Simon Naylor

Cover of Occupied Refuge: Humanitarian Colonization and the Camp in Kenya by Hanno Brankamp. The cover features a black-and-white photograph of a refugee camp with small structures that have corrugated metal roofs. In the foreground, a dirt ground stretches across the image with people walking, sitting, and standing near a vehicle. A vertical yellow line runs from top to bottom, dividing the composition. The title and subtitle appear in white text on the left side of the cover, with the author's name at the bottom right.

In "Occupied Refuge," @hannobrankamp.bsky.social challenges the view of refugee camps as indispensable safe havens, showing that humanitarian missions often function as militarized occupations that treat camp inhabitants as colonized subjects. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/IwyWW8p

Call for papers!

We invite proposals for a special issue addressing historical animal geographies, co-edited by Karen M. Morin & Alice J. Hovorka.

Abstract deadline 15 Jan
Accepted submission deadline 15 Jun

Details here: sciencedirect.com/special-issue/327592/historical-animal-geographies

Cafe visit and writing time sounds terrific to me! I've had to make do with homemade coffee (and sourdough)

[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.] JANET: Ugh... LIZ: What's up? JANET: I am so bored of cooking peas! LIZ: Have you tried... AI peas? JANET: AI peas? LIZ: They're peas with AI! [Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI]. LIZ: Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas JANET: What LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines] Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas? [Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it] LIZ: Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine [Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas] LIZ: With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas! JANET: What LIZ: Shut up LIZ: Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow From opening the bag of peas to boiling the peas to eating the peas To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means. JANET: Is it really necessary to- LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]: THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET [Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan: AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas. [Ends]

Every ad now

I know Glaswegians keep some unusual pets, but I've never come across an aerial quadropus before! If you see Nipsy on your travels around the city, please let their owners know. 😀

#glasgow #glasgowhumour #streetart #scottishhumour #keepglasgowweird #findnipsy

Living and Working Along the Leen Explore historical archival photos and share your own memories, to examine how Nottingham River Leen's meaning for local residents has shifted over time.

Excited for our oral history event on ‘Living and Working Along the Leen’ on Thursday 13 November at UoN Lakeside Arts. Made possible by @royalhistsoc.org Scouloudi Public History funding.

Come along to share your memories of Nottingham’s River!
www.lakesidearts.org.uk/event/living...

Another great geography-themed gaming session in our Creative Impact Lab. This time we played Pandemic: Rising Tide. Apologies Dutch friends, we failed to stop the sea!

A group of students working with maps in UCL's not-so-forgotten map library

More students who have somehow found their way to the "forgotten" UCL map library I've been using for the last 25 years

Oh look! Students enthusiastically discussing maps as part of their first year core course! Where's this, you say? UCL Geography map library!

Goad maps, Booth maps, maps making a case for the EU as a rival to the US & USSR, maps galore at UCL Geography's map library - if only we knew how to find it! 🤔😭🫠

In the past week I've taught 200+ first-year students in the "forgotten", "lost" map library at @uclgeography.bsky.social with the help of some great PGTAs.

Imagine what we could do with this collection if we could only find it! 🤔

Looks amazing! What are you going to be playing??

Exciting list of speakers presenting in our Environmental History Research Seminar this term. If you happen to be in Dublin, come along. We'll meet on Mondays at 1 PM in the Trinity Long Room Hub #envhist

Thanks to @tlrhub.bsky.social for hosting us!
@historytcd.bsky.social
👇

It's been very wet here in Scotland over the weekend but beautifully sunny for my morning run into work today.

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library Click on the title to browse this issue

This is a great little collection in Transactions on 'worlding geography' and area studies... rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1... @rgs-ibghe.bsky.social

Not my game, I just like playing it and other @stonemaiergames.com! I am a Geography academic at Glasgow University and we're using games to encourage staff and students to think and talk about environmental issues.

Following @greenhouseuis.net @finnarne.me excellent example and played Finspan board game in our new Creative Impact Lab today @uofglasgow.bsky.social @stonemaiergames.com

On strike again.

We’ve had to do this for so long that our primary school kids who joined us on snow day picket lines are now students themselves.

Utterly ridiculous way to run a university.

Super proud of this research group! HGRG at the International Conference of Historical Geographers in China!
Next stop of the ICHG will be Rio de Janeiro in 2028, save the date 🗓️🌎

No RGS action then Innes?

Scotland's first skatepark to be dug up by archaeologists A University of Glasgow team will undertake excavation and survey work at the former Kelvin Wheelies park.

On the archaeology of Scottish skateboarding.

Here we go: the first session of our „energy transition & energyscapes” organised by @melinabuns.bsky.social & @dudleymarianna.bsky.social .
#ESEH2025 #EnergyHistory #EnvHist
Really excited about this.

Metropolitan Science Exploring distinctive practices in the artisanal, mercantile, and governmental sites of London, Metropolitan Science offers a new perspective on the development…

I just noticed that Metropolitan Science will be out in paperback - exciting news! Not available until next year, but can be pre-ordered for a relatively affordable £26.09 @jasminekt.bsky.social www.bloomsbury.com/uk/metropoli... #earlymodern #histSTM 🗃️

Beautiful plan of the proposed Forth & Clyde Canal in John Smeaton's 1767 Report to the Trustees for Fisheries, Manufactures and Improvements in Scotland.

Vol. 88 is out!

It is our 50th anniversary issue, and includes a special issue on ‘Archives as Worldmaking’ edited by @jakehodder.bsky.social and @snehakrishnan.bsky.social

sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-historical-geography/vol/88/suppl/C

Take a look at the contents below 🧵

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UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

PhD Studentship at Legacies of British Slavery Centre: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Crofters and cottars and lairds, oh my!

Co-organising this conference in July. Sign up to the mailing list for updates here ➡️ eepurl.com/i-Zqf2

yikes!

Lovely map of canals and their catchment basins from the 1907 Royal Commission on canals and navigable rivers

Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility is extraordinary. Partly set on Vancouver Island (partly on the Moon!) and I picked it up and read it while visiting the west coast a couple years ago.

who wouldn't want to be an attic genius?

We are running a 1-day workshop on historical geographies / environmental histories of water knowledge on Thursday 15 May. If you would like to attend online and haven't already signed up please contact me using the Contact link on the webpage: www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/...