Jonny Darling
@jonnydarling.bsky.social
140 followers 210 following 8 posts
Urban and political geographer, Durham University. Trustee @naccomnetwork.bsky.social‬. Author of Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum (Pluto Press).
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Reposted by Jonny Darling
areajournal.bsky.social
📢September Issue of Area📢

Our latest issue features an editorial from our new team, a Special Section on 'Gentle Geographies', and a discussion forum on #OpenAccess book publishing.

Available to read here ⬇️
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754762...
A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are seven tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Gentle Geographies', and an editorial. The papers are: 

1) Areas of opportunity
Jeremy J. Schmidt,  Mary Lawhon,  Jonathan Darling,  Eli D. Lazarus
2) Editorial: Towards more gentle geographies: Narrating a virtue turn, and possibilities for multi-tonal politics of activism and academic labour
Matt Finn,  Jayne M. Jeffries
3) The quiet politics and gentle literary activism behind the battle for Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument
Laura Smith
4) Power in numbers/Power and numbers: Gentle data activism as strategic collaboration
Jonathan Cinnamon
5) For diffident geographies and modest activisms: Questioning the ANYTHING-BUT-GENTLE academy
John Horton
6) Treading carefully through tomatoes: Embodying a gentle methodological approach
Laura Pottinger
7) CoPSE: A methodological intervention towards gentle more-than-human relations
Suzanne Hocknell A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with the names of papers in the issue. The papers are: 

1) ‘What is visible… and what isn't’: A public art intervention for re-imagining the food system
Ekaterina Gladkova,  Naho Matsuda
2) Reimagining the streetscapes of Varanasi city: Public art, urban regeneration and smart city practices
Iman Banerjee,  Amrita Bajaj,  Apala Saha
3) It takes a team to participate – Refining working participant observations through multiple researchers
Maria Thulemark,  Susanna Heldt-Cassel,  Tara Duncan
4) Right-sizing the smart city in Southeast Asia
Prerona Das,  Orlando Woods,  Lily Kong
5) The role of virtual field trips in Geography higher education: A perspective paper
Elizabeth R. Hurrell,  Simon M. Hutchinson,  Lynda Yorke,  Lesley C. Batty,  M. Jane Bunting,  Dan Swanton,  Derek A. McDougall,  Daniel R. Parsons
6) Is the spatial persistence of deprivation dependent on neighbouring areas?
Stephen D. Clark,  Fran Pontin,  Paul Norman
7) ‘Backward geographies’: Contested lives and livelihoods in the tea plantation enclaves of South Asia
Suranjan Majumder
8) On the forms of borderwork in public institutions: Bordering social security through conditions and tests
Kathryn Cassidy,  Gill Davidson
9) Navigating inequalities and shaping aspirations: The role of supplementary education in low-income immigrant youth's transition to selective secondary school
Lara Landolt A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are nine tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Open Access Book Publishing: A Forum for Debate' and three 'Ethics in/of Geographical Research' papers.  The papers are: 

1) ‘The city is not for us’: Ethics, everyday sexism, and negotiating unwanted encounters during fieldwork
Morag Rose
2) Participation, inclusion and reflexivity in multi-step (focus) group discussions
Marina Korzenevica,  Engdasew Feleke Lemma,  Catherine Fallon Grasham,  Khonker Taskin Anmol,  Daniel Ekai Esukuku,  Fahreen Hossain,  Mercy Mbithe Musyoka,  Saskia Nowicki,  Dalmas Ochieng Omia,  Salome A. Bukachi
3) The ‘creative thesis’ in the academic ‘anxiety machine’
Angela Last
4) Against book enclosures: Moving towards more diverse, humane and accessible book publishing
Simon P. J. Batterbury,  Andrea E. Pia,  Gerda Wielander,  Nicholas Loubere
5) Uneven geographies of power in UK higher education's conjunctural crisis: A response to Gandy
Julie Cupples
6) Beyond open access: Book publishing in a metric culture
Clancy Wilmott
7) Gandy & 'Books under threat': A response
Frank Houghton
8) Challenges and opportunities for open access book publishing: A perspective from a society publisher in the geosciences
Jenny Lunn,  Kate Lajtha
9) Ex Libris: Books, creativity and academic freedom
Matthew Gandy
Reposted by Jonny Darling
agendapub.bsky.social
Just arrived:

Debt Trap Nation
by @kbrickell.bsky.social & Mel Nowicki

“A compelling call to action... shows how reimagining policy could deliver economic justice.” - @nicolajanesharp.bsky.social

Author royalties will be donated to @seacharity.bsky.social

www.agendapub.com/page/detail/...
Photo of a pile of books. The books are 'Debt Trap Nation' by Katherine Brickell and Mel Nowicki. Cover image features a woman and small child in a deep concrete basin or pit with no way of climbing out as the ladder is too short.
Reposted by Jonny Darling
asylummatters.bsky.social
The last Government's failed experiment in asylum camps cost the taxpayer millions, all while traumatising and isolating torture survivors.

Now, Keir Starmer wants to return to this cruel and wasteful plan.

We can't go back.

#CommunitiesNotCamps
Why confining asylum seekers to military barracks is especially cruel
Housing asylum seekers in military barracks could cause significant damage, explains Freedom from Torture's Ann Saltar.
www.bigissue.com
Reposted by Jonny Darling
durham.ac.uk
Read @jonnydarling.bsky.social's latest thoughts on #asylum housing, from @theconversation.com
@geogdurham.bsky.social
jonnydarling.bsky.social
Commentary on asylum hotels considering how govt can develop dignified community-based housing that meets multiple social needs. Warehousing people in camps and continuing a failed experiment in privatisation causes nothing but further harm @geogdurham.bsky.social theconversation.com/after-the-ep...
After the Epping Forest case, the government needs to be bold and build asylum housing that works
Asylum housing needs to come back under public control.
theconversation.com
jonnydarling.bsky.social
Commentary on asylum hotels considering how govt can develop dignified community-based housing that meets multiple social needs. Warehousing people in camps and continuing a failed experiment in privatisation causes nothing but further harm @geogdurham.bsky.social theconversation.com/after-the-ep...
After the Epping Forest case, the government needs to be bold and build asylum housing that works
Asylum housing needs to come back under public control.
theconversation.com
jonnydarling.bsky.social
Great stuff! Congratulations Jeremy!
jonnydarling.bsky.social
It shouldn't need saying that 'military and industrial sites' are not, and never have been, 'more appropriate sites' for asylum seekers. The record of such carceral accommodation is nothing but spectacles of harm designed to appease a desire to punish refugees. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live
Home secretary says government aims to ‘shrink the whole asylum system’ and is looking at ‘military and industrial sites’
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Jonny Darling
olgademetriou.bsky.social
Happy to share this piece on ethnography in political science:

doi.org/10.1017/S153...
jonnydarling.bsky.social
These comments build on a recent @theconversation.com piece looking at how the UK has become reliant on hotels to accommodate asylum seekers and what can be done to fix a failing accommodation system: theconversation.com/how-the-uk-b...
How the UK became dependent on asylum hotels
Why hotel use has risen, and what it’s costing the UK.
theconversation.com
jonnydarling.bsky.social
I was on BBC’s AntiSocial at the end of last week discussing the growth of asylum hotels in Britain, the history of dispersal, and the importance of community-based housing for asylum seekers (at the 40min mark) @geogdurham.bsky.social @durham-university.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
AntiSocial - Asylum hotels - BBC Sounds
Protestors outside asylum hotels say they fear for the safety of women and children.
www.bbc.co.uk
jonnydarling.bsky.social
Perfectly timed for summer reading, new book from two of my wonderful @geogdurham.bsky.social colleagues: @ajsecor.bsky.social and @benandersongeog.bsky.social. Also perfectly timed for navigating the turbulent cultural politics of the present (coffee strictly optional) @goldsmithspress.bsky.social
Reposted by Jonny Darling
mayblin.bsky.social
Important new book! Immigration Detention Inc. The Big Business of Locking up Migrants
by @nancyhiemstra.bsky.social and @drdconlon.bsky.social Buy it here: www.plutobooks.com/978074534946...
Reposted by Jonny Darling
tibg.bsky.social
Read more from @jonnydarling.bsky.social on asylum hotels & carceral hospitality in his recently co-authored Transactions paper: doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky
jonnydarling.bsky.social
A short piece from me looking at the politics of 'asylum hotels' in Britain and the challenges for government in finding alternatives @geogdurham.bsky.social
uk.theconversation.com
Why hotel use has risen, and what it’s costing the UK.
Reposted by Jonny Darling
areajournal.bsky.social
📢June Issue of Area📢

This latest issue pulls together the fully #OpenAccess 'Rivers as Borders' Special Section alongside papers on topics including de-development, AI, and diary methods.

Read all the papers here: rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754762... #geosky
A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are seven tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Rivers as Borders'. The papers are: 
1) Rivers as borders? Navigating in-between the tensions of water-state-society geographies
Rebekka Kanesu,  Vanessa Lamb,  Eva McGrath
2) Median line: A century of border violence and the alluvial geopolitics of the Evros/Meriç/Maritsa River border
Ifor Duncan,  Stefanos Levidis
3) Slow violence on the Yarmouk River: Encounters from the river-border environments
Muna Dajani
4) Migrating sands: Refocusing transboundary flows from water to sediment
C. R. Hackney
5) Crossing riverborderscapes and a view from in-between: Passenger ferries in South West England
Eva McGrath,  Richard Yarwood,  Nichola Harmer
6) Liquid lines: Exploring the Moselle River between France, Luxembourg and Germany
Rebekka Kanesu
7) Caring for the river-border: Struggles and opportunities along the Salween River-border
Vanessa Lamb A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with the names of papers in the issue. The papers are: 
1) On undevelopment and de-development: A geographical critique on perpetual growth and resource-based accumulation
Gertjan Wijburg
2) Place, institutional spatiality, and the localisation of financial calculative practices
Leqian Yu
3) Claim-making in hydrosocial spaces: The temporality of displacement around Kenya's Masinga Dam reservoir
Arne Rieber,  Benson Nyaga
4) Deliberative approaches to the climate crisis: Adapting Climathons for rural communities
Philippa Simmonds,  Damian Maye,  Julie Ingram,  Abigail Gardner,  Sofia Raseta
5) Ethnographic fingerprints: Examining co-participation, positionality, and interpersonal relationships in diary method
Julius Baker
6) A whole island approach to scoping renewable energy sites and yields
Ben Watt,  Robert L. Wilby
7) Past, present, future: The RGS-IBG political geography research group within British political geography
Daniel Hammett
8) Visualising an undergraduate geography field class using generative AI: Intent, expectations and surprises about the racial depiction of students
Terence Day,  James Esson
jonnydarling.bsky.social
A short piece from me looking at the politics of 'asylum hotels' in Britain and the challenges for government in finding alternatives @geogdurham.bsky.social
Reposted by Jonny Darling
naccomnetwork.bsky.social
This #RefugeeWeek, NACCOM and ‪@homelesslink.bsky.social‬ are sending a clear signal that the immigration and asylum systems are a direct cause of homelessness.

In our new blog, we outline our key recommendations to improve the move-on process.

Find out more:
Blog | This Refugee Week, the move-on period extension must be made permanent - NACCOM
The theme of Refugee Week 2025, which takes place between 16 – 22 June, is ‘Community as a Superpower’, reminding us that everyone, regardless of their immigration status, deserves a place to call…
naccom.org.uk