Simon Fern

re: Bad Bunny Grammy win. I had "LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAiI" and "Una Velita" on the syllabus for the course I taught last summer. Perfect songs for talking about how interconnected ecology, social life, and health are - and how they're all affected by coloniality (in PR & Hawai'i).

This looks fantastic, looking forward to reading it!

It's been a long time coming. After several years of revisions, my book Emotional Filipinos is coming out on April 15th. Please share and retweet! It would really mean a lot to me. Preorder sales available here: ugapress.org/978082037545...

📆 Join us in London/ online next Tuesday to hear from people at the forefront of the fight against the criminalisation of migration and solidarity! With Seán Binder, @captainsupportuk.bsky.social, @vickytaylor.bsky.social and @hallamtuck.bsky.social.

Sign up ➡️ www.law.ox.ac.uk/content/even...

Depending on how the post-PhD job hunt goes, I might well see if we can convert the barn into a live music bar - we've got a real shortage of venues in rural Wales. I'll invite the black metal band 'Agriculture' to play the opening night!

(corrigendum - the kitten lives in a /barn/ not a bar.)

Photograph of a black kitten on a white blanket under the red light of a heat lamp.

If you've written a book proposal for an academic press in #sociology or #anthropology, I'd really appreciate reading it. I'm (tentatively) thinking of projects and how to phrase them. Thank you!

(to grab your attention as you scroll, here's a pic of the feral kitten that lives in my parents' bar)

Submitted my dissertation to the university repository as 210 x 297mm (A4) page size rather than the specified 215.9 x 279.4mm (Letter) as a final act of rebellion.

There's a handful of us who 'patrol' for stuff like this, occasionally there'll be an investigation into suspicious accounts or patterns of editing. Often, it's obvious because of the material injected into articles. I find 'entrepreneurs', creative artists, and academics doing it quite commonly.

Wiki is full of (vain) people who either edit articles about themselves (to add positive + remove negative material) or hire others to do it. When editors notice it, we flag articles with a conflict of interest notice, a tag for being promotional, or (with strong enough suspicion) a tag like this.

Image shows a stack of books. The books are the following list. The Arcana of Reproduction by Leopoldina Fortunati; One-way Street by Walter Benjamin; An Anthology by Simone Weil; The Storyteller by Walter Benjamin; Poetics of Relation by Édouard Glissant; Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag; Pirate Enlightenment by David Graeber; Society Must be Defended by Michel Foucault; A Grammar of Multitudes by Paolo Virno.

Just got home to this exciting little stack of books I ordered from @argonautbooks.bsky.social (using up what was left of my research funds 😎). I haven't lived in Edinburgh for a while now, but the magic of the internet means you can still support your "local" independent stores at a distance!

14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.

Every time I read a study and I wonder "why don't they mention the country/context of this research? So confusing!" I then realize it's because the authors are from the U.S.

Image shows a cake and pictures of people's faces looking happy. Center of image shows a dissertation front page, the title reads: "Immigrant experiences of healthcare and medical practice in Spain: concerning harm in sexual and reproductive healthcare, the accumulation of advantage and reinterpretation of care, and coloniality as a determinant of health".

I passed my defense yesterday, no corrections/revisions. My PhD was about immigrant experiences with healthcare and medical practice in Spain, as approached through different angles/positions, and rooted in medical #sociology / #STS work. Grateful to the *many* people who've helped along the way.

Revisiting some Foucault atm. Crazy how YouTube explainer videos used to be useful for getting an intro or refresher for complicated ideas and now it's just endless AI slop being generated for easy views/ad revenue.

A local chapter of Food Not Bombs in Bacolod City (Negros island, Philippines) is providing relief through a community kitchen, medicine, and hygiene kits following the devastating impact of typhoon Tino.

You can donate via PayPal at: foodnotbombsasia@myyahoo.com

If you have seen a pregnant, postpartum, or lactating woman in immigration custody, please let the Women's Refugee Commission know by submitting a report through the Detention Pregnancy Tracker.

detentionpregnancytracker.com

🚨🚨 My dear friend and fellow academic, the Palestinian American sociologist @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social has been taken by the Cook County Sheriff near Chicago. They have not mirandized her. Please signal boost. All eyes on Broadview for Eman and the community she was defending 🚨🚨

Lovely few days at the British Sociological Association's medical sociology conference. Wonderful range of presentations and such a supportive space.

I shared some recent work about experiences of care and bordering, based on interviews with immigrant mothers in Catalonia (Spain). #MedSoc25

The Anthropology Brown Bag Calendar is up!

Join us this fall semester and listen to our favorite anthropologists in our favorite room, Sewall 570.

Links and descriptions will be provided before each meeting. Stay tuned! ✨

I got my mum a wildlife camera for her 60th, and now I get to enjoy a live feed of our local hedgehogs crunching kibble.

Some wisdom from a diss' interviewee: "I don't know, at the moment, like, just be nice or something. Because recently, I've been feeling like, being kind is really important. Even when somebody's mean towards you. I feel like the energy that being kind radiates is better. And, like, more positive."

Call for applications: 12-month postdoctoral contract (Sciences Po - INED, TIERED Project) for a research project studying the mediating role of environmental risks in the relationship between migration status and health at birth in France (e.g., heat, pollution). www.sciencespo.fr/cris/files/P...

I <3 library - "walk around the stacks and grab whatever looks good" is a valid literature review strategy.

Writing in the library atm, a new student and his grandma were looking around the reading room I'm in. They had got a bit lost and thought this was everything. I showed them to the central stacks and grandma's face lit up at the sight of all the books. I love libraries so much, they're magical.

🚨 Call for Papers for the 2026 IMISCOE Spring Conference
“Governing and Experiencing Migration in Contentious Times”

📅 16-18 March 2026 @ Liège, Belgium & Online

📢 Deadline: 5 September 2025, 23:59 CEST.

📍 More info & submission: www.imiscoe.org/events/2393-...

🏆 SKAT #ASA2025 Awards! Congratulations to the following recipients:

Hacker-Mullins Student Paper Award

Xiaogao Zhou: “Care in transition: Global norms, transnational adaptation, and family-centered gender-affirming care in China”

🔗: doi.org/10.1016/j.so...

I committed to not overfilling my single underseat bag with hoarded books at the conference this year. I failed in that commitment. So here are the six books I picked up in Chicago, from #ASA2025 and @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social

This store in Chinatown also has some premium alternative lanyards available if you're bored of the standard issue ASA black string + transparent wallet.

At the most elite roundtable at this conference rn #ASA2025