Jeni Mitchell

MEET THE CENTRE TEAM
Next up are @jenimitchell.bsky.social and @drtoddlandman.bsky.social!

Post-doctoral Research Associate in Slavery and War (Concepts and Laws)

Recruiting now! Our first postdocs in the new Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War, at King's College London.
www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/123845-...
www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/123566-...

Good piece from the author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps

A magazine cover featuring abstract art and the title “the war about everything in Sudan”.

Last month @theatlantic.com published an often problematic piece about the war in #Sudan called “the war about nothing”. This week @thecontinent.org swings back, reminding us that what is “nothing” to you is “everything” to someone else. The Continent is a free publication, subscribe to read.

303: Superwood Bulletproof, fire-resistant, stronger than steel. Plus, malaria vaccines get cheaper, global electricity access up, European air pollution down, genuine hope for coral reefs, and giant river otters re...

This week's good news:

Drones clean up Everest, another country eliminates malaria, Italy's homicide rate plummets, Ecuador and Peru protect more area, China quietly converts hundreds of coal mines into solar, first regulated psychedelic medicine for depression.

fixthenews.com/303-superwood/

Very grateful to have received this funding, and be part of a terrific team of scholars from the US and Australia seeking ways to transform relationships between space actors and Indigenous communities worldwide. White paper out early next year!

"Around the world, there is an endless number of big energy projects that have not only led to the grabbing of the land of many communities, but by doing so, are also violating and attacking their cultural rights and identity." Captured well here on the new Total/China pipeline, Uganda to Tanzania.

A global minimum tax on the ultrarich could change planetary politics. Right now South Africa, Chile, France, and Spain are pushing for it

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Successful spaceports need to work not just for rockets — but for people and places, too.
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Excited to share our latest paper on spaceport site selection, co-authored with the brilliant Karen L. Jones & Dr. Lindsay DeMarchi @ Aerospace Corporation + expert contributors from across the sector.
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"...the Parties shall launch and/or expand cooperation on...transparent, formalized end-to-end mineral value chains (from mine to processed metal) that link both countries, in partnership, as appropriate, with the U.S. government and U.S. investors." Minerals For Peace trend continues.

Sand, Snow, and Stardust A vivid tour of US military efforts to understand, survive, and command harsh environments worldwide—and beyond.   Deserts, the Arctic, outer space—these extreme environments are often seen as inhospi...

Looks like an interesting read, by Gretchen Heefner

'Even decades after the first manned space flight, plans for human space exploration and extraplanetary colonization are still based on what we know about stark habitats on Earth.'

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Placemarking with what I know is a wrong answer : ) Blackheath?

Agreed, especially on co-orbital ASATs. Not only unrealistic but difficult to square with UK's attempts to lead on PAROS and responsible behaviours in space.

May 2025 reads What I absolutely loved: Esperance x Adam Oyebanji Promises x Goretti Kyomuhendo Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas x Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o No Straight Road Takes You There: Essa…

May 2025 reads 💙📚 hararereview.wordpress.com/2025/06/01/m...

Ten alarm fire

Satellite data shed light on Russia’s modern-day gulags for Ukrainian children A Canadian-funded effort is tracking the movements of Ukrainian children taken during wartime

The Children’s Gulag.

How a Canadian-funded project is mapping Russia’s network of camps where abducted Ukrainian children are being held - and helping to bring some of them home.

My report

www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

Le grand invité Afrique - Jihadisme en Afrique de l'Ouest: dans la région, «il existe un risque d'effondrement d'un État» En cette année 2025, le péril jihadiste est en expansion dans les pays côtiers d'Afrique de l'Ouest, constate l'Institut de recherche stratégique (IRS), qui est basé en Côte d'Ivoire. Les groupes jiha...

The risk of state collapse in the Sahel is more real now than it has been since 2012, not just in one state, but several. While researchers may disagree on what the actual strategy at work for JNIM in particular is right now, the risk is incredibly high. www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/...

Revealed: UK Supermarket Seabass Linked to Devastating Overfishing in Senegal Waitrose, Co-op, Lidl, Asda and Aldi among retailers selling fish fed on west African catch

Just published in collaboration with The Guardian our two-year investigation linking Turkish seabass and seabream in UK supermarkets to devastating overfishing and social harms in Senegal!

www.desmog.com/2025/05/22/r...
With✍️ @hazelhealy.bsky.social on @desmog.bsky.social

Exciting times indeed. Get in touch if you have a monograph on astropolitics in mind! Thanks to @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social for getting behind the idea of an Astropolitics book series!

Seizing is easy, ruling is harder Months after seizing Goma, M23 is still struggling to control it. The city remains unstable due to widespread small arms and thousands of escaped inmates from Munzenze Prison

Four months after seizing Goma, the M23 coalition is still struggling to take control of this city of nearly two million people. The city is awash with small arms and the thousands of former prisoners who escaped from Munzenze Prison in the chaos of Goma’s fall to M23.

This has been rolled out in London for a few years as well, culminating in the first permanent LFRs in Croydon. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hoovering up the cake The latest edition of the Sunday Times Rich List raises some uncomfortable questions about how much wealth in the UK is created and how much is simply extracted

Hoovering up the cake: The latest edition of the Sunday Times Rich List raises some uncomfortable questions about how much wealth in the UK is created - and how much is simply extracted.

1.5m foreign workers already in UK could face longer wait for permanent settlement People who have moved to UK since 2020 may face extra five-year wait to stay indefinitely under Labour crackdown

Retrospectively applying immigration rules in bad faith can ruin lives, as we saw with the Windrush Scandal.

It would be totally irresponsible for the government to pull the rug out from under people who have worked, paid taxes and built their lives here.

White writing against a black background with gold swirls: British Academy/Cara/Leverhulme Researchers at Risk Research Support Grants. Deadline: 28 May 2025, 5pm. Leverhulme Trust logo

The Trust continues to support researchers at risk who have come to the UK from across the globe through a grant scheme delivered by @britishacademy.bsky.social and @cara1933.bsky.social.

Apply now: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/brit...

Even if one were to accept this argument, it ignores the fact that the UK version of 'great replacement' racism cites Bowling Alone in its pseudo-academic arguments. So it's still dog whistling.

It's also such a dog whistle to the 'low trust society' narratives that racists are always blathering about.

This, and also very offensive to those who have spent insane amounts of money and time complying with very strict rules and intimidation (literally called the 'hostile environment') and above all the Windrush generation threatened with deportation. Absolutely unreal.

Also references to “learning our language” ignores the fact that there are multiple indigenous languages across the UK…