A couple of weeks ago, another edition of the Seachdain na Gàidhlig (‘Gaelic week’) took place in Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh introduced this week of events last year to promote and celebrate the Gaelic language. Three centuries ago, Gaelic was a flourishing language spoken by approximately a quarter of the Scottish population. Nowadays, this has dropped to 1.1%
Read MoreStruggling to Meet the Millennium Developmental Goals: Who Is to Be Blamed?
This article problematizes the process of the development of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and, their implementation in signatory countries.
Read MoreEncountering Sexual Harassment during Research
Is there a right response to improper and unwelcome sexual suggestions in the workplace? How do women researchers respond when their dignity and rights are violated during research? How do students, interns and volunteers deal with the bitter disillusion of being sexually harassed in a humanitarian setting?
Read MoreFrom Homer to Edinburgh: Mentoring among postgraduate students
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.’
Read MoreGenitals
In June earlier this year, in Nyeri County, Kenya, there were two separate incidents where wives attempted to chop off their husbands’ penises. In the first incident, Anne Njeri attacked Daniel King'ori, her husband of seven years, after she found condoms in his pockets when he returned home from a late-night drinking session.
Read MorePublic housing - utopia of the past or necessity of the future?
Amidst a housing crisis that threatens to price many lower income earners out of London, and that has brought levels of homelessness to new records, the ideal of home ownership continues to underpin British housing policy.
Read MoreThe Double-Edged Sword of Cultural Tourism
During my summer field research, I traveled to the Maasai Mara, the Kenyan half of the incredible Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, and the home of the Maasai ethnic group. For many of us, this probably evokes a sense of timelessness, and a society untouched by the ‘evils of modernity’. It is also one that many National Geographic documentaries and glossy tourist brochures continue to perpetuate. However, it is but a small sliver of the reality there, like looking at one pixel of an entire photograph; beautiful, perhaps, but incomplete.
Read MoreOn losing Kirsty
On Thursday 4th September 2015, Kirsty Bailey - founding member of this blog, and dear friend to so many of those associated with it – died. Her passing was peaceful and followed a long and difficult battle with cancer – a battle she wrote eloquently and insightfully about.
Read MoreA Mile in Their Shoes: Coming to Terms With the Yazidi Genocide
Genocide. The annihilation of an ethnic or religious group. A shocking, unthinkable crime committed only by the sadistic and depraved. Arguably the worst crime ever to be committed by the human race.
Read MoreChildren under 24 hour surveillance
Children in modern, western societies grow up under surveillance much more than ever before. Let’s start with play-areas. Nowadays it is very rare to see children playing on streets or in playgrounds without being supervised by an adult.
Read More“We Must Take Sides” – The Ongoing Struggle for Montgomery’s Past
Montgomery, Alabama is a city of real struggle. Everywhere you turn there are plaques, information boards, murals, memorials, and statues, dragging the tourist gaze back to the South’s tumultuous past. Walking around the city, it is hard not to feel deeply affected by both the gruesome and truly heroic stories which have come to shape the state and the country.
Read MoreChanging Spaces: Tiny homes, granny flats, and the end of the office cubicle
In this article I discuss some fascinating trends: tinier homes, changing family living arrangements, and more open and egalitarian work spaces in the US. I will ask, are we seeing - in the actions of the Millennial Generation – evolving use of space, as well as attitudes to consumption and to family and private life?
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