The wisdom, guidance, and support of others are critical in our personal and professional development. This support often comes from friends, families or colleagues in the enactment of their particular role in one’s life. But support can also come from a person whose primary role in our lives is to provide guidance.
Read More‘Without your head you’re nothing’: Helmets and road safety in Uganda.
Having lived in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city for 9 months, I have had ample time to test the many different modes of available transportation. With never-ending traffic jams, poorly maintained roads, and rarely enforced laws, getting from A to B sometimes presents major challenges.
Read MoreWhat Really Matters: Reflections on the Experience of Displacement from the Earthquake in Central Nepal
One minute you’re walking down the street, carrying with you a feeling of stability and security. In the next, you’re being swept away by a current of chaos and panic, with nothing but a profound feeling of being completely trapped by the uncertainty of what’s to come next.
Read MoreEgypt’s Gift to the World
With a little too much pomp but not enough circumstance, Egypt unveiled its newly renovated Suez Canal last month. After a year of construction and £5.3 billion spent, the Suez Canal now has two parallel channels that will double its flow of traffic.
Read MoreTo Start in Kindness
I write this on my train journey north, to my dear friend’s funeral. I sit facing backwards, gliding over green, wet countryside, through small and charming, and larger, grubby towns shrouded in early evening light.
Read MoreConstructing identities and building borders: travelling across the Balkans
This summer I took a road trip with some friends to a sometimes forgotten region of Europe: the Balkans, or West Balkans, to be more precise. The facts that I don’t know exactly what to call it, and that people often responded with uncertainty when I told them where I was going, are indicative of the confusion and misconceptions associated with this particular area of Europe.
Read MoreOn home ground…
If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you might have noticed that we are a somewhat eclectic mix of contributors, with a fairly eclectic selection of things to say about a rather eclectic range of topics. That is actually quite a good representation of our home institution – the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh.
Read MoreWho Are We to Write of Another's Past?
I strongly believe that the best scholarship does not merely present critical analysis, but ultimately draws the scholar back into an introspective gaze, to reflect on how what one has learned affects oneself.
Read MoreConstructing a Glass Floor and Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Mobility at a Standstill
Everyone, it seems, loves a good “Cinderella story.” In sporting events, films and television, and yes, in real-life, people want to be able to share the moment when the beleaguered protagonist rallies against the odds and achieves success. What some call a Cinderella story, others deem ‘upward mobility.’
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