Prof Katherine Brickell

Shein fined €1m in Italy for misleading environmental claims about products Chinese fast fashion retailer penalised month after €40m fine from French regulator in July

#FastFashion - costing the earth: Shein fined in France and now Italy. So are they saying different things in the UK?

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

UK academics studying topics sensitive to China face harassment, survey finds Exclusive: University staff report facing pressure to change teaching and are told that Chinese surveillance is rife Academics and students of Chinese studies in Britain are being subject to harassment, surveillance and pressure to self-censor as they seek to avoid disruption to funding, a survey of universities by a transparency group has concluded. The findings by UK-China Transparency coincide with new government guidance stating that universities may be breaching rules by having partnerships with foreign governments that require academic staff to pass ideological tests – for example, by hosting Confucius Institutes. Continue reading...

UK academics studying topics sensitive to China face harassment, survey finds

The problem is far bigger than Jeffrey Epstein | Rebecca Solnit Treating the scandal as an aberration misunderstands the global epidemic of violence against women

"One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like these are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society."

Also see the UK for details…

The logic behind the deregulation push by Rachel Reeves is flawed The precedents for liberalising rules in finance do not augur well

Reeves seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the past on.ft.com/46zAI4R The logic behind the deregulation push by Rachel Reeves is flawed

Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’ Common Wealth report calls discounted sales of council homes one of the ‘largest giveaways in UK history’ Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme has cost UK taxpayers almost £200bn, according to a report into the policy’s contribution to Britain’s housing crisis. In its report into the sale of millions of council homes to their tenants at steep discounts since 1980, the Common Wealth thinktank said the policy had fuelled vast shortages in social housing and turbocharged inequality. Continue reading...

Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’

Understanding HE as a collective social, cultural and economic good, less wealthy countries in Europe and beyond do not charge students eyewatering amounts like we do and properly fund their degrees. We could abolish "tuition fees" if we wished.

3 year Research Associate post working on evaluation of #CommunityWealthBuilding working with me @uofglasgow.bsky.social and colleagues from @glasgowcaledonian.bsky.social and Lancaster: www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...

Rats, mould and dangerous overcrowding - inside illegal house-shares Black-market rental properties are being openly advertised with unsafe conditions, BBC finds.

Rats, mould and dangerous overcrowding - inside illegal house-shares hiding in plain sight

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

We are looking for a Senior Manager for our Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life @leverhulmecal.bsky.social A key person in our team & a future valued colleague. Apply here durham.taleo.net/careersectio... & feel free to DM me. Also look out for our October research fellows posts.

Former magistrate, 81, faces six months in jail for Pales... Cornish pensioner arrested at Truro cathedral falls foul of government’s labelling of direct action group as a terrorist organisation

This remarkable woman has very successfully shown what a mockery our steadfastly and quite far right wing Labour government has become. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

In a Country Trump Says Nobody’s Heard Of, Tariffs Bring Chaos President Trump promised Africa that trade would replace aid, but in one of the world’s poorest countries his administration is slashing both.

Lesotho’s government declared a state of disaster in July as Trump’s looming tariffs devastated the country’s textile industry. www.wsj.com/world/africa...

A historic black and white photograph of the 'Harriman' glacier with mountains in the distance.

New in Transactions:

'Edward Curtis & the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899: Thinking beyond the portrait for land and landscape' by @sprucehen.bsky.social

This paper analyses the career of photographer Edward Curtis & his relationship with naturalist George Bird Grinnell

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library This paper explores how demographic change associated with age is a factor in the process of the ethnic diversification of neighbourhoods in England and Wales. Using Census data from 2001, 2011 and 2...

#OA in Transactions:

'The age of diversity: The neighbourhood demographic structure of ethnic groups in England and Wales, 2001-2021' by Richard Wright et al.

This paper explores how demographic change associated with age is a factor in the process of ethnic diversification
doi.org/10.1111/tran...

America's Homeless Workers w/ Brian Goldstone | Majority Report YouTube video by The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder

I joined @majorityreport.bsky.social to talk about housing, homelessness, and how millions of Americans have been abandoned to an economic system that not only militates against their security, but actively profits off their precarity:

Tens of thousands at risk of poverty despite Labour’s benefit U-turn, MPs warn Changes to welfare reforms not enough to protect newly sick and disabled people from financial hardship

Govt dropped cuts to PIP, but today's Committee report highlights MPs' concerns that many disabled people will be pushed into poverty by remaining cuts to Universal Credit's health element. In evidence to the inquiry I warned of the hardship this will cause. 1/5

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Help wanted: Reeves seeks heavyweight economic advisers as budget looms Chancellor under pressure to recruit new experts as John Van Reenen and Anna Valero return to academia

I can offer suggestions - @kateraworth.bsky.social @annpettifor.bsky.social @dhnnjyn.bsky.social @timjackson.org.uk

New ideas instead more of the old failed ones of #austerity and making the disabled, ill and young pay as the have-yachts coin it

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

What happens when your mum goes to prison? In the UK, more than half of women in prison are mothers. For their children, the consequences can be profound.

We’ve been working with BBC Ideas on a series of short films that are based on research we have supported. The latest episode ‘'What happens when your mum goes to prison?' features Dr Shona Minson, who was awarded an ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize in 2019. Watch here: www.bbc.co.uk/videos/c4g81...

a map without guarantees: Stuart Hall and Palestinian geographies - Stuart Hall Foundation I write a theoretical diary, informed by Stuart Hall’s writings.

Hashem Abushama's nuanced and beautifully written essay on countermapping Palestinian geographies. www.stuarthallfoundation.org/resource/a-m...

For a Critical Logistics of Eviction: Producing Property Through Mobility in Cape Town Understanding eviction as a positioning of bodies and loss in a property relation, I argue a critical logistical reading may offer a means of describing the capacity to evict within the economic, rac...

Great new paper from Alex Baker in Antipode

“For a Critical Logistics of Eviction: Producing Property Through Mobility in Cape Town”

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

Affordable Housing, Financialization and Urban Statecraft - Global Development Institute Blog A lecture by Tom Gillespie at Cornell AAP explores the scale of the 21st-century urban housing challenge.

Earlier this month, GDI's Tom Gillespie delivered a lecture at @cornellaap.bsky.social exploring the scale of the 21st-century urban housing challenge.

Learn more and watch the lecture here: blog.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/affordable-h...

Number of households in England in temporary accommodation hits new record high Some 2,300 households with children had been living in B&Bs for more than six weeks as of March 31.

Number of households in England in temporary accommodation hits new record high

The number of children in temporary accommodation stood at 169,050 in March, up year on year from 151,540 and also the highest since records began in 1998.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

🔇We are currently working on a proposal for a symposium to @ijurresearch.bsky.social - if you are a #geosky person and work around #dept or the #housing question, please consider to submit something ⤵️

Water privatisation has been a complete & utter failure.

It is absurd that the government's report into the water industry didn't even consider public ownership.

That's not a report. That's a political broadcast for the private sector.

Put water back into public hands, now.

Influential women urge Labour to include asylum seekers in plan to tackle violence Exclusive: Letter warns of ‘two-tier’ system if asylum seekers are excluded from promise to halve violence against women and girls

Women seeking asylum in Britain are sisters, not strangers.
If the government is serious about tackling violence against women, it should do more to protect refugee women.
Glad to sign this letter & grateful to all who signed @4refugeewomen.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

A rain garden staged at Cygnet Square, South Thamesmead - a landscaped green space between two buildings with sparsely planted trees in between other shrubs (some flowering) and rocks. Photo by Zuhri James.

#OpenAccess in Transactions

'Staged ecologies: Aesthetics, nature & infrastructure in the late-modern metropolis' by @zuhrijames.bsky.social

This paper examines the relationship between urban nature & landscape design within a £1.5 billion regeneration project in SE London.
doi.org/10.1111/tran...

Stoke-on-Trent councillors back calls for larger homes Stoke-on-Trent city councillors call on the authority to adopt government house sizing guidelines.

Another local authority has decided to adopt space standards: "even one square metre could make a difference to young parents with a pram." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thank you!

📣 Call for Papers:
Debt Urbanism and the Housing Question

ℹ️ I'm putting together a symposium proposal to The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) with co-editors @sklosterkamp.bsky.social & Mel Nowicki

🗓️ Deadline for abstracts 22 August 2025

🏹 Please spread the word!

‘All those posh apartments. It’s a playground for the rich’: is Manchester turning into London? £6 a pint, £199 a month for gym membership, £1,200 to rent a studio flat? The Guardian’s former North of England editor asks if the city she’s worked in for 12 years is changing for the better – or wo...

Nothing about finance and big capital being attracted through favourable conditions in this piece, almost like the hyper-gentrification + transformation happened ‘naturally’ rather than a state-led strategy underpinned by embracing of neoliberal dogma

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...