Jonathan Harris

📘 New book out: rethinking how diplomacy is learned

Diplomatic Training: Histories, Geographies, Politics brings together voices from across the world to examine how diplomatic training shapes international relations, and who it includes.

Read more here: academy.unpo.org/diplomatic-t...

Hello historians - there is a specific purpose role now advertised in UL’s history department - Title of Post: Assistant Professor in Irish History (specialism History of the Family) - all details are over on UL vacancies! Do share! #jobsky #skystorians #speirgorm #speirghorm

Three footballers walk into a stadium What the presence of an unlikely trio of football icons at AFCON tells us about migration, African identity, and the histories that continue to shape the modern game

Excellent short piece off the back of #Algeria’s AFCON match today focused on the net positive impact of Franco-Algerian migration on football: africasacountry.com/2025/12/thre...

Israel recognises Somaliland as independent state, Netanyahu says The decision has been condemned by Somalia, Egypt, Turkey and Djibouti, who call it a dangerous precedent.

Israel recognises Somaliland as independent state, Netanyahu says

Le MAK annonce l’indépendance de la Kabylie à Paris Dimanche 14 décembre, le Mouvement pour l’autodétermination de la Kabylie a tenu, dans la capitale française, une « cérémonie de déclaration d’indépendance » et dénoncé la violence d’Alger à quiconque...

Detractors make every attempt to ignore them, but the Kabyle self-determination movement demonstrates its enduring appeal - particularly in and through diaspora. Markers of nationhood - the flag, the anthem, the president - are part of an effective #diaspora #diplomacy
www.lemonde.fr/afrique/arti...

🚨 FIFA just awarded its newly created “Peace Prize” to U.S. President Donald Trump, without any criteria or transparency on the selection process – and against a backdrop of escalating attacks on human rights and civil freedoms in the U.S.

Learn more: sportandrightsalliance.org/world-cup-20...

An excellent way to frame a debate of this kind! I’ve got my hands on the book, to read as I take my almost daily cross-border train… 🤓

Happy Friday 😊 The new issue of Diplomatica (Brill) has been published - with a diverse forum of scholars responding to "Provincializing ‘New’ Diplomatic History: An Interdisciplinary Manifesto", published earlier this year. Chuffed to have been asked to participate!

brill.com/view/journal...

Now there's some product placement I can get behind

I’m very excited that years of work with Dorry Noyes (@mershoncenter.bsky.social) and a fantastic group of friends and colleagues finally resulted in this, I think, rather beautiful object. The Global Politics of Exemplarity! @normativeorders.bsky.social @prif.org @brisunipress.bsky.social 1/4

NI parents caught in UK crackdown lose child benefit after travelling via Dublin Exclusive: new anti-fraud system fails to account for fact many return to country via airport in Irish capital

Yet another example of Brexit Britain forgetting Northern Ireland - and complex border arrangements www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Everyday Diplomats – Simple Book Publishing Around the world, movements in support of East Timor (Timor-Leste) during the 24-year Indonesian occupation made a diplomatic difference. This book tells some of their stories.

Solidarity activists with Timor-Leste (East Timor) during the period of Indonesian military occupation (1975-99) were involved in a form of diplomacy. It was messy and often loud. Yet the movement often proved influential in shaping both government and Timorese actions. New open access book 👇

Late in the day, but Francesco Ventura and I are seeking participants in a paper session on #diaspora #diplomacy for next year's @geographers.bsky.social #AAG2026 in San Francisco. See call for papers here - deadline 28th October:

Understanding social and spatial patterns of overcrowding in England and Wales By Rory Coulter, University College London One of the few things that Britain’s political parties agree is that the country faces a housing crisis. One sign of this is overcrowding, where people li…

Who is most at risk from overcrowding in the UK?

Rory Coulter (@uclgeography.bsky.social) explores the answers in a new Geography Directions blog post.

Check it out here👇
https://blog.geographydirections.com/2025/10/09/understanding-social-and-spatial-patterns-of-overcrowding-in-england-and-wales/

#HouseofGuinness

Who was the real Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness? More than a brewer, he was a major figure in 19th-century Dublin. His funeral, which opens House of Guinness on Netflix, was one of the city’s largest, with 500 employees and 239 private carriages.

📣We're pleased to launch this year's PolGRG Book Prize!
The winning book will also be the subject of an Authors meets Critics session at the annual RGS-IBG meeting (2026).

Deadline 19 December. Full details available here:
polgrg.wordpress.com/2025/10/07/c...

#bookprize #polgrg #award

Historians (and geographers) of diplomacy: you might be interested in this article (with @drruthcraggs.bsky.social and Fiona McConnell) as part of an Itinerario special issue on 'Late Colonialism'. We explore tensions in training Ghana's first diplomats in 1957.
www.doi.org/10.1017/S0165115325100144

Announcing the results of the Political Geography Research Group 2025 Undergraduate Dissertation Prize! Outcome 2025 PolGRG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize The panel of the 2025 PolGRG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize (Alexander Manby, Anil, Sindhwani, Öznur Yardımcı, Semra Akay, Shawn Bodden) is de…

📣 We’re thrilled to announce that Caleb Tan (UCL) is the winner of the 2025 UG Dissertation Prize for ‘Third space or territorial trap: citizenship and conscription in Singapore’! Congratulations!👏
#PolGRG #prize #education #HE

Read about all the finalists on our website 👇

Prof Claude Raffestin has died. RIP He taught me when I was an undergraduate in Geneva. A formidable force. More info on him here (happy to send pdf): Fall, J. J. (2012). Reading Claude Raffestin: Pathways for a Critical Biography. Env. & Plan. D, 30(1), 173-189.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/...

The defunct railway network - Belfast and County Railway. All but the line between Belfast and Bangor was closed in the 1950s, although some of it has been restored near Downpatrick by a heritage line, the Downpatrick and County Down Railway.

#CountyDown
#SpéirGhorm

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library The aim of this intervention is to respond to the provocation of how different worlds and regions are imagined from the non-west. To do this from the vantage point of Egypt, I start with the specific....

"Egypt's geographical tradition: The post-independence moment and shifting regional imaginations " a short intervention, part of a set, out and open access in case of use.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, UN commission of inquiry says The panel finds that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out against Palestinians during the war.

"Killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births"

This is the daily horror being inflicted on Palestinians through this war, and arguably long before it.

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

I’ve researched the politics of flags in Northern Ireland for decades – here’s what England needs to understand I’ve contributed to at least six reports assessing the tensions around flags.

Identity, patriotism, symbolism
@domsball.bsky.social placing flags in context
@theconversation.com
theconversation.com/ive-research...

🚨JOB Alert🚨 We are looking for another postdoctoral researcher to cover the history of veterans in the British colonies of Southern and/or East Africa in the interwar period. 24 month contract, deadline October 03. Please share widely. universityvacancies.com/maynooth-uni...

UK’s largest lake faces environmental crisis as rescue plans stall Toxic algae cases in Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh have tripled since last year, as local fishers’ incomes plummet

Lough Neagh and its system of peripheral waterways on course to record worst year of algal blooms to date.

While rescue plans for Ireland's largest inland waterbody stall, the fallout from this pollution crisis deepens.

My story in today's @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change. Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.

“Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces.

Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself.”

Leadership, strategy, real action, common sense. #Paris

A thoughtful and considered article; worth a read.

Donald Trump posted a pic of me by my tent. Then a bulldozer arrived DC's largest homeless encampment was destroyed after the president called for a crackdown. What happened to its residents?

"I have to play it by ear as I have no money. God has always come through, so I'll see what God sets up next"

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

This is an interesting, timely and helpful intervention from #geography colleagues 👆 immediately I'm drawn to query the scale and location of the 'community' in which candidates are supposed to be volunteering, as doing so in diaspora/religious settings so often risks the charge of 'not integrating'

I did this a couple of years ago and really benefitted from it! Great to get feedback but even better to read exciting new work from other ECRs before it’s published… 🤓🥰