Jenny Edkins
@jennyedkins.bsky.social
640 followers 430 following 38 posts
Looking awry at global and local politics. Trauma | Memory | Missing Persons | Disappearance | Hunger | Disasters. Poetry and story-telling as method. Grenfell 💚 Prof @ Manchester & Aberystwyth. Tanguera, yogini. https://tinyurl.com/2krunykv
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Reposted by Jenny Edkins
jennyedkins.bsky.social
At last.
inquest-org.bsky.social
Today, after decades of campaigning by the families of the 97 people unlawfully killed at the Hillsborough Football Disaster, the government will introduce the Hillsborough Law to Parliament.

The families have campaigned tirelessly to ensure future families don’t face the same injustice.
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
lisadiedrich.bsky.social
A dose of Stuart Hall for what ails us.
lisadiedrich.bsky.social
Stuart Hall on “Studying the Conjuncture" is so good: “If you don't agree there is a good degree of openness & contingency to every historical conjuncture, you don't believe in politics. You don't believe that anything can be done." youtu.be/bHpht1nNtB0?...
Studying the Conjuncture - STUART HALL: THROUGH THE PRISM OF AN INTELLECTUAL LIFE
Stream the Full Lecture Now on Kanopy:https://www.kanopy.com/product/stuart-hall-through-prism-intellectual-lifAlso Available on DVD:https://shop.mediaed.org...
youtu.be
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
borners.bsky.social
I didn't see another good article @ailsahenderson.bsky.social and @richardwynjones.bsky.social which considering the unusually large concentration of St George's Crosses yesterday is required reading. You can feel the frustration in their writing.
jennyedkins.bsky.social
Jamie Raskin showing @zackpolanski.bsky.social how it's done? Not that Zack needs showing...
atrupar.com
Nigel Farage looks uncomfortable as Jamie Raskin uses his opening statement to absolutely demolish him
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
ajlanes.bsky.social
This, from the Quakers, is a pretty good example of how to resist pressure from bigot lobbying groups. Effectively “we legally can allow trans people to use the loo, we morally should, and we tried it and nothing bad happened”
www.quaker.org.uk
jennyedkins.bsky.social
Worth listening to: Chris Naylor on the alternative to privatised asylum accommodation, which now produces huge profits and concentrates asylum seekers in impoverished areas. The proposal would enable local councils to increase their general housing stock, as well as taking account of local needs.
I spoke on Radio 4 Today this morning and then later to Sky News about reform of asylum accommodation (this is pro-bono work that Inner Circle Consulting is doing with Refugee Council the IPPR and others.) I talked about 
* the importance of Government ending the contracts with Serco, Mears and Clearsprings; 
* devolving responsibility and funding to regions and local authorities to source accommodation (within parameters); 
* using public sector funding to build a portfolio of publicly owed homes (Council and Housing Association) that can be used to house asylum seekers, homelessness families and other vulnerable cohorts and then be an asset and a public good in perpetuity. 

Listen on BBC Sounds - the piece starts at 6.43am and I'm on at 6.48am or Sky News at 12.30pm
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
franfd.bsky.social
This is such a cool idea - this book is an incredible, powerful chronology of thoughts, reflections & poetry about an extraordinary time, fast receding into the public’s collective memories.

@amycortvriend.bsky.social
@lucygobag.bsky.social
@jennyedkins.bsky.social
@kandidapurnell.bsky.social
covidmemorialwall.bsky.social
We would like to #BuyAStrangerABook - "When This Is Over: Reflections on an Unequal Pandemic," which has a section on the Wall, including a contribution from one of our trustees, @franfd.bsky.social. ❤️
jennyedkins.bsky.social
“You can’t starve anyone by accident, you can shoot someone by accident but … in inflicting starvation [you] have 60 or 80 days in which [you] can remedy the error” Alex de Waal www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
“You can approach starvation as a biological phenomenon experienced by individuals, but it is also a collective social experience,” said Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, and author of Mass Starvation: the History and Future of Famine.

“Very often that societal element – the trauma, the shame, the loss of dignity, the violation of taboos, the breaking of social bonds – is more significant in the memory of the experience of survivors than the individual biological experience.”

“All these traumas are the reason why the Irish took almost 150 years before they could memorialise what they experienced in the 1840s. Those who inflict starvation are aware of this, they know that what they’re doing is actually dismantling a society.”
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
democracynow.org
Alex de Waal has worked on humanitarian causes across the globe for over 40 years.

“There is no case, over those four decades, of such minutely engineered, closely monitored, precisely designed mass starvation of a population as is happening in Gaza today.”
jennyedkins.bsky.social
“You underestimate just how harrowing Grenfell was.”
orla-hegarty.bsky.social
Grenfell report on the causes of the fire “highlighted the incompetence, dishonesty & greed”

“companies –Arconic, Celotex & Kingspan –had engaged in “deliberate & sustained strategies to manipulate testing processes, misrepresent test data & mislead the market” www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
‘Grenfell should make us all uncomfortable’: Olaide Sadiq on making Grenfell: Uncovered
The maker of Netflix documentary about the fire reflects on a very avoidable tragedy and the injustices attested to by former PM, Theresa May
www.theguardian.com
jennyedkins.bsky.social
Hey, congratulations!
jennyedkins.bsky.social
Thread
peteapps.bsky.social
New: US bosses at cladding firm which sold material for use on Grenfell knew it was unsafe and knew it was being sold for use on the tower, newly released emails reveal

www.thetimes.com/uk/london/ar...
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
historyworkshop.org.uk
On 5 June 2020, anti-racism protestors toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston. Where is it now?

Eleanor Callaghan examines how local authorities and museum curators in Bristol turned the controversial monument into an opportunity for inclusive public history.

www.historyworkshop....
Colston’s Toppling Five Years On
Eleanor Callaghan examines how Bristol's local authorities and museum curators turned a controversial monument into an opportunity for inclusive public history.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
hleehurley.com
The Telegraph going after the Quakers because the Quakers won't be assholes to trans people.

That opening paragraph by Daniel Martin is lol. It's Helen Joyce doing the accusing.
Quakers refuse to ban trans women from female lavatories
The Daily Telegraph27 May 2025By Daniel Martin Deputy political editor
QUAKERS have been accused of “destroying” their reputation as pioneers on women’s rights by refusing to provide female-only lavatories.

The group said its lavatories in Britain would remain “trans inclusive” despite the ruling by the Supreme Court that the word “sex” in the Equality Act refers to biological sex and not gender identity.

It said it was not desirable to monitor who uses its facilities, adding: “We can- not guarantee any shared space as exclusive for one group of people.”

The Quakers have gained a reputa- tion for their progressive attitude towards women, having allowed them to preach as early as the 17th century. But Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy at Sex Matters, a women’s rights group, said they appeared to have abandoned that legacy by adopting “textbook trans activism”.

“Early Quakers were famously supportive of women’s rights – they would surely be shocked and ashamed if they could see the destruction of that proud legacy,” she added. #TransAgendaClips
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
naomihossain.bsky.social
“Mass death through starvation is the certain outcome of Israel’s continued blockade and ongoing military campaign. The only question is when.” The uniqueness of the ongoing famine in Gaza, where people have absolutely no coping strategies or alternatives at all.
lrb.co.uk
‘Twice already during this war, the people of Gaza have pulled back from the brink of categorical famine – both times after warnings from the IPC – but the recovery has been momentary before another plunge.‘

Alex de Waal on starvation in Gaza, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ma...
Alex de Waal | Starvation in Gaza
Twice already during this war, the people of Gaza have pulled back from the brink of categorical famine – both times...
www.lrb.co.uk
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
naomihossain.bsky.social
What is different with the Gaza famine is that the causes are so plain and so direct, textbook example of Alex de Waal’s and Jenny Edkins’ work on forced starvation. Often present to different degrees in other famines, but never so plain in intent and mechanisms.
jennyedkins.bsky.social
Sir Paul Nurse's evidence is in the first hour here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TclI.... It is a bleak tale of missed opportunities by a government focused on centralised commercial solutions at the expense of developing local testing facilities based around existing publicly funded research centres
Reposted by Jenny Edkins
riotgrandma.bsky.social
💔😡😷💔😡😷💔😷
@michaelrosenyes.bsky.social responds to the ‘Island of strangers’ comment.

#poetry #immigration #humanbeings
jennyedkins.bsky.social
It's surely time for Labour MPs who deplore Starmer's rhetoric and policy on this to resign the whip and form a new party. The rest can join Reform.
zarahsultana.bsky.social
The Prime Minister imitating Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech is sickening.

That speech fuelled decades of racism and division. Echoing it today is a disgrace. It adds to anti-migrant rhetoric that puts lives at risk.

Shame on you, Keir Starmer.