, and attacks on training programs: unbreaking.org/issues/medic...
Reposted by Rich Nisa
👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.
May 19, 2025 at 5:29 PM
👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.
Reposted by Rich Nisa
My new piece on the death drive in Florida and the need for roots is out in the incredible inaugural issue of @the-breakdown.bsky.social. Grateful to the editors for the opportunity to gather my thoughts on the meanings of risk and to write about home—and in the company of such brilliant people. ✨
Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season
In Florida, risk is a feature of life. In a deepening climate crisis, financial capitalism gives risk new meaning.
www.break-down.org
May 13, 2025 at 11:14 AM
My new piece on the death drive in Florida and the need for roots is out in the incredible inaugural issue of @the-breakdown.bsky.social. Grateful to the editors for the opportunity to gather my thoughts on the meanings of risk and to write about home—and in the company of such brilliant people. ✨
Reposted by Rich Nisa
New from my team: for the same volume of energy transition minerals it would take to make all of the Pentagon's non-combat vehicles into EVs, we could electrify the entire Postal Service, the entire Parks Service, and put battery backup on more than 7600 federal buildings. 🧵
Redirecting Energy Transition Minerals from the Pentagon Fleet to the Public Good - Climate and Community Institute
The Pentagon is the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels, but it is also the US federal government’s leader in electrifying some of its transportation—especially …
climateandcommunity.org
February 20, 2025 at 2:05 PM
New from my team: for the same volume of energy transition minerals it would take to make all of the Pentagon's non-combat vehicles into EVs, we could electrify the entire Postal Service, the entire Parks Service, and put battery backup on more than 7600 federal buildings. 🧵
I’m writing a book conclusion that’s also a tiptoe into a new research project, and this review is the first time in a long time that I’ve read something about automated war and realized my head was just nodding up and down the whole time. Thanks @emilymitchelleaton.bsky.social for the rec!
I wrote about the military-AI hype bubble and false promises of security for the @bostonreview.bsky.social
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The New Old Warfare - Boston Review
The self-serving myths of a new wave of defense tech, from Palantir’s Gotham to Israel’s Gospel.
www.bostonreview.net
December 19, 2024 at 1:01 PM
I’m writing a book conclusion that’s also a tiptoe into a new research project, and this review is the first time in a long time that I’ve read something about automated war and realized my head was just nodding up and down the whole time. Thanks @emilymitchelleaton.bsky.social for the rec!
Reposted by Rich Nisa
Please share!
Call for topic editors, POEM
Is there a topic related to AI and algorithms; data and computation; or media and mis- and dis-information that you don't think is getting enough attention, or that you think is crucial for high schoolers and college students to learn about?
Call for topic editors, POEM
Is there a topic related to AI and algorithms; data and computation; or media and mis- and dis-information that you don't think is getting enough attention, or that you think is crucial for high schoolers and college students to learn about?
November 13, 2024 at 6:43 PM
Please share!
Call for topic editors, POEM
Is there a topic related to AI and algorithms; data and computation; or media and mis- and dis-information that you don't think is getting enough attention, or that you think is crucial for high schoolers and college students to learn about?
Call for topic editors, POEM
Is there a topic related to AI and algorithms; data and computation; or media and mis- and dis-information that you don't think is getting enough attention, or that you think is crucial for high schoolers and college students to learn about?
I’ll be teaching an ethics course to 4th year UG architecture students in the spring. The students will have had at least one design ethics courses already.
I’m wondering what y’all think are the topics/readings/cases that the field needs a more sustained engagement & deep reckoning with.
I’m wondering what y’all think are the topics/readings/cases that the field needs a more sustained engagement & deep reckoning with.
November 16, 2024 at 3:33 PM
I’ll be teaching an ethics course to 4th year UG architecture students in the spring. The students will have had at least one design ethics courses already.
I’m wondering what y’all think are the topics/readings/cases that the field needs a more sustained engagement & deep reckoning with.
I’m wondering what y’all think are the topics/readings/cases that the field needs a more sustained engagement & deep reckoning with.
Reposted by Rich Nisa
To commemorate this article, I humbly provide this "graphical abstract" of the paper featuring El Risitas. Sound on.
youtu.be/NoJ6eNxHgNs
youtu.be/NoJ6eNxHgNs
November 13, 2024 at 7:35 PM
To commemorate this article, I humbly provide this "graphical abstract" of the paper featuring El Risitas. Sound on.
youtu.be/NoJ6eNxHgNs
youtu.be/NoJ6eNxHgNs
Really happy to announce this year’s winners of the
@geographers.bsky.social Urban Geography Specialty Group Awards! The board read so many excellent submissions and it was a joy to learn from all the exciting work being done by such a wide range of early career scholars.
Congratulations all!
@geographers.bsky.social Urban Geography Specialty Group Awards! The board read so many excellent submissions and it was a joy to learn from all the exciting work being done by such a wide range of early career scholars.
Congratulations all!
April 5, 2024 at 7:38 PM
Really happy to announce this year’s winners of the
@geographers.bsky.social Urban Geography Specialty Group Awards! The board read so many excellent submissions and it was a joy to learn from all the exciting work being done by such a wide range of early career scholars.
Congratulations all!
@geographers.bsky.social Urban Geography Specialty Group Awards! The board read so many excellent submissions and it was a joy to learn from all the exciting work being done by such a wide range of early career scholars.
Congratulations all!
Reposted by Rich Nisa
Really happy to have this out: on occupations as reparative urban infrastructures, written with brilliant friend and collaborator Suraya Scheba: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Occupations as reparative urban infrastructure: thinking with Cissie Gool House
Understood as a direct claiming and remaking of vacant space by marginalized urban residents, occupations claim the right to housing and disrupt property relations, surfacing conflicting rationalit...
www.tandfonline.com
October 25, 2023 at 9:42 AM
Really happy to have this out: on occupations as reparative urban infrastructures, written with brilliant friend and collaborator Suraya Scheba: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
This record has been spinning in my apartment all week. It’s really helped carry me through such an intense range of emotions—a gift in such awful awful times.
intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/turbul...
intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/turbul...
Turbulence and Pulse, by Asher Gamedze
13 track album
intlanthem.bandcamp.com
October 20, 2023 at 7:48 PM
This record has been spinning in my apartment all week. It’s really helped carry me through such an intense range of emotions—a gift in such awful awful times.
intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/turbul...
intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/turbul...
Issue 147 of Radical History Review on “The Political Lives of Infrastructure” (co-edited by Wesley Attewell, @emilymitchelleaton.bsky.social, & yours truly) is live! So wild that a 2018 AAG session grew/morphed—with the help of countless people—into this! read.dukeupress.edu/radical-hist...
October 20, 2023 at 2:25 PM
Issue 147 of Radical History Review on “The Political Lives of Infrastructure” (co-edited by Wesley Attewell, @emilymitchelleaton.bsky.social, & yours truly) is live! So wild that a 2018 AAG session grew/morphed—with the help of countless people—into this! read.dukeupress.edu/radical-hist...
Reposted by Rich Nisa
“Human rights should, can, and do apply to all humans” is not and should not be a radical statement.
The amount of effort that some people go to try to obscure this basic concept is truly wild.
The amount of effort that some people go to try to obscure this basic concept is truly wild.
October 18, 2023 at 5:33 PM
“Human rights should, can, and do apply to all humans” is not and should not be a radical statement.
The amount of effort that some people go to try to obscure this basic concept is truly wild.
The amount of effort that some people go to try to obscure this basic concept is truly wild.
Reposted by Rich Nisa
As Colombian President Petro said yesterday, Palestine is a test case for what the Global North will do to surplus populations in the South as the climate crisis intensifies. No genocide in Palestine, no climate apartheid.
There must be a ceasefire in Gaza now. The US-funded illegal occupation of Palestine is not only a humanitarian crisis, it further exacerbates the climate crisis. Apartheid is incompatible with climate justice- and inevitable without it progressive.international/blueprint/7e...
Zena Agha: Climate Apartheid in Palestine
Climate justice cannot be divorced from political justice in Palestine.
progressive.international
October 18, 2023 at 1:04 PM
As Colombian President Petro said yesterday, Palestine is a test case for what the Global North will do to surplus populations in the South as the climate crisis intensifies. No genocide in Palestine, no climate apartheid.
Congrats @jeffwhyte.bsky.social !! Super excited to read this!!!
My book The Birth of Psychological War is available today. Download for free in Open Access via
@OUPAcademic @BritishAcademy_
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-birth-of-psychological-war-9780197267493?cc=gb&lang=en
A brief overview of the book's arguments and contributions:
@OUPAcademic @BritishAcademy_
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-birth-of-psychological-war-9780197267493?cc=gb&lang=en
A brief overview of the book's arguments and contributions:
The Birth of Psychological War
The Birth of Psychological War explores the history, politics, and geography of United States psychological warfare in the 20th century against the backdrop of the contemporary 'post-truth era'. From ...
global.oup.com
October 16, 2023 at 4:31 PM
Congrats @jeffwhyte.bsky.social !! Super excited to read this!!!
“Properly considered, no one should ever under any circumstances talk to anybody else.”
Errol Morris in this wild, circuitous interview: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Errol Morris in this wild, circuitous interview: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
October 8, 2023 at 11:56 AM
“Properly considered, no one should ever under any circumstances talk to anybody else.”
Errol Morris in this wild, circuitous interview: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Errol Morris in this wild, circuitous interview: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Of all the other places that could possibly be, it’s pretty wild that ‘the other place’ is so absolutely specific.
October 8, 2023 at 12:10 AM
Of all the other places that could possibly be, it’s pretty wild that ‘the other place’ is so absolutely specific.
Reposted by Rich Nisa
Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives
Thursday 30th November 13.00pm (BST) Online
www.sheffield.ac.uk/migration-re...
#PoliSky #GeoSky
Thursday 30th November 13.00pm (BST) Online
www.sheffield.ac.uk/migration-re...
#PoliSky #GeoSky
October 4, 2023 at 11:24 AM
Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives
Thursday 30th November 13.00pm (BST) Online
www.sheffield.ac.uk/migration-re...
#PoliSky #GeoSky
Thursday 30th November 13.00pm (BST) Online
www.sheffield.ac.uk/migration-re...
#PoliSky #GeoSky
Really excited to attend this today and tomorrow: carnegieart.org/event/conven...
Convening: Unsettling Matter, Gaining Ground
On the occasion of the exhibition Unsettling Matter, Gaining Ground, Carnegie Museum of Art is hosting a two-day public program taking place throughout the museum. The program expands upon the concept...
carnegieart.org
October 5, 2023 at 3:28 PM
Really excited to attend this today and tomorrow: carnegieart.org/event/conven...
Just one heckuva country that is definitely not collapsing.
October 3, 2023 at 9:34 PM
Just one heckuva country that is definitely not collapsing.
Getting haircut and The Strokes’ Hard to Explain is on and one of the barbers (in his 30s?) said to patron (in his 30s?) “I guess it’s considered like a punk classic but nobody has ever heard it.”
I guess I am dead now. No need for a haircut.
I guess I am dead now. No need for a haircut.
October 3, 2023 at 6:03 PM
Getting haircut and The Strokes’ Hard to Explain is on and one of the barbers (in his 30s?) said to patron (in his 30s?) “I guess it’s considered like a punk classic but nobody has ever heard it.”
I guess I am dead now. No need for a haircut.
I guess I am dead now. No need for a haircut.
Reposted by Rich Nisa
Just found out that Brett Christopher's new book has a release date and it looks good as hell. Brett's keen to get it to movement folks, so lmk if you/ your org wants to be added to a list for some kind of low-cost access, or to organize a meeting once its out www.versobooks.com/products/306...
The Price is Wrong
What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to renewables is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profi...
www.versobooks.com
October 2, 2023 at 11:59 AM
Just found out that Brett Christopher's new book has a release date and it looks good as hell. Brett's keen to get it to movement folks, so lmk if you/ your org wants to be added to a list for some kind of low-cost access, or to organize a meeting once its out www.versobooks.com/products/306...
Reposted by Rich Nisa
It’s time for the US to stop exporting its failed policing, incarceration, plea bargaining, & parole systems. A coalition is forming to urge the US to export justice, not jails! Pls join our 1st webinar, 10/2, 2pm et. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_POCVTKpCSWa7r8ri01LviA#/registration
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Export Justice Not Jails. After registering, you will re...
The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars go to replicating U.S. incarceration practices in other countries. Join us for an exclusive webinar to discu...
us02web.zoom.us
September 19, 2023 at 1:20 PM
It’s time for the US to stop exporting its failed policing, incarceration, plea bargaining, & parole systems. A coalition is forming to urge the US to export justice, not jails! Pls join our 1st webinar, 10/2, 2pm et. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_POCVTKpCSWa7r8ri01LviA#/registration