New article alert!
"Transit workers offer instead visions of a labor future centered on dignity, safety, and democratic control over technological change"
Check out "Futures of transit work Contesting Devaluation and Neoliberal Automation in Bus Transit" by Hunter Akridge & Sarah E. Fox
I know there are lots of other pressing concerns right now, but if anyone was minded to help support me & colleagues at Aberdeen by signing and sharing this open letter to our governing Court, I'd be tremendously grateful for your help:
c.org/Nz5btZHCXJ
We're gearing up for 10 more strike days here at Aberdeen & I'm in need of some therapeutic reading. Please share your favourite papers on industrial action, strikes and/or solidarity.
A line of staff members outside the University of Aberdeen. Most are holding placards which are pink and white and say “On strike today, UCU and Proud.” Other placards are purple, pink and white, and say “UCU Official picket.”
We’re back on the picket lines at the University of Aberdeen this morning! 🪧
Our management has failed to consult staff meaningfully/rule out compulsory redundancies as part of the "Adapting for Continued Success" programme.
For more info, see our branch website: aberdeen.web.ucu.org.uk
A drawing of feet with painted toenails on top of all three volumes of Marx's Capital. Text at the top of the image reads How to increase AWR engagement on Onlyfans
Academic publishing is increasingly difficult and costly, relying on unpaid labor from authors, reviewers, & editors. In response to these precarious circumstances the AWR editorial collective is trialing a new approach to sustaining our journal through increased engagement.
University of Aberdeen colleagues have been circulating this open letter to our court members ahead of the 29 April meeting that will decide on controversial restructuring plans.
If anyone is keen to lend their support, please do have a read and add your name/ share if you agree.
c.org/YRZjVJ6q4s
Good HE is really simple: quality time spent with subject experts who know and care about their students. My university and many others are deliberately abandoning this truth in favour of financial and organisational efficiency.
The educational geography of north & northeast Scotland is under threat- please share and sign www.change.org/p/open-lette...
This is the situation we find ourselves in
When every university follows the same bad advice from the same consultants with agendas separate from their institutional mission ... they lose their identity as well as their independence.
They lose the ability to play to their own strengths when the consultants' agenda causes systemic failure.
A university that puts a priority on "maximizing its own market position" has lost sight of the very idea of a university.
A very easy step the Secretary of State could make is to shut down the use of consultancies in #UKHE. It leaks SO MUCH money out of the (public) sector to for-profit firms, is creating a truly dangerous monoculture, and is so seemingly obscure none outside the sector will be pissed off.
I’ve signed this open letter to University of Aberdeen Court urging them to reject restructuring proposals being considered.
Staff & students stood together on the picket line recently to oppose these plans that would devastate parts of the university.
Show your support:
FAO: The UK university sector
'One of the recommendations in Verdant’s first report is to slash spending by government on management consultants like McKinsey. We present evidence of excessive spend over many years.'
www.verdantthinking.org/publications...
Please check out this new book featuring a chapter by one of the AWR editors @valuequestion.bsky.social that explores Malinowski's engagement with work and labour
Call for Contributions: Anthropology’s Lost Library (ALL)
While anthropology has produced a vast body of published work, far more remains unpublished. Begun in 2025, Anthropology’s Lost Library (ALL) will soon be offering a digital home for anthropological writings that were intended for scholarly…
I only just realised this volume is fully open access now! Available online @berghahnbooks.bsky.social here: www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HannOne . Ping @histanthro.org @lselibrary.bsky.social
Funded PhD opportunity working with my ex-supervisor Staffan at Cambridge; a good fit for historians of insect-human relations, natural history collections and history of science. Information session online 24 March 11:00–12:00 pm BST
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...
As much as I hate being on strike, yesterday’s pickets were so full of productive, genuinely cross-institutional conversations about how to make the University thrive that it was heartening.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuDA... "Here a whole island once
You were once green globes of roots pandanus and whispers of canoes "
Excellent student journalism covering the first day of strike action at the University of Aberdeen. www.gaudie.co.uk/wpress/index...
I've been at Aberdeen for almost 10 years.
I think I've been on strike in at least 5 of those years.
This time, the issues are local rather than national - friends and colleagues are under threat.
Its a grim situation - but seeing interdisciplinary unity on picket lines today was very comforting.
Maggie in a black coat stands next to a group of university staff who are wearing pink UCU beanies and holding signs saying "on strike today"
Maggie wearing a black coat is standing with students holding signs that signal solidarity with striking staff. Because staff working conditions are student learning conditions
A group of university staff holding bright pink placards that say "on strike today, UCU and proud", standing at one of the entrances to the Old Aberdeen university campus.
Solidarity with Aberdeen @ucu.org.uk staff on strike!
Pleased to join staff & students on today's picket line. Staff are on strike to oppose job cuts & uni restructuring - changes that could be as devastating as those in the 1980s.
The uni cannot cut its way to growth! It must listen to staff!
Screenshot of a Tweet by @TheChiefNerd inclusing an interview with Sam Altman. The text in the Tweet says: SAM ALTMAN: “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”
The whole "AI" industry is just based on the hope that they can deskill people fast enough that they'll have to rent back cognitive support systems. Forever.
It's like Uber. Just that they don't try to break existing transportation infrastructures but your brain.
every quantitative measure is actually a stack of qualitative assumptions in a trenchcoat
I should probably use this belated opportunity to say I wrote a book on why there would be a student loan crisis of this kind. It appeared 13 years ago.
www.plutobooks.com/product/the-...
The consultancy Nous takes hundreds of thousands of pounds from universities, leaves the exact same path of destruction everywhere, and keeps trying to avoid transparent contracts.
We’re urgently need control over consultancy spent in #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social
Headline on BBC News reads: "Aberdeen University staff strike in dispute over cuts" picture of a person in a pink hat protesting, holding up a sign that reads: "students support the strikes"
I support the strikers. The union have called for negotiations to avoid compulsorily redundancies. Management need to recognise that staff are integral to the university's future.
