Quote: Summing up, this book presents no novel approaches or foundational insights. I must say I have learned nothing from this book, and cannot recommend it to others.

What a review.

Social infrastructure, community organizations, and friendship formation: a scoping review Abstract. Community organizations are a unique part of the local social infrastructure that provides opportunities for social connections and community bui

[OPEN-ACCESS] Sean Lauer, Karen Lok Yi Wong & Miu Chung Yan write in Vol. 60, Issue 2 of the CDJ on situational dynamics and relationship-forming in community development organisations through a scoping review of the literature #CDJ #CommunityDevelopment buff.ly/vMjAXem

The Women’s Liberation Movement and the Gendering of Undercover Police Surveillance in 1970s Britain: the Public Inquiry as (Un)Ethical archive Abstract. In the 1970s a female police officer went undercover in the feminist movement in Britain. Across two years, she shared plans, conversations, and

My article on 1970s feminists, spycops, and if feminist historians can use materials extracted by undercover police officers is out in History Workshop Journal doi.org/10.1093/hwj/...

Inside the forgotten communities of Scotland's lighthouse keepers ‘Representations of lighthouse-keeping in popular culture can make it seem like an almost entirely solitary occupation, with one or two keepers…

Today in the Scottish public history column: Recording the voices of the last generation of lighthouse keepers and their families with Dr Erin Farley and the Northern Lighthouse Heritage Trust’s oral history project. www.thenational.scot/culture/2603...

Birmingham civic coat of arms in the top left corner - male figure on the right and a female on the left. Between them, a crown with an arm protruding from it holding a hammer. Beneath this, the words - City of Birmingham. The map is in the centre of the image and shows a confluence of lines crossing indicating the thoroughfares in the city centre. Parts of the map are shaded to highlight the areas proposed for electrification. Beneath the map, the following words - The Birmingham Electric Supply Company Limited map of 1889 showing the areas of Birmingham to be lighted under an Act of Parliament obtained August 12, 1889.

#MapOnATuesday today is the Birmingham Electric Supply Company Limited map of 1889 showing the areas of Birmingham to be lighted under an Act of Parliament - August 12, 1889. Ref - MAP/304007 #LibraryofBham

In other train news, today I discovered my new freelance client has a model railway in their back garden and so they might have to become my freelance best friend...

I go on about how terrible the Cross Country service consistently is for overcrowding, but now one of my vestibule-mates has whipped out their own folding chair and that's just genius.

The interior of Firth Hall at University of Sheffield, which has a very high ceiling like a church. It does have a screen, but fit into a sort of rectangle with a roof on it, a very tall shape rather than wide.

This is, I would argue a challenging room for a traditional academic presentation. Great fun though.

Pharmacy membership body changes name as it becomes charity

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has today launched a major rebrand, including a change of name, as it applies to register as a charity.

For, of, and by the community: critical place-based reflections on mangroves regeneration in the Indian Sundarbans

Amrita Sen and co-authors write in Vol. 60, Iss. 4 of the CDJ on mangrove regeneration programmes in the Indian Sundarbans, and how combined institutional/community approaches and knowledge exchange can enhance outcomes, as well as empower communities buff.ly/U1F4qym #CDJ #Sundarbans

I'm sorry - Bernard WHAT?!

National Housing Demonstration 18th April, 1pm, Soho Square Gardens, Central London Rent controls now! Council homes not luxury flats! Drawing of different shapes symbolising homes and bricks, with people standing together under the palm of a hand, symbolising joint movements

📢Join the National Housing Demonstration 📢

📅THIS Saturday 18th April, 1pm
📍Soho Square Gardens, Central London

Together we can demand affordable, accessible homes for ALL. We'll be there alongside organisations across the movement. Join us! www.housingdemo.org

An unopened flat card construction kit for an n-guage low relief tower block, for a model railway. They look like quite fancy flats as they've all got balconies with French sliding patio doors (rather than normal doors), but i imagine it as v 1980s.

An n gauge train wagon for freight, open at top, on some model railway tracks. The wagon is full of cut out Miffy rabbits of different sizes. The backdrop is a spacey science fiction drawn image, 1950s or 1960s style, of an imagined settlement/neighbourhood within a tube that is curving up to a vanishing point.

Prioritising density in our planned neighbourhood.

We've signed this Open Letter to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions as part of the Carers Poverty Coalition.

On Sunday Carers Allowance will be 50.

It's time Carers Allowance and carers benefits were fully reviewed.

I have a new article in @historyworkshop.org.uk that explores the resourcing of feminist activism in the 1970s. Come for the rants about typing, stay for the study of jumble sales as feminist praxis! 🗃️

academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

Yes yes therapy but

The problem is though, I don't know how to make conferences and being Mad compatible. Fortunately, by chance, this one has fallen in The Good Week, but even so I've already started the obsessive thought train re all the bad things I said and did.

‘Finding their voice’: exploring female adolescents’ perspectives and experiences of a youth leadership programme Abstract. In order to increase women’s participation in leadership roles, an understanding of what barriers exist to inhibit female leadership development

Gemma Quartarella, Romana Morda & Laurie A Chapin explore the perspectives of female adolescents in a youth leadership programme in Australia, and the importance of "finding your voice" and "not holding back" for becoming agents of social change #CDJ #YouthEmpowerment buff.ly/XZf25B7

Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that…

I can't convince anyone to care. But I can try getting this in front of more eyes, and convince you to give recurringly to ANY family, then take bold, new action for their lives.

Help six families + a camp of fifteen more. Click "weekly" if you can: chuffed.org/project/hope...

Free Epistemic Injustice workshop next week for social researchers interested in or already using it as a conceptual framework and keen to explore it more and learn about alternatives.

Tues 14 April, 7pm London time via Zoom.

See you there?

#QualitativeResearch #ParticipatoryResearch #AcademicSky

The struggle for land by indigenous groups: from conflict to cooperation in Kasepuhan Ciptagelar, Indonesia

Editor's Choice in our April '25 issue, Sutiyo Sutiyo writes in our latest issue on the Kasepuhan Ciptagelar, an indigenous group in Indonesia, and the innovation possible in decentralising conflict resolution processes to a local level for positive-sum games in land development #CDJ #EditorsChoice

Are you a @socialhistsoc.bsky.social PGR member? Do you want to share your work? Or an idea that you’re working through? And want some feedback from a friendly bunch? Then please come join myself and @aayushigupta.bsky.social for our new work in progress sessions!

First one is 17th April at 4pm!

A good morning of sociologists inventing the concept and study of History today (which I say with love, I'm no gate keeper, just enjoy the range of theories used to avoid saying they're doing history).

Oh wow also a great ACRAB shot by accident.

OK, as someone who swore off conferences after some truly harmful ones, BSA has been genuinely heartwarming so far.

BUT - it's the first time I've seen the whole "Professor with their acolytes/servants" thing in real life. And so far the Profs in question are all women. Sigh.

A very very large crab in a museum exhibit.

Keynote speaker

Research poster for project called "Murder shows and comfy clothes: working class women and true crime", designed like a cork board with clues and evidence like what you'd get in a true crime show.

Beautiful poster with collage and painting for a project called "Source to the Sea ethnography". Lovely blues of a river and fishes, and a collage of photos of water sites.

Some v beautiful posters at BSA. Very much approve of the cutting and sticking approach.

He's full of eternal dichotomies, that boy.

Anyway, see Dr Penta's edits tomorrow at my first ever BSA, which I attend with some trepidation, being not all that good at sociology. I'll get some good knitting done at the very least.

Back of the head of a black cat sat on my wrist facing towards a portrait orientation monitor with a word doc open on it. His paw is reached up and resting on it.

Getting mixed signals from Dr Penta about this conference paper - there's a lot of purring, but also a lot of trying to scratch the words off the page.