#1 Following on from my earlier thread about claims of “bias” in universities (link below 👇), I was struck by James Marriott’s column in today’s Times. It’s full of anecdote & caricature. The real story of UK universities is structural, financial, and political. 🧵 👉 bsky.app/profile/prof...

HUUUGE turnout this morning to demand protection for our jobs and our students' learning conditions. There is no deficit!!!

Dr Sue Widdicombe and I are inviting submissions for a Special Issue on "Making Others Misconduct Matter In The Public Sphere". onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal... For questions, feel free to get in touch with us. Looking forward to your contributions! ✨

It's worth noting that these are not merely stupid questions, but have the function - as does much of the professional and academic ethics industry - of taking up up space for serious discussion of politics and value with speculative, sci-fi bollocks. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The delicate dance of revealing more or less of who we are for one another, as it happens at the café counter. Co-authored with Sylvaine Tuncer. #EMCA #geosky

Come and work with brilliant @lselibrary.bsky.social colleagues @rosiehigman.bsky.social @helskrw.bsky.social @niamhtumelty.bsky.social and me (in my #impact role) as our Wikimedian in Residence and Research Visibility Champion! Closing 17th Aug 2025 #OpenResearch jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

📢 Lboro CA Day 2025 A fantastic day of #EMCA presentations & networking. 📍 Lboro/hybrid 📅 15 Dec Register now! Call for abstracts open! darg.lboro.ac.uk/event/ca-day... @darg-sessions.bsky.social @saulalbert.bsky.social @lizstokoe.bsky.social @emma-richardson.bsky.social @lborocrcc.bsky.social

Delayed by a late flight, Sandra Laugier and Richard Rechtman discuss their thoughts on public space, crowds, democracy and Cavell. Those who waited were delighted. @mediaautomatiek.bsky.social @ifecosse.bsky.social

A snippet from the new rolsi.net blog by @profsalwiggins.bsky.social on the initial meeting of the EatSiN network of #EMCA food & interaction researchers. rolsi.net

Incredible support for our staff at @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social on picket lines today in their fight against management's plans to slash budgets and jobs ✊

Rally in the sun 😎 @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social hearing speakers on why £140m cuts unnecessary and demanding uni senior management rule out comp redundancies. We don't want to, but we'll be back out on strike in Sept unless @edinburghuni.bsky.social management see sense #StopTheCuts

📽️🎙️💛I feel honored I get to be part of this… I need to explain over and over why recordings, why cameras, why I ask the people themselves to help me set up the recording devices, why I leave the room when they start talking… But I’d do this over and over again if at the end we’ll be able to show… 4/5

Today I posted the 31st & final entry in a thread commemorating the work of Jeff Coulter, following his death in April. While not an exhaustive list, I hope it offers a sense of Jeff’s distinctive contribution, combining Rylean OLP with EMCA. The complete thread is here: bsky.app/hashtag/Jeff...

Please show your solidarity for Disability Studies colleagues at Liverpool Hope, who've recently been informed of plans to cut their team by half. Open letter to sign: docs.google.com/document/d/1... [docs.google.com]

Last day to add your name to this report to DCMS on the social, psychological, and economic #impact of comics in all forms 📝 @fatbadger442.bsky.social @ericlaurier.bsky.social @stokoecartoons.bsky.social @fasttrackimpact.bsky.social

The Scottish Government could easily make their SFC money conditional on university salaries being public (like in Canada). Promotes fairness, reduces gender pay gap.

At @cardiffuniversity.bsky.social leadership are slashing jobs while opening a new campus in Kazakhstan @drjogrady.bsky.social tells the Education Select Committee what universities are spending on while making staff redundant #StopTheCuts

I’ve voted ‘yes’ & ‘yes’ so we can stop the cuts at Edinburgh. And with Chris Hoy support too. @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social #ucueballot

I've been running informal Redundancy Buddy groups over the last 6 months with UK uni staff at risk of dismissal. There are several key things people are shocked by which I'm sharing here so others who're precarious feel less alone and recognise what to prepare for. Please add your ideas. A thread 🧵

As my thoughts turn toward digging out ‘cold dalek compost’ there’s cheer, dismay and stories of children burning their feet in hot dung heaps in the Highlands to digest first. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... @frasermacdonald.bsky.social

Some cyclists are idiots, some drivers are idiots but the idiot cyclists are less likely to kill you. In fact, mundane automobility is more likely to kill you than the most idiotic cyclists.

📣 Exciting opportunity for language researchers in 🇫🇮 and the University of Oulu (@unioulu.bsky.social). We are hiring a tenure track professor in "Language use and comprehensive security". Apply here: oulunyliopisto.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Mobilisation against the cuts at Edinburgh University is picking up the pace. Jobs are at stake and therefore strikes are very likely. The reasons given for these cuts are problematic on many levels. Time for external democratic scrutiny 👇🏼 www.scotsman.com/education/un...

Urgent: don't cut disability benefits. It is wrong to balance the books by taking from the people who are least able to pay Sign the petition: r.ippl.es/benefit-cuts/

A cracker of a SEDIT session with guest @profsalwiggins.bsky.social - satiety, nutrition and rounds of jokes between pre-school children and their teacher around finishing their food. #EMCA

It's been *ten* years since we (me @ericlaurier.bsky.social @bmbenwell.bsky.social @profsalwiggins.bsky.social) all managed to be in the same place at the same time but we made the most of being together in #Blackford #Scotland catching up on all things #EMCA #AcademicSky ❤️

Powerful analysis of when university senior uni managers prioritise growing assets

It’s a treat to sit in on a colleague teaching, especially when it’s @frasermacdonald.bsky.social on the Highland landscape. Surprised by how few students could identify a birch tree.

My piece for History Workshop looks back at what feels, I'm sure to me and so many other academics in the UK, like a decade-long crisis in universities. A crisis of politics, of a particularly venomous form of "education as market" ideology, and now a crisis of desperate, annihilating job cuts. 1/2

To clarify, it’s remarkable that a university that is not in financial crisis should want to behave as though it is. Our local UCU has a good explainer: www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/8gaanhy...

The publication date is listed as 31 March 2025 but it's out already - links are live! www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/1...

Dictation mistakes have long fascinated me after a period of hand injury when I depended on ‘AI’. Recurrent now while I mark student projects is: E: research aims AI: research Eames It joins collection of: why is a word so predictable as a next word, replaced with a term so unlikely.

"Words do have power. Words are events, they do things, change things." "We can’t restructure our society without restructuring language. One reflects the other." (Ursula K. Le Guin, in 'The Wave in the Mind' and in Jonathan White's 'Talking on the Water.')

Much of the crisis in HE in Scotland is amplified by Glasgow and Edinburgh hoovering up the market. While they bank the money - and they have banked the money - they should not be allowed to make entirely arbitrary job cuts. It is the rate of profit they are trying to save.

The collection contains some great #EMCA stuff. My MMU colleague Alison Pilnick on medicine is one highlight. @robinjsmith.bsky.social on MCA another. + Lena Jayyusu on accounts, Patrick Watson on cops & courts, Lorenza Mondada on transcription & many more. 2/2 www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/1...

This is a very grim account of what’s happening at Cardiff University – an early intimation of what’s to come in UK higher ed. Our only strength is in industrial action. ‘They say cutback, we say fight back!’, to use the old slogan.

The consultative ballot is live! VOTE!!!

✊ Well done to our @ucuscotland.bsky.social members raising the alarm and getting the scandalous behaviour of Edinburgh University onto the front page of The Scotsman 📢 Read here 👇 www.scotsman.com/education/no...

Doing tutorial exercises on instructed action with 250+ students is a bit of a challenge, but I think we got there… #emca

I arrived in Scotland just in time for #sunset across Aberlady Bay at low tide (am visiting University of Edinburgh @ericlaurier.bsky.social tomorrow) and not only was the view beautiful, I met this puffed-up robin ❄️

We @kevinawhitehead.bsky.social @raymond-sociology.bsky.social are very happy to announce a new book and a new paper, both on conversation analysis and membership categorization, published rn in Jan 2025! 📕📄 🧵 1/4 "Categories in Social Interaction" is out now from Routledge #AcademicSky #EMCA

"Newcastle University has told staff they will have to cut down on research time that is not directly supported by external funding, as part of a £30 million programme of cuts that puts up to 300 jobs at risk." www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

One second from every episode of Twin Peaks.

He gave us what we surely recognise as Lynchian moments. Just last night, a white taxi driving slowly away from me, into darkness, its rear number-plate-light flickering. Not a breath of wind.

An insightful and significant Festschrift, for the continually insightful and significant Michael Lynch, published in Ethnographic Studies. #emca www.ethnographicstudies.org

My recollection of Nan Shepherd is rather faint but I wrote about the quiet late life (and literary afterlife) of my mother’s friend and teacher, prompted by the new correspondence edited by @kerriandrewsuk.bsky.social

The interim statement from the six of us is out now. We will continue to think, listen and plan over the coming weeks and months. For now, a confirmation that none of us voted for this and we think it an appalling strategic decision.

🔥 Livingston in excoriating form in "Ethnomethodology’s Broken Promise" #EMCA link.springer.com/article/10.1...