Jonny Darling

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

📢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...

03.10.2025 10:22 — 👍 5    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 0

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.

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/...

18.09.2025 08:53 — 👍 18    🔁 10    💬 0    📌 0

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.

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

17.09.2025 15:44 — 👍 5    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Read @jonnydarling.bsky.social's latest thoughts on #asylum housing, from @theconversation.com
@geogdurham.bsky.social

16.09.2025 16:05 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

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.

Asylum housing needs to come back under public control.

12.09.2025 14:47 — 👍 5    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

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.

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...

12.09.2025 12:41 — 👍 7    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 1

Great stuff! Congratulations Jeremy!

02.09.2025 16:46 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

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’

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...

02.09.2025 10:40 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library When a positive decision is granted on an asylum claim, a new refugee has limited time before their existing government support (housing, finance) terminates. This transition between legal is various...

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Really happy to see this out "Theorising legal gaps geographically: Exploring the transition from asylum seeker to refugee in the UK"

19.08.2025 18:09 — 👍 15    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 0

Happy to share this piece on ethnography in political science:

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

18.08.2025 14:50 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

How the UK became dependent on asylum hotels Why hotel use has risen, and what it’s costing the UK.

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...

18.08.2025 13:26 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

AntiSocial - Asylum hotels - BBC Sounds Protestors outside asylum hotels say they fear for the safety of women and children.

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/...

18.08.2025 13:26 — 👍 5    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 0

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

07.07.2025 12:18 — 👍 13    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 1

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...

02.07.2025 13:01 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Read more from @jonnydarling.bsky.social on asylum hotels & carceral hospitality in his recently co-authored Transactions paper: doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

01.07.2025 10:00 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

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

📢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

30.06.2025 15:47 — 👍 19    🔁 8    💬 1    📌 2

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

01.07.2025 07:48 — 👍 9    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 1

The seagulls have landed: why gulls are encroaching on Britain’s towns Avian invaders have coastal communities in Britain and beyond in a flap – but people are learning how to live with them

Good to see Durham Geography's Helen F Wilson on urban kittiwakes and coexistence in today's Guardian! @geogdurham.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

21.06.2025 12:14 — 👍 15    🔁 7    💬 0    📌 2

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…

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:

19.06.2025 14:36 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0