Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · 8d

So excited to share this symposium on my book, Cultivating Socialism, at the @ppesydney.bsky.social . Check out our first two posts from @chrishesketh.bsky.social and Kyla Sankey. More to come each Tuesday!

www.ppesydney.net/forums/culti...

Cultivating Socialism - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)

www.ppesydney.net

1 3

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

QM_UCU @qmucu.bsky.social · 15d

A brilliant piece in the FT about the human and institutional cost of overreliance on international student fees. Managers are making our most vulnerable students pay the price of a failing funding model and are skewing the purposes of university in their pursuit of fees.
www.ft.com/content/3f49...

Page argues franchising — where students are disproportionately from poorer backgrounds — has been oversold as a means for widening participation. In reality, he says, it often leaves students behind, with outcomes “taking down our overall metrics”.

Staff were never comfortable with the franchise-heavy model, he says. “Voices were raised about their concerns, the things they saw and practices that didn’t align with our values, but they weren’t listened to,” he adds. “Now we live or die by our own work. We’re not going to be reliant on other organisations. I would advise any other university with large franchise numbers to do the same.” Buckinghamshire cut ties earlier this year with five of its former private franchise partners.

Even so, other universities are continuing to explore franchise models. For Queen Mary’s new “International Year One” in business and management, for example, it will outsource the teaching and recruitment for the programme to Kaplan International College, a for-profit group offering pathway courses into higher education.

Taught at Kaplan’s centre in London Bridge, the one-year course will enable foreign students to move straight on to the second year of Queen Mary’s business management undergraduate degree. Kaplan’s tuition fee is about £9,000 cheaper and requires lower entry grades and English language qualifications.

Queen Mary academics fear the Kaplan pathway, billed as the only one of its kind leading to a London Russell Group university, will not improve the academic preparedness of students.

2 8 6

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Raj Patel @rajpatel.org · Jul 10

Thanks so much Naomi! (and here's the link www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... )

5 8

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

QM_UCU @qmucu.bsky.social · Jun 27

QMUL cut 200 roles in the past two years: qmucu.org/2025/06/26/s... #SaveHE #UKHE

Qmul cuts 200 roles
60 lost to voluntary severance in 2024
80 professional service staff took VS in 2025
50 academics took VS in 2025
Strategic exits
Redundancies in restructures

Remaining staff with increasing workload

1 8 7

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Raj Patel @rajpatel.org · Jun 24

A food system hooked on fossil fuels is especially vulnerable to disruption. In the Mid East, output's halted, and urea prices are up. Expect speculators and food price spikes to follow. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

5 9

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Jun 17

So happy to finally see my review of "Now We Are In Power", by Angus McNelly, out in @antipodeonline.bsky.social. A truly exhilarating read, prompting new insights and many questions over one of Latin America's most enigmatic examples of popular power and its contradictory path.

Antipode @antipodeonline.bsky.social · Jun 17

New book review by @bolshierowbot.bsky.social -- Angus McNelly's "Now We Are in Power: The Politics of Passive Revolution in Twenty-First-Century Bolivia" @upittpress.bsky.social antipodeonline.org/category/boo...

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Jun 3

I'll be speaking along side some great discussants on the intersections between food, identity and sustainability at the Social Science Festival at Birkbeck College this Thursday, 5th June, 6-7pm. Come down for a nourishing conversation! 🌱🌾🍄

www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Social Sciences Festival 2025 - Food Politics: Belonging, Identity, and Sustainability

Social Sciences Festival 2025

www.bbk.ac.uk

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · May 9

Great to see my article out in the new issue of @geopoliticsjournal.bsky.social

How did the soil under our feet shape the infrastructures of global food governance? Find out here 👇 Open Access!

Geopolitics Journal @geopoliticsjournal.bsky.social · May 9

Now out in issue 30(3): Fields, Frontiers, and the Making of the Food and Agriculture Organization by Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social

Download and read for free:

www.tandfonline.com

1 2

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Apr 29

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ap...

Zara Dinnen | A Sector in Freefall

The Queen Mary University of London branch of the University and College Union, of which I am co-chair, hosts a webpage...

www.lrb.co.uk

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Apr 24

Come join us this saturday, to fight for a more just and sustainable food system 🍏🥬🌿

Food In Our Hands, April 26th 2025 - Landworkers Alliance

landworkersalliance.org.uk

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Larry the Cat @number10cat.bsky.social · Mar 27

The stages in MAGA responding to a negative story:
1: It's all lies
2: Most of it is lies
3: Some of it's true, but it doesn't matter
4. It's all true, but it's fine when we do it
5. F**k you

34 450 2.2K

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Clive Gabay @clivesg.bsky.social · Mar 27

A Volkswagen mini has run into a Tesla, with the Tesla coming off worse. The caption reads, 'Not even the best Nazi car'.

21 68

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Mar 28

"We've burned down buildings for no reasons, which is violating the international law, of course," he told CBS News. "…And we used human shields as protection."

www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli...

Israeli soldier tells CBS News he was ordered to use Palestinians as human shields in Gaza

An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian boy tell CBS News they have personal experience of the IDF forcing civilians to check buildings for explosives.

www.cbsnews.com

8 210 380

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Alex Stoffel @stoffelalex.bsky.social · Mar 25

I wrote up some provisional reflections on the changing character of US empire for @histmat.bsky.social

www.historicalmaterialism.org/article/empi...

Empire Unmasked: Struggles for Gender and Sexual Freedom in an Era of US Imperial Crisis - Historical Materialism

US power has organised the expanded reproduction of global capitalism over the past 70 years and continues to do so. Much ink is currently being spilled over its decline. Commentators are debating whe...

www.historicalmaterialism.org

5 17

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Mar 23

Great piece on the unequal exchange of labour in the world economy.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy - Nature Communications

Hickel and colleagues find that, in 2021, the economies of the global North net-appropriated 826 billion hours of embodied labour from the global South, across all skill levels and sectors. Unequal ex...

www.nature.com

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Mar 17

Another energising march against Israel's genocide/apartheid regime. 🍉🕊️

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Mar 6

Cannot wait to get stuck into this!!

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

BDS in International Studies @bdsatisa.bsky.social · Mar 4

No conferencing as usual during genocide!
#EndScholasticide #FreePalestine #DemocracyAtISA #MembersVote #BDSatISA #TheElephantInTheBallroom #PresidentsAddress

1 14 32

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Lasse Thomassen @lassethomassen.bsky.social · Feb 24

“'I sure miss George W. Bush:' Deconstruction, Post-Truth and Trump” inaugural professorial lecture @qmpoliticsir.bsky.social @qmul.ac.uk #trump #posttruth #deconstruction #derrida

📅 26 March, 18:00-19:30
📍 QMUL, Mile End
🎟️ Register at the link below
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/i-sure-mis...

“I sure miss George W. Bush:” Deconstruction, Post-Truth and Trump

Professorial public lecture with Professor Lasse Thomassen

www.eventbrite.co.uk

1 5 8

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Feb 20

How might food self-provisioning communities form part of a wider movement for a degrowth society? Find out here!

Journal of Political Ecology @jpoliticalecology.bsky.social · Feb 19

Domazet, M. & Lubbock, R., (2025) “Movement without a movement: Food self-provisioning in Eastern Europe and the Balkans as emergent transformation towards a degrowth mode of living”, Grassroots - Journal of Political Ecology 32(1): 5883. doi: doi.org/10.2458/jpe....

@pollenetwork.bsky.social

Movement without a movement: Food self-provisioning in Eastern Europe and the Balkans as emergent transformation towards a degrowth mode of living

The intimate links between agri-food systems and degrowth economics has only recently been addressed in the extant scholarship, much of which centers on the contributions of "food self-provisioning" (...

doi.org

2

Reposted by Rowan Lubbock

Raj Patel @rajpatel.org · Feb 20

Jennifer Clapp's latest uncovers the long history of corporate power in agriculture and shows why we’ll need to undo the sins of the nineteenth century if we are all to survive in the twenty-first. Titans of Industrial Agriculture is out now and well worth your time!

2 12 41

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Feb 15

Very happy to share this exploratory analysis on the role of Food Self-Provisioning networks as an emergent property of a degrowth mode of living. 🌱🌿🌳🌴

@jpoliticalecology.bsky.social

Movement without a movement: Food self-provisioning in Eastern Europe and the Balkans as emergent transformation towards a degrowth mode of living

grassrootsjpe.org

1

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Feb 6

"'Failing': A Story of UK Higher Education Workplace Struggles"

Zara Dinnen – Poltergeist

sedpoltergeist.com

1 1

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Jan 21

Very happy to announce the inaugural Call for Papers for our new Regular Section for the upcoming EISA 2025 (Bologna), "Hungry for Change: Repairing a Broken Global Food System". If you'd like to submit an abstact for the Section, follow the link here: eisa-net.org/abstract-sub...

Please circulate!

2 1

Rowan Lubbock @bolshierowbot.bsky.social · Jan 8

So excited for @stoffelalex.bsky.social 's book launch for Eros and Empire. Sign up below!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eros-and-e...

Find the book here:
www.sup.org/books/politi...

Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the US

Join us for the inaugural UK book launch of Eros and Empire (Stanford University Press). This event is open to all.

www.eventbrite.co.uk

2 3