Forthcoming workshop in Durham on ‘Historicising the China-Africa relationship’, taking place on August 26th.

new book chapter!... 📖 ‘Reimagining disaster preparedness in Nepal’ We focus on a pan-Himalayan ritual known as the 𝘉𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘫𝘢 as an articulation of Indigenous disaster theory and disaster prevention active in the Himalayan region, specifically within Nepal. www.routledge.com/Reimagining-...

Força, Mambas! 🇲🇿 www.theguardian.com/football/202...

This looks like a really important and timely resource with varied perspectives from different backgrounds, disciplines and geographies. Looking forward to reading!

Excited to share a new open access article that provides a critical, policy-relevant & geographically grounded analysis of Mozambique's energy transitions. Written with Lorraine Howe, @joshkirshner.bsky.social & Carlos Shenga, just published in Applied Geography www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

“If we are honest about Britain’s place in the global strategic landscape today, the idea that it is a prime espionage target stretches credulity”

Further reason to watch this stunning indictment of military homophobia: www.thewrap.com/pentagon-boo...

Interesting article by Anek Rajbhandari on the mental health impacts on survivors of climate induced disasters: nepalitimes.com/news/the-uns...

The artist Sana Ginwalla has created an online photo archive based on 1000 uncollected negatives, slides and prints that she found in the attic of Lusaka’s oldest photo studios. What a great initiative: www.zambiabelonging.com

New in TIBG! Geography in the World, part 3: Area Studies Han Cheng & @deensharp.bsky.social's collection draws together authors from Egypt, Singapore, China, South Africa & Russia to explore non-Western geography's relationship with Area Studies. Read all papers here ⬇️ tinyurl.com/5n72yt46

‘Washington losing primacy, Beijing preparing to take its place. For Africa, however, this framing is unsatisfactory. It risks reducing the continent to a spectator in a drama staged by others’:

📚BOOK LAUNCH 📚 We’re delighted to announce the publication of 🌍Technoscientific Globalisation from Below🌎 Open access&free to download via @matteringpress.bsky.social www.matteringpress.org/books/techno... Edited by Mathieu Quet, Koichi Kameda, Jessica Pourraz & Yves-Marie Rault-Chodankar

We welcome much of the #AddisDeclaration, but let’s be clear: “transition fuel” is too often code for gas. Gas is not a bridge, it’s a dead end. #ACS2

Pranaya Rana’s excellent explainer on everything that happened this week in Nepal, including the first woman prime minister in its history, and asks important questions for the future of the country: www.himalmag.com/politics/nep...

More from Nepal 🇳🇵👀

Interesting claims & counter claims around Nepal’s relations to China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) following PM’s visit to China: kathmandupost.com/national/202...

Great to attend an event yesterday in Kathmandu on the geopolitical dilemmas created for #Nepal around the Lipulekh pass and the territorial disputes with India. Insightful comments from speakers Sudheer Sharma & Rajib Neupane

Good to be engaged in a thoughtful and enriching discussion today with Rupak Sapkota, former Foreign Affairs Adviser to the PM of Nepal. Our conversation focused on the dynamics around Nepal’s co-operation with foreign partners, delving into wider global and regional drivers and dynamics.

📣 New article w/ @iliasalami.bsky.social & @tomchodor.bsky.social on the return of industrial policy globally @globalpolicy.bsky.social. Does this signal a 'New Washington Consensus'? And does the return of industrial policy 'rebuild the ladder' of economic development? 🔗➡️ tinyurl.com/yk2wvttc 1/12

New article🚨 Demilitarizing Conservation A labour of love w L Lunstrum @ashavin.bsky.social A Dutta @esthermarijnen.bsky.social T Mushonga F Matose For a more robustly care-full conservation Demilitarization based on ethics/politics of care/nonviolence @pollenetwork.bsky.social shorturl.at/Wsl9m

Over the past 2 decades, China has become Laos’s top investor, main creditor, and 2nd-largest trade partner. In a new report, @profjulietlu.bsky.social and I unpack Chinese investment across four land-intensive sectors: agriculture & plantations, mining, infrastructure & SEZs. tinyurl.com/kw5vteem

“I call for a decolonial consciousness that interrogates the historical roots of marginalization in order to reconceptualize, reimagine, and rewrite dominant discourses on resilience in Africa”

The UK Alliance for Disaster Research conference will take place 4-5 September 2025. It will be hosted by the @ihrr.bsky.social at Durham Uni and is titled “Pathways to Practice and Resilience: UK Interdisciplinary Hazard and Disaster Research on the National and Global Stage”: tinyurl.com/62mfc7pw

As well as some loss of life the severe flooding in Rasuwa in #Nepal has caused damage to a number of key infrastructures of China-Nepal co-operation. Interesting to note the militarised discourse around talk of deploying rescue operations on a ‘war footing’: kathmandupost.com/national/202...

River basins of Africa 🌍 A stunning aerial visual showing the continent’s waterways. According to UNEP, there are 63 transboundary river basins in Africa, covering 64% of the continent’s land area. #weekendvibes #water #africa #rivers #climatechange Credit: Grasshopper Geography

Just published a new investigation into textile waste on @ecoage.bsky.social with my colleague Arun Karki in Nepal: Sandwiched between manufacturing powerhouses China and India, Nepal faces a relentless influx of cheap, toxic fast fashion exports: eco-age.com/nepal-the-fr...

In Luanda for the launch of this edited volume on #Angola after Dos Santos, produced in record time in Portuguese & English with chapters by Angolan & foreign scholars. Both versions in the link. My chapter is on the politics of public memory 50 years after independence. www.cmi.no/publications...

Here a short blog sumarising a chapter that Emma Hutchison and I wrote and that has now come out: “Humanitarian Photography” in Allbeson (ed) Picturing Peace (Bloomsbury 2024). This has been in the making since 2018 but we hope it remains relevant. www.rolandbleiker.com/blog/humanit...

Happy to share an article on green electrification in Mozambique, just published online today... www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Soviet poster, 1986

New CODESRIA bulletin themed around ‘Mozambique: Reflections by Intellectuals on Post-Electoral Violence’: codesria.us19.list-manage.com/track/click?...

Can Postdevelopment actually be understood as being within the scope of development theories, or is it something completely different? Aram Ziai explores in our latest blog www.developmentresearch.eu?p=2245

Ruth First seminar event at The Lindisfarne centre in Durham on June 25th, 5-7pm, can be watched online too:

"It has not just been a travel document, but often a declaration of hope in a better future for those who left Ireland’s shores, or a reclaiming of identity by many of those in the Irish diaspora today" @markhennessy.bsky.social on 100 yrs of the Irish passport www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

Huge win. Ecuadorians have voted in a historic referendum to halt the development of all new oilwells in the Yasuní national park in the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet: buff.ly/UmLwia3 Protect people and the planet. #ActOnClimate

Ngũgĩ’s work was incredible, so many insights, his razor sharp satire was so richly provocative, he was such an influence on so many. He will be sorely missed. I love this photo of him as a student at Leeds in the 1960s:

CfP for the 5th Global Policy North workshop at the University of Edinburgh and hosted by @policyrelevant.bsky.social. Submit your abstracts here and details below: tinyurl.com/awckrjjk

8/ The result? A development finance landscape shaped not by neat convergence or competition between donors, but by productive incoherence—an ambiguous space of constraint and possibility.

7/ Mozambique presents a hybrid case. CDF supported a shift toward ‘mega-project developmentalism’ in extractives and infrastructure. Yet this hasn’t translated into greater policy autonomy—debt burdens & elite capture persist.

6/ Heavily aid-dependent, Malawi has used CDF to diversify financing, particularly for infrastructure. But deeper constraints persist—policy space remains fragmented, shaped by donor preferences and institutional limitations.

5/ Ethiopia stands out for its longstanding policy autonomy. Leveraging geopolitical importance & strong state capacity, Ethiopia uses CDF to reinforce its developmental model—not replace it. CDF complements rather than drives its policy space.

4/ Drawing on an exploratory elite survey and case studies of Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique, we show how countries navigate this fragmented landscape—not passively receive it.

3/ We argue that the internal political economy, historical legacies, and global structural positioning of recipient states matter far more than donor intentions and shifts in the external financing environment. These domestic factors mediate how external financing is internalised and acted upon.

2/ Rather than triggering wholesale transformation, Chinese development finance contributes to incremental, context-specific adaptations. Policy space doesn’t simply expand or contract—it shifts unevenly across countries and sectors.

1/ How does Chinese development finance affect policy space across Sub-Saharan Africa? In our new article in the Journal of International Development, Han Cheng, @marcusjpower.bsky.social and I explore this through Grabel’s concept of productive incoherence. 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/jid....

The Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène earned his reputation as the father of African cinema with a series of brilliant movies. Socialist and anti-colonial politics had a profound influence on Sembène, who was also one of Africa’s great novelists.

It is #AutismAcceptanceMonth! Autism is just one of the research areas of the Centre for Neurodiversity & Development. When members of their team visited us last year, library staff learnt about acceptance and listening to neurodiverse voices. durham-repository.worktribe.com/researchcent...

I just ordered Chimamanda Adichie's first fiction novel after a 10 year hiatus. Can't wait for my copy to arrive. I grew up on African writers & African literature ( thanks mum - the linguist and African literature professor). If you have not read her, you should. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...