Our new piece, collectively authored by the Editorial Board of @econsocjournal.bsky.social, reflecting on the state today.

@campolis.bsky.social

Link to the full piece below:

Her office said the Office for Students (OfS), which regulates universities, had received reports of speakers and lecturers being harassed and blocked for holding gender-critical or religious views, of foreign interference suppressing academic freedoms, and of ideological belief requirements featuring in job advertisements.

The OfS will be able to use the new complaints scheme from September. From April, it will be able to fine universities the greater of £500,000 or 2 per cent of their income, which would amount to millions of pounds for large institutions, for breaches under the Freedom of Speech Act. Ultimately, universities could be deregistered for egregious cases.

Bridget Phillipson will introduce new laws to make it possible for Universities to be fined millions of pounds if they don't silence students who protest bigots invited onto their campuses. It's like the Tories never left office.

⚠️New Report Alert⚠️

Economic Sovereignty and the Question of Post-Deployment Training

AI sovereignty is about who captures the value from worker and organisational know how codified in workplace data.

This presents a risk not only to workers, but also firms and nation states

🧵

"I really don't know which Iran propaganda song is the best as of now but this one has got to be at least top 2. What a banger."
x.com/illnevercall...

Schrödinger's Ballot Box

"five trillion. That’s roughly the number of search queries that Google processes every year, translating to tens of millions of wrong answers that the AI Overviews are providing every hour — and hundreds of thousands every minute, the analysis calculated."

UK job cuts hit English and modern languages staff hardest ‘Vicious cycle’ of course closures means system ‘gradually losing breadth and depth of expertise’

'The number of English language and literature academics fell by 8 per cent to 4,680 – among the largest decrease of all disciplines.

And the number employed in modern languages dropped 7 per cent to 4,890. This is 17 per cent below peak levels in 2015-16.' 1/3

With conjunctural approaches to urban research fast proliferating, along with the compounding crises they seek to study, now's the time to ask: what's the point of conjunctural analysis? Its purpose, I argue, is to offer a method for identifying points of condensation of crisis and contradiction within the social totality of planetary colonial capitalism, with a view to providing practical pointers on how to begin to exploit those moments for strategic intervention. This makes conjunctural analysis a distinctive, praxis-oriented mode of historical materialism – understood as an open, relational and holistic critical theory encompassing feminist, postcolonial and ecological perspectives, and alert to multiple social relations of domination, of exploitation and appropriation, notably gender, race and ecology as well as class. What conjunctural analysis adds to the two main methods of historical materialism – one apprehending capital's necessary form; the other capitalism's historical formation – is a more strategic and speculative orientation to social change as this emerges through contestation at pressure points in contradictory social formations, to assist in praxis, in the rearticulation of these formations for emancipatory ends. To that end, I attempt to provide conjunctural analysis with an epistemological grounding in dialectical relations between subjectivity and objectivity, totality and particularity, thought and history, past and future – a means to understand where, how and why to look for the conjuncture. The article concludes with suggestions on what such a vision for conjunctural analysis might mean for urban research through considering urban applications of conjunctural thinking.

If this is a conjuncture marked by escalating crises, provoking growing interest in conjunctural thinking across the critical social sciences and humanities, now's the time to ask...

What's the point of conjunctural analysis?

New article out in Dialogues in Urban Research:
doi.org/10.1177/2754...

A River Reborn – Ben Goldfarb Journalist Ben Goldfarb and photographer Kiliii Yüyan trace the monumental effort to restitch relationships between land, salmon, and humans on the Klamath River, after four of its most obstructive da...

The revival of the Klamath River & its watershed over the past 14 months—after the completion of the biggest dam-removal project in US history—is one the most hopeful stories I know in our hope-stripped age.
Magnificent @bengoldfarb.bsky.social essay on it here.
emergencemagazine.org/essay/a-rive...

Post-industrial urban change in the UK: A Manchester case study - Geographical Association These resources for A level students and teachers consider urban change in Manchester, UK, and include a guided urban walk around the city centre to explore the nature of this regeneration.

We've worked with the Geographical Association to develop some school learning materials for A-Level students to think through financialisation, displacement, gentrification etc

'Post-industrial urban change in the UK: A Manchester case study'

geography.org.uk/resources/po...

I’m writing about UK spring for the Guardian. Does anyone have any observations about this year’s spring they would like to share? Early things? Late things? Good/bad/beautiful? This is my spring - a huge mammal perched in the magnolia.

As a long-time listener of Future Histories, it was great to talk about and revisit my work on economic planning and the idea of 'metabolic municipalism' with Jan Groos, focusing on two articles (see images). Check out all the great episodes here! futurehistories-international.com

Only three moments? Thanks Hamish - looking forward to hearing what you make if it! (I still have your piece on Lefebvre's anarchism to read - hopefully this summer now that teaching/marking out the way for the year)

A great read on conjunctural analysis 👇

[Spoilers]: The point is to change it

What's the point of conjunctural analysis? - Matthew Thompson, 2026 With conjunctural approaches to urban research fast proliferating, along with the compounding crises they seek to study, now's the time to ask: what's...

New article out: What's the point of conjunctural analysis?

doi.org/10.1177/2754...

"Social Constitution and Fetishistic Social Domination" with Chris O'Kane Join us for a discussion of "Social Constitution and Fetishistic Social Domination" with Chris O'Kane, Samuel Fisher, and Rob Knox

My online book launch is happening in a little over a week!!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/social-con...

A new episode of Future Histories!

This time I talk to Yousaf Nishat-Botero (@yousafnb.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social) about ecologies of planning and the idea of metabolic municipalism.

Full episode here:
www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blo...

#FutureHistories #Podcast

This is the situation we find ourselves in

Mackenzie Crook’s magical suburban folk tale, #SmallProphets published by #PenguinBooks and #PuffinBooks down the years. A 🧵
1/

Glad you enjoyed it Jamie!

Wikipedia Bans AI-Generated Content “In recent months, more and more administrative reports centered on LLM-related issues, and editors were being overwhelmed.”

after much deliberation and giving AI the benefit of the doubt, Wikipedia editors have had enough of AI slop. New policy bans LLM generated content, periodt www.404media.co/wikipedia-ba...

Thanks Gav!

obsessed with this article

of interest? @cominsitu.bsky.social @alfatau.bsky.social @rbaernthaler.bsky.social @tilley101.bsky.social @pashukanist.bsky.social @futurehistories.bsky.social @cedricdurand.bsky.social @budgetmotelabyss.bsky.social @holgersen.bsky.social @multipliciudad.bsky.social @prconway.bsky.social

of interest? @conjuncture.bsky.social @jordantcamp.bsky.social @cheatherton.bsky.social @jemgilbert.bsky.social @jolittler.bsky.social @stuartelden.bsky.social @abieler.bsky.social @morton.bsky.social @grundrza.bsky.social @adamtooze.bsky.social @alex1789.bsky.social @leninology.bsky.social

@chrishesketh.bsky.social @alexandergallas.bsky.social @termcern.bsky.social @kaiheron.bsky.social @kmilb.bsky.social @itsmccarthy.bsky.social @urbanpolitical.bsky.social @ctemenos.bsky.social @ejmccann.bsky.social @carolynprouse.bsky.social @profjsdavies.bsky.social @urbantheorylab.bsky.social

I reviewed Matt Goodwin’s new book for the New Statesman.

Spoiler: it’s worse than you could ever imagine

Here's your conjuncture: 35% of global nitrogen blocked at Hormuz. India's food production falling. Australia's diesel running out. One geopolitical rupture cascading through planetary infrastructure. All through one 33-km strait.

'Hormuz fertiliser block will upend world's food production'

"the strait also carries the fertiliser components that underpin roughly half the world's food supply."

This could coincide with rapid climate change, and an upcoming El Niño,
1/2

What's the point of conjunctural analysis? - Matthew Thompson, 2026 With conjunctural approaches to urban research fast proliferating, along with the compounding crises they seek to study, now's the time to ask: what's...

New article out: What's the point of conjunctural analysis?

doi.org/10.1177/2754...