Maria Fernandes-Jesus

Maria Fernandes-Jesus

@mfernandes-jesus.bsky.social

Assistant Professor, University of Sussex; Assoc Editor, JSPP & JCSAP; Researcher on climate justice, collective action, migration, youth climate activism, communities & social justice.

2,663 Followers 566 Following 5 Posts Joined Oct 2023
5 months ago
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BREAKING: Banner drop on Westminster Bridge ahead of the mass silent vigil taking place in Trafalgar Square today.

The banner says "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action"

As the genocide escalates in Gaza, and our rights to oppose it are under threat, we must resist.

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6 months ago
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
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6 months ago

Human rights orgs: Israel is committing genocide and using starvation as a method of war against Palestinians.

‘Foremost’ political-psych society: dialogue is the answer; we are concerned by the, ehm, suffering that has "transpired" mysteriously in the region.

Shame on the signatories.

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7 months ago
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Wildfires rage across southern Europe as temperatures pass 40C The heatwave has led to red alerts being issued in parts of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans.

Absolutely devastating but no longer headline news…
www.bbc.com/news/article...

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8 months ago
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Starving, then shot. There is no longer hope for us Palestinians | Esraa Abo Qamar The UN aid system for Gaza was safe and dignified. Today we’re humiliated or hurt by those tasked with helping us, says Gaza-based writer Esraa Abu Qamar

"In Gaza, hunger has been used as a weapon of war since the beginning of the genocide to weaken and control..."

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8 months ago
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America’s descent into the suppression of dissent Tracking the Trump administration's actions across four domains of suppressing dissent.

My latest post charting the erosion of free dissent in the US

open.substack.com/pub/christin...

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8 months ago

"You can cut the branches
of the tree of liberty,
but you can’t destroy the roots
because they are too strong
and too many.”

-Toussaint L'Ouverture

#NoKings

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9 months ago
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Three members of the Madleen team—Pascal Maurieras, Yanis Mhamdi, and Marco van Rennes—are still illegally detained by Israel and may be held for another month.

Arrested unlawfully in international waters and denied basic rights,

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8 months ago

"So how is the "transfer" being carried out at this moment? Through starvation and the destruction of vital infrastructure. Through the weaponization of “humanitarian aid.” Through relentless, systematic bombing."

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9 months ago

Israeli forces have killed more than 120 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours...

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9 months ago
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🚨ALERT🚨

Thiago Ávila and Rima Hassan are now held in solitary confinement under punitive and inhumane conditions:

Thiago was placed in isolation in Ayalon Prison due to his ongoing hunger and thirst strike, which he began two days ago.

...2/

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9 months ago
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SOS! the volunteers on 'Madleen' have been kidnapped by Israeli forces.

Thiago Avila is a citizen of Brazil. Thiago Ávila, has been kidnapped by the Israeli military.

The Brazilian government must protect their citizen!

...2/

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9 months ago
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Greta Thunberg. Clear as ever.

www.democracynow.org/2025/6/4/gre...

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9 months ago
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Israeli Military Attacks Madleen in International Waters — Weeks After Bombing of Conscience - Freedom Flotilla FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: FFC Press Officer Hay Sha Wiyamedia@freedomflotilla.org WhatsApp: +1 210-834-8155 Submit interview requests here:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc7r5Wy2glAJI8g...

Israeli Military Attacks Madleen in International Waters.

freedomflotilla.org/2025/06/09/i...

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9 months ago
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Vacancy — PhD Position "Visual Politics and the Emergence of Angry Publics" Are you curious about how images, videos, and memes transform political communication? Are you passionate about digital technology and the future of democracy? Then apply for this PhD project focused ...

🚨 PhD position in Political Communication at @ascor.bsky.social 🚨

Come work with @ulrikeklinger.bsky.social @lindabos.bsky.social and myself on a 4-year project about visual communication & political anger

DL June 4 - Thanks to repost for diversity! 🔥

@polcomm.bsky.social

➡️ tinyurl.com/8yvbkwxu

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10 months ago

Climate research doesn't fuel climate anxiety. Failure to act on climate change does. Canceling climate research will undoubtedly fuel climate anxiety among young people as well as adults. Great article here. 🔥

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10 months ago

New article on young people's political agency in the context of climate change

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1 year ago

Criminalisation of protest is severe in the UK but as this new report highlights, repression of #climate and #environment activism is a global story
@michelforst.bsky.social @ruthchambers.bsky.social
#EnvironmentalJustice
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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1 year ago

Youth studies starter pack! A work in progress - please send suggestions (and feel free to nominate yourself)

I miss our youth studies chat on the other place.... here we go! 💥

go.bsky.app/DbniWGw

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1 year ago

Starter pack of social scientists working on climate/environment with a focus on justice-driven policy, behavior, & systems change. *Inclusive of early career scholars.* Recommendations welcome @carlietrott.bsky.social

[Collaboratively created; Additions ≠ endorsement.]

go.bsky.app/6yrkE6C

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