Lauren Pikó

Damn I missed that drop! (I have been wearing their willy wagtail one lately as my grandmother loved them). Incidentally I think you complimented my Erstwilder Charlie Brown first time we met in person -- we are both deeply consistent 💕

On the misuse of Cultural Safety - Overland literary journal Since its original formulation and application in the health sector in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1980s, Cultural Safety has been subject to wide reinterpretation. Its entry into institutional life m...

A must read piece on the increasing misuse, watering down and co-opting of Cultural Safety - a First Nations designed health framework. overland.org.au/2026/02/on-t...

I have been hoping that one of the hipster resin jewellery companies that do native birds finally realises that there is a wattlebird market

Also, getting to hang out with Claude Rains and Peter Lorre every week is pretty much the dream

This sums up why I am now watching it unreasonably often, and also, why I am thinking about it all the times I am not watching it

ICYMI: Who Makes the Far Right?

@booklearning.bsky.social and I used membership application forms for the National Front of Australia (secretly copied by ASIO in 1980/1) to analyse who supported the far right in Australia in 1970s-80s.

Open access article!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Where did you get this picture of me reading ASIO data

being unblessed with your skills of being coherent and calm in the face of massive levels of nonsense, I have chosen a path of just yelling instead (much less constructive I fear)

Just saw that the link fell off that post, here's the full article:

Text reads "The above raises questions as to who medical records and heritage archives are for and how we can best engage with them. As disabled scholar and ‘institutional heckler’ Lauren Pikó has observed, traditional methods of archival research are simply inaccessible to many of us."

Further proving that the citations that are most personally significant are those that don't "count" conventionally, have just seen that a podcast episode featuring some guy I know was mentioned in a wonderful @royalhistsoc.org paper from last year:

It’s often assumed the far right recruits from ‘white working class’ and there’s surprise some have ‘normal’ middle class jobs. @booklearning.bsky.social and I looked at who applied to join an Australian far right group in 1970s-80s to test this assumption.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Thanks for sharing this. I have been (typically slowly) chipping away on something on historical knowledge produced by non-walking bodies, and this piece was refreshing in that it didn't lapse into the common walking-fetishism that does a real number on my blood pressure

Who Makes the Far Right? Exploring Membership Application Data of the National Front of Australia This paper addresses a problem for scholars examining the question of who supports far right political parties or movements. Due to the semi-clandestine or oppositional nature of far right groups, hi....

A long time in the making, @booklearning.bsky.social and I have published this article in AJPH on exploring the question of who joins far right political groups, using membership application forms for the National Front of Australia in the 1970s-80s. 🧵

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Who Makes the Far Right? Exploring Membership Application Data of the National Front of Australia This paper addresses a problem for scholars examining the question of who supports far right political parties or movements. Due to the semi-clandestine or oppositional nature of far right groups, hi....

New open access article by @evansmithhist.bsky.social and myself, looking at patterns in membership application data of the National Front of Australia:

Disabled and academic: a collaborative autoethnography on ableism and cruel optimism within Australian higher education Universities are celebrated as bastions of teaching, knowledge and research excellence, but they can pose risks to staff psychosocial safety and wellbeing. In Australia and elsewhere, we are increa...

Academic work is challenging & relentless, but how is it experienced by disabled scholars? How does structural ableism impact working lives? In this collaborative autoethnography, we (a group of disabled academics) share our experiences of working in higher education. doi.org/10.1080/0309...

This mad eme cry in a very good way Liz, thank you and your comrades for sharing so beautifully. Also even as much as I couldn't hang in there, I am glad you are still sticking it to them 💕

I fully endorse this approach, for whatever that's worth

Unexpectedly seeing your name on the feed amongst a stellar lineup rules.

My piece with @drdrehistorian.bsky.social in here is maybe frozen in 2021 in some ways but I will forever stand by the underlying principle that history as a discipline has a real problem with embodiment it won't face up to.

Coordinating the fountain pen to the drink is absolute next level class ❤️

A+ reference

Oh man, too real. If I look too deeply into the comparison of lapsed Catholicism / lapsed academia, my soul will truly implode

In job interviews I have also described myself as a "travelling salesman for qualitative research" which is only 20% tongue-in-cheek

In fancier contexts I use "independent scholar" as it's consistent with what journals want you to use as your affiliation, but I have been semi-jokingly using "recovering historian" in daily life

Solidarity, and I wholly agree -- it's been truly fascinating and very instructive to observe how people respond when they hear about my parents. The topic becomes a mirror where you see what behaviour people are prepared to accept, and how they define what's "normal".

This rules Liz! One I will absolute come back to

I also have something really nice to share, the first article from our hi vis workwear and workers project is out — a collaboration with Jesse Adams Stein and Bettina Frankham, all from the Faculty of Design & Society at @utsengage.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Yes, we are lucky to have small strange friends! Even regularly getting the shit scared out of me by a random tawny frogmouth who likes to hang out near my bins is a form of delight

Recent experience of an extremely loud flock of black cockatoos deciding in unison to interrupt a funeral; universally experienced by attendees as a heartening moment. Birds are little comrades even when screechy

The devil on my shoulder usually agrees! I think I'm probably tedious enough as it is though :)

Why prevent, or why mention? Tbh I think part of my brain is constantly scanning life for connection to my boy Tony*, but trying to practice not derailing unrelated conversations with non-academics

*I can only assume he is haunting me for calling him this