universities

Created
Tue, 14/05/2024 - 09:12

Higher education is at the core of the political challenges confronting the Albanese government, principally of boosting capital accumulation whilst safeguarding aspects of social reproduction. The Albanese government has prioritised skills training and an industry policy focusing on green energy, but this is at the expense of social reproduction including in areas of education.

Created
Fri, 17/03/2023 - 08:41
Up to 10% of branches have passed votes of no confidence in general secretary in last few days as outrage builds over ‘undemocratic’ ‘informal ballot’ Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will mount a demonstration outside the London headquarters of their own union tomorrow, in anger at what they term the ‘sell-out’ of […]
Created
Sat, 21/01/2023 - 02:08
US university had blocked decision to award recently-retired son of Jewish refugee who campaigns for human rights after reports of pressure from pro-Israeli donors, but has now reversed course Harvard University has u-turned on its decision to veto the university’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy’s award of a fellowship to recently-retired Human Rights Watch […]
Created
Sat, 11/12/2021 - 12:33

 

Just announced: I'm being given the International Sociological Association's Award for Excellence in Research and Practice. This award is given once every 4 years; it's a great honour. My thanks to the ISA! And to the many, many colleagues & friends I have worked with, over the years.

 

The social science I value is engaged in the world, it doesn't watch from a distance. It's empirical and utopian. It's willing to explore questions ranging from personal life to global empire. It doesn't flinch from issues of violence and power. But it also asks how new and better possibilities emerge.

 

Created
Tue, 22/11/2022 - 06:00

Marta Russell (1951-2013), the US based writer, activist and leading critical thinker, argued that disability was not a medical condition or impairment, but a ‘socially created category derived from labor relations, a product of the exploitative economic structure of capitalist society’. Disabled bodies are useful only to the extent that they create value. Capitalist social norms both demarcate who is and is not disabled in contemporary society, and at the same time oppress the disabled body. It is productivity and profits that dictate restrictions on the disabled, as well as what limited adjustments may be facilitated for the disabled to better ‘fit’ social structures. Disabled bodies are viewed as a problem. In relation to work, Connor and Coughlin argue that they are often an ‘inevitable part of the “surplus” population, not quite fully human, unable to participate in society, at best a burden and at worst a drain’.