1. Director’s Note

2. Upcoming ISRF Events

3. Fellows News

Director’s Note

You Can Get There From Here

Christopher Newfield

Discussions of radical change to our economic system eventually confront the use of force. No one in our March workshop, Redesigning Finance for Climate Justice (REDFIC), wanted our running theme of “Coercing Climate Finance” to lead to civil war. And yet at some point in any debate about, for example, how to transform credit policy to speed up decarbonisation, which would include a central bank making loans on petroleum investments unaffordable, someone would say, “This kind of thing always involves shooting people. They don’t give up their assets otherwise.”

Such comments produced some leery chuckling in the workshop. But no one let anticipations of crushing backlash from the financial sector steer the discussion. To project onto everyone, we generally wanted radical changes in today’s global financial system and also wanted them to come through democratic deliberation. The power of finance and the weakness of democracy make it hard to imagine this combination—the democratic redesign of finance. But that is the task.

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Book Launch: States of Transition: From Governing the Environment to Transforming Society

10th April 2026, 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm (BST). In person & online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

In States of Transition (CUP 2025), Peter Newell discusses the limits of today’s policies in ways that reveal their potential for much more powerful effects. While existing efforts at regulation are essential, they also support the same industries they seek to curtail, leaving needed transitions incomplete. He describes states as dynamic sites of continuous improvisation and struggle, with their prospects far more open and hopeful than we often assume.

Learn More and Register

Book Launch: The Matter of Architecture: Geology, Buildings and Us

3rd June 2026, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm (BST). In person & online.

Architectural Association Bookshop, London

In his important new book, The Matter of Architecture (Reaktion, 2026), Paul Dobraszczyk approaches geology as the architecture of our planet, arguing that what we build has always been dependent on what Earth has already made. Yet, what we produce now will also become the geology of the future: billions of tonnes of concrete, plastic, brick, metals and other fabricated materials that are quickly piling up to eventually become new geological strata.

More Information & Registration

Book Prize Shortlist: ‘Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-74.’ by Sandra Araújo

The Pol­ly Cor­ri­g­an Book Prize recognises scholarship within the realm of intelligence and security, written by women scholars and/or about women. Among this year’s shortlisted books is ISRF First Book Fellow Sandra Araújo’s book Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-74. Araújo’s book focuses on Muslim communities and their response to counterinsurgency and armed nationalism during the colonial war. Congratulations Sandra!

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New publication: ‘Neighbourhoods and the far right: What is to be done?’ by Ana Santamarina and Anthony Ince

This article builds upon an ongoing scholarly discussion on the far right, from everyday institutions that constrain or enable them to digital spaces. The authors argue that responding to the far right is not simply a question of subculture politics or particular moments of confrontation. Rather, an antifascist response should be practiced as a transversal political culture embedded in struggles over housing, belonging, care and everyday coexistence.

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New publication: ‘Confronting the dilemmas of humanitarian borderwork: NGO engagements with Australian offshore detention’ by Eleanor Davey

Examining Australian offshore detention in the Pacific, this paper explores the ethical and strategic challenges that humanitarian organisations face when navigating policies designed to deter unauthorised migration. Such policies foster dynamics that make sustained humanitarian support untenable and raise questions about the implications for organisations wishing to reduce the harms caused by deterrence measures.

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New publication: ‘More-than-human loss: Exploring the intersections of Indigeneity, conflict transitions and memory in Cambodia’ by Peter Manning and Duong Keo

There are many assumptions about Indigenous communities, memory and temporality that this article aims to complicate. Drawing on interview data from two Indigenous communities in Cambodia, the authors argue that memory is a central site for articulating Indigeneity through forms and claims of absence that specifically emerge from the remaking of the material and epistemic scaffolds of Indigenous life.

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Upcoming event: ‘Read the Ting: Sonic-visual literary clash’ hosted by UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment

Join Academic Advisory Board member, Joy White, with Elijah and Janine Francois for an exchange of theory and practice centred on Black music culture, world building and spatial imaginaries. Framed through sonic, social and spatial ecologies, this event explores how sound shapes community, memory and collective futures in East London.

Learn More and Register...

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competitions

3. Blog

4. Fellows News

5. Competitions 2026

Director’s Note

Coercing Climate Finance

Christopher Newfield

ISRF are starting the month with a workshop called “Redesigning Finance for Climate Justice.” It culminates the first year of finance seminars led by the economist Daniela Gabor.

Throughout we have been aware that we were fighting an uphill battle. For eight or nine years after the Paris climate accord was signed in December 2015, politicians felt a duty to take climate change seriously, at least in what they said. That period has come to an end.

Global finance hasn’t opposed the climate Great Retreat, pushed by the world’s most belligerent climate change denier, Donald Trump. His actions include the dismantling of green industrial policy in the U.S., a re-withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, and continuous lobbying against EU climate rules. He seems determined to use the rest of the U.S. carbon budget on military mayhem and murder. From all this, top executives and many national leaders understood that they could drop the mask and evade whatever climate commitments they didn’t like.

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Flexible Grants for Small Groups (FG12)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 13th March 2026

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

The Foundation intends to award on a competitive basis, to candidates of sufficient merit, a number of grants providing flexible support (for instance: relief from teaching and/or administration, research and travel expenses, fieldwork and practical work) for a period of (up to) one year for the activities of a small research group.

Further Information & Application

Pourquoi la mise en œuvre de la durabilité échoue souvent, même quand tout le monde est d’accord

Lucas Amaral, Juliane Reinecke, Michael Etter

Businesses looking to introduce sustainability initiatives face a range of challenges - from adjusting their institutional structures to changing individual behaviours. Lucas Amaral, Juliane Reinecke and Michael Etter examine how such issues reveal the ways in which sustainable practices take shape, are deployed, and transform on a daily basis.

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Sierra Leone’s harsh new laws to protect women and girls are causing harm in the wrong places

Luisa Schneider

Efforts to progress on gender equality in Sierra Leone have led to the passage of laws designed to protect women and children from gendered violence. Luisa T. Schneider argues that these reforms can actual harm young people and fail to reflect the social realities of marginalised communities.

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Call for Papers: ‘Markets as Infrastructures’ edited by Claudia Eggart and Hasan H. Karrar

This special issue approaches markets as infrastructures in order to examine how abstraction and materiality are not opposites but rather mutually sustained through social, technical, and political labour. The editors are particularly interested in contributions that connect long-term, in-depth, or participatory insights on market forms and practices to theoretical approaches in critical political economy, decolonial studies, and world system theory.

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New publication: ‘Non-Hegemony’ by Ilias Alami, Tom Chodor, Jack Taggart

Multilateralism continues to be challenged and dismantled as leading states take unilateral actions while ignoring traditional institutions and forums. This article traces the shift away from multilateralism to the crisis of the neoliberal order. In doing so, it explores the emergence of a non-hegemonic world and the strategies that states employ to pursue their interests within it.

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New publication: ‘Protein’ by Samantha King and Gavin Weedon

Protein has often been touted as the answer to a range of issues, from malnutrition to building muscle and exercise recovery. Its recognition as a star nutrient is not based on people’s dietary needs. Rather, it is shaped by political, social and ecological forces which influence how we understand food, health and our diets. Samantha King and Gavin Weedon unravel the myths surrounding protein and examine its enduring relevance in the cultural imagination.

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New publication: ‘Humanitarian frontiering: Competition, markets, and governance in refugee cash assistance programs’ by Lauren L. Martin and Hanna A. Ruszczyk

Distributing humanitarian aid through cash assistance programmes created two frontiers: a race to build digital infrastructure and crisis-specific negotiations between international NGOs, governments, banks, financial service providers and at times, displaced communities. Through the concept of humanitarian frontiering, this article examines how these market-driven interventions continually connect humanitarian and other economic regimes and encourage the accumulation of expertise and resources.

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12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 13th March 2026

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competitions

3. Bulletin

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2026

Director’s Note

The University Unruined

Christopher Newfield

What are the practical means by which academic staff can get direct control over budgets and programme planning?

The current situation is that their programmes can be closed and their posts removed at will by management. UK academics, and also tenured US faculty members, find their expertise dwelling on an inferior epistemic and political plane to that of senior managers. Professors are unable to enforce, legally or financially, their professional judgement within their own departments, and even less so in more general university policy.

Recovering professorial authority: this was January’s theme, which I mainly worked on at US campuses. I spent two very interesting weeks as the resident professor at Duke University’s Franklin Humanities Institute, and then spoke at Swarthmore College and Johns Hopkins University on my way to Santa Barbara for my mother’s 96^th birthday.

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Flexible Grants for Small Groups (FG12)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 13th March 2026

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

The Foundation intends to award on a competitive basis, to candidates of sufficient merit, a number of grants providing flexible support (for instance: relief from teaching and/or administration, research and travel expenses, fieldwork and practical work) for a period of (up to) one year for the activities of a small research group.

Further Information & Application

Counterpoints: Power and Its Discontents

Baindu Kallon

The latest edition of the Bulletin brings together contributions from a small group of fellows convened at a ISRF Congress in June 2025. Inspired by the concept of the counterpoint, this Bulletin challenges dominant discourses to offer more nuanced understanding of contemporary social, political, and cultural issues.

Featuring contributions from Margot Verdier, Anthony Pickles, Yasamin Alkhansa, Milan Babić, and Beatriz Aragón.

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On School History Textbooks

Yasamin Alkhansa

In this Bulletin contribution, Yasamin Alkhansa traces how governments attempt to rewrite history through school textbooks. While focused on Iran’s theocracy, Alkhansa warns that such practices are not restricted to authoritarian governments, but rather part of a growing global trend to impose historical narratives that reflect national interests.

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Iran protests have put the country’s political system on trial

Arash Beidollahkhani

The recent eruption of protests across Iran signal a significant challenge to the country’s ruling elite. Early Career Fellow, Arash Beidollahkhani, outlines the political, economic and social conditions that have led to this defiant call for change.

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New publication: ‘Childhood and Social Reproduction in Palestine: They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds’ by Mai Abu Moghli and Rachel Rosen

Social Reproduction Theory explores how the daily renewal of human life is integral to capitalism. This chapter uses the theory as a lens to look at Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian children in Gaza. In doing so, it aims to illustrate the brutality of Israel’s settler colonialism and its attempt to undermine Palestinian social reproduction at every turn.

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Podcast episode: ‘Spaces of Anticolonialism Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities’ Stephen Legg in conversation with Saumya Dadoo

Stephen Legg joins the New Books Network podcast for a discussion with host Saumya Dadoo on Legg’s most recent book. Spaces of Anticolonialism: Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities is the first book-length account of anticolonialism in Delhi, as the capital of Britain’s empire in India. It provides a bottom-up analysis of subaltern geographies and struggles, across Old and New Delhi, in dialogue with the elite spaces of the Indian National Congress to explore the dual cities as one interconnected, anti-colonial political landscape in the two decades before independence.

Tune In...

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 13th March 2026

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competitions

3. Blog

4. Fellows News

5. Competitions 2026

Director’s Note

AI and the Future of Human Learning

Christopher Newfield

I’ll remember AI in 2025 for three main developments: faltering use-cases, the investment bubble, and the learning crisis.

Now finally enjoying the dubious dawning of 2026, our research group, “Reframing AI,” is meeting this week to work on the relation between machine and human learning. So I’m starting my ISRF month with the question, what do we have to say about human learning that can help redirect machine learning towards enhancing human intelligence rather than threatening it?

Last year, research about the effects of chatbot uses of Large Language Models (LLMs) on cognition was more numerous than in previous years. The news was not good for people who don’t think intelligence should be offloaded to foundation models.

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Mid-Career Fellowship competition (MCF8)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 30th January 2026

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

Applicants will normally hold a full-time or part-time salaried position – which may be permanent or fixed-term – at an Institution of Higher Education and Research. Candidates should be more than 10 years post-PhD award at the time of application. The awards are intended to provide full relief from all teaching duties and all associated academic administration for a period of (up to) one year.

Further Information & Application

Flexible Grants for Small Groups (FG12)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 13th March 2026

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

The Foundation intends to award on a competitive basis, to candidates of sufficient merit, a number of grants providing flexible support (for instance: relief from teaching and/or administration, research and travel expenses, fieldwork and practical work) for a period of (up to) one year for the activities of a small research group.

Further Information & Application

Racism never went away – it simply changed shape

Lars Cornelissen

With the rise of the far right in the UK and increasing racist rhetoric, politicians have warned against the return of attitudes that had long disappeared from British society. Lars Cornelissen argues that this narrative is much more complex - racism has never left public life. Rather it has assumed different shapes across time.

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Cutting through the noise

Milan Babić

The most fundamental crisis of all – the breakdown of the biophysical conditions for modern human life – is continuing and accelerating. How can we not only cultivate our pessimism of the intellect, but also foster an optimism of the political will against all odds? In this Bulletin contribution, Milan Babić suggests three avenues that might help with this task.

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New publication: ‘What Happens When Borders Reopen? Dematerialising the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Boundary’ by Nick Megoran and Zalina Enikeeva

After many years, the border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan were re-opened in 2016 to promote trade, cooperation and movement between the two countries. This article, co-authored by ISRF Mid-Career Fellow Nick Megoran, explores the economic and political consequences of border dematerialisation.

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New publication: ‘Republics in the Commonwealth hiding under the Crown? A historical perspective’ by Manjeet Ramgotra

This blog post traces the transition across the British empire from Commonwealth Realms to republics. In doing so, Manjeet Ramgotra examines how the legacies of colonialism informed the question of republicanism as countries gained independence.

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8th Mid-Career Fellowship Competition (MCF8)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 30th January 2026

Scholars more than ten years post-PhD are eligible to apply for support to complete a one-year piece of original research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 13th March 2026

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competition

3. Upcoming ISRF Events

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2025

   

Director’s Note

Ducking and Facing the British University’s Great Contraction

Christopher Newfield

I was very pleased with our workshop, “Reconstructing the British University,” that ISRF held on 24-25 November in York. It was completely engaging from start to finish as we discussed our papers about our unhappy object of attention.

We reviewed work on the British university’s broken budget model, whose study has been led by James Brackley for the last eighteen months (see his paper with colleagues who were also in York). We talked about a dysfunctional managerialism defining the system. We reviewed material on staff stress and overwork under what often feels like management’s structural disrespect for academics, their knowledge, and their work. We analysed student struggles with tuition costs, debt, and adequate university investment in their studies.

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Mid-Career Fellowship competition (MCF8)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 30th January 2026

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

Applicants will normally hold a full-time or part-time salaried position – which may be permanent or fixed-term – at an Institution of Higher Education and Research. Candidates should be more than 10 years post-PhD award at the time of application. The awards are intended to provide full relief from all teaching duties and all associated academic administration for a period of (up to) one year.

Further Information & Application

Book Launch: Neoliberalism and Race, by Lars Cornelissen

Tuesday 9th December 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

University College London

Neoliberalism and Race uses historical methods to reconstruct neoliberal ideas of race and position them within the broader field of racist ideology. Using archival sources, Cornelissen identifies relationships between the neoliberal tradition and fascist race theory, the British Colonial Office, and the transnational eugenics movement, each of which markedly impacted neoliberalism’s trajectory.

This launch will be co-hosted with the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation.

More Information & Registration

The Politics in Political Gambling

Anthony Pickles

Fuelled by the ideology of political gambling as a pure form of intellectual brinksmanship, gambling interests gain access to the state via individuals on their way into power and profit from that continued association. In this Bulletin contribution, Anthony Pickles examines how gambling shapes the political landscape and corrupts politics in the UK and the US.

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States of transition? From Governing the Environment to Transforming Society

Peter Newell

States play a key role in facilitating the transition to a more sustainable world. However they are deeply embedded in contested social, political, cultural and economic systems. Peter Newell’s new book examines state power within broader social relations to explore the possibilities and challenges of building a ‘transition state’.

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COP30: Children and young people at climate talks: seen, photographed, but not allowed to decide anything

Florencia Paz Landeira, Alicia O’Sullivan, Aoife Daly and Katie Reid

The global youth climate justice movement uses protests, strikes and court cases to block fossil fuel expansion. But do they have any say in what their governments do to address climate change, or a voice at the annual COP climate change conferences, where the world’s leaders make important climate decisions?

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Why Is There So Much Research About Us Without Us?

Helen Kara and George Watts

While there is continued support for engaging ‘experts by experience’ in research, the stigma around neurodivergent people makes it difficult for them to be openly involved in the process. Helen Kara and George Watts outline why neurodivergent led research is essential to building trust in communities and affirming neurodivergent ways of being.

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New publication: ‘From predicting dissent to programming power; analyzing AI-driven authoritarian governance in the Middle East through TRIAD framework’ by Arash Beidollahkhani

This paper explores the adoption of AI driven technologies by authoritarian regimes in Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Using a novel analytical model, this paper examines how such tools enhance governance efficiency while simultaneously reinforcing political repression.

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Podcast episode: ‘Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India’ Deana Heath in conversation with New Books Network

ISRF Mid-Career Fellow, Deana Heath, joins podcast host Roland Clark for a conversation on Heath’s most recent book. Focusing on India between the early nineteenth century and the First World War, Colonial Terror explores the centrality of the torture of Indian bodies to the law-preserving violence of colonial rule and some of the ways in which extraordinary violence was embedded in the ordinary operation of colonial states.

Tune In

8th Mid-Career Fellowship Competition (MCF8)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 30th January 2026

Scholars more than ten years post-PhD are eligible to apply for support to complete a one-year piece of original research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching January 2026

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship Competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Application window closed on 31st October 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Upcoming ISRF Events

3. Blog

4. Fellows News

5. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

Labour’s White Paper Fails Higher Education

Christopher Newfield

The university’s core activities are teaching and research. UK universities lose two billion GBP a year on teaching UK students and over six billion GBP by conducting research (on about £18.5 billion in gross revenue, Table 5). This is because home fees have been frozen for years and thus deflated, and research funders cover in the aggregate only two thirds of the full costs of research. As a result, nearly half of UK universities projected deficits for 2024-25.

Rather than persuading government to fix these losses at their sources, universities sought to cover them with large margins on the high fees paid by overseas students, those migrants the British public loves to hate. This made up for half of the shortfalls. That, combined with “other (non-commercial) activities”, still left a deficit across all universities of over £2.3 billion in 2023-24, which has since likely gotten worse…

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Book Launch: Threads of Labour: Tapestry of an Ex-Industrial Community, by Lisa Taylor

Thursday 20th November 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

The Leeds Library

Charting a collaborative art-based project using carpet-making skills and the industrial heritage of the region, Threads of Labour investigates how a cleaved ex-industrial community used arts methodologies as a cohesion strategy. Drawing on images from the company's archives, the book mines the history of Firths Carpets Limited, a firm that carpeted interiors across the globe from the mid-1800s.

Learn More and Register Here

Book Launch: Neoliberalism and Race, by Lars Cornelissen

Tuesday 9th December 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

University College London

Neoliberalism and Race uses historical methods to reconstruct neoliberal ideas of race and position them within the broader field of racist ideology. Using archival sources, Cornelissen identifies relationships between the neoliberal tradition and fascist race theory, the British Colonial Office, and the transnational eugenics movement, each of which markedly impacted neoliberalism’s trajectory.

This launch will be co-hosted with the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation.

More Information & Registration

Against Improvement

Lorna Finlayson

As institutional leaders and politicians continue to pursue budget cuts to essential resources, language becomes a tool to mask their harmful impacts. Lorna Finlayson explores the subtleties of ‘improvements’, a political euphemism that indicates a change for the worse.

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Neoliberalism is Constitutively Racialised

Lars Cornelissen

In his new book, Neoliberalism and Race, Lars Cornelissen argues that the question of race has always preoccupied neoliberals, both as a theoretical and political issue. From colonialism to immigration, Cornelissen’s book explores how race has played a crucial function in the neoliberal worldview.

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Reimagining Victims’ Reparations: Building a Global Network for Grassroots Justice

Sandra Ríos Oyola, Matt Snell and Camilo Tamayo Gómez

As the field of transitional justice has grown, official reparations schemes have emerged to address victims of political violence, displacement and structural injustice. But what happens when the harms are irreparable, when the wounds inflicted are not just individual but collective, cultural, and historical?

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Launch: ‘Creating Inclusive Workplaces for Academics with Energy Limiting Conditions’ with Bethan Evans

Join ISRF Political Economy Fellow Bethan Evans for a launch event on guidance around systemic changes and individual adjustments to create more inclusive workplaces for academics with energy limiting conditions (ELC). The guidance is based on research exploring the dual problems of burnout and ableism in the UK neoliberal academy.

Register Here

New publication: ‘Win-Win-Win: Taxing wealth for fairness, revenue and growth’ by Martin O’Neill and Howard Reed

This report for the Fairness Foundation outlines the case for changing the UK’s approach to taxing wealth. Noting the negative impacts of rising wealth inequalities, it examines how an increase in taxes on wealth can help drive economic growth and raise much needed revenue.

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New Publication: ‘Public Order and the Internal Security Apparatus: Affective Tension Monitoring as Police Epistemology’ by Illan Rua Wall

The ‘tension monitoring’ system is used by police in the UK to predict and in turn prevent disorder from erupting. This article explores how the system aims to understand the affective life of communities, playing an integral role in police epistemology and securing civil order.

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New Publication: ‘States of Transition: From Governing the Environment to Transforming Society’ by Peter Newell

States play a key role in facilitating the transition to a more sustainable world. However states do more than govern - they are deeply embedded in contested social, political, cultural and economic systems. Newell’s new book examines state power within broader social relations to explore the possibilities and challenges of building a ‘transition state’.

Read More

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching January 2026

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Application window closed on 31st October 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competition

3. Upcoming ISRF Events

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

Towards Much Less Boring Economics

Christopher Newfield

Here’s an odd thing about Britain. All summer it marshalled rage against asylum-seekers. Anti-immigration was summer 2025’s big British social movement. It was the public face Britain showed the world. Then in September, Britain sent more than 100,000 people to the Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka “Tommy Robinson”) neofascist march in London. Yet at the same time, Britain was unable to get angry about failed economic policy, Labour’s or anyone else’s. There were no 100,000-person marches demanding that Labour fulfill its 2024 economic promises for green growth or 300,000 new homes or a restored NHS or any of the rest.

One reason that the British don’t rally for economics is the boring narrowness of the acceptable public discussion….

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Independent Scholar Fellowship competition (ISF11)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 31st October 2025

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support Independent Scholars to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

An ‘Independent Scholar’ is understood by the ISRF as someone pursuing research outside of an academic role, whether or not currently in employment, who is engaged in intellectual work of a nature and standard comparable to that of a professional academic scholar.

More Information & Application

Book Launch: Threads of Labour: Tapestry of an Ex-Industrial Community, by Lisa Taylor

Thursday 20th November 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

Venue TBC.

Charting a collaborative art-based project using carpet-making skills and the industrial heritage of the region, Threads of Labour investigates how a cleaved ex-industrial community used arts methodologies as a cohesion strategy. Drawing on images from the company's archives, the book mines the history of Firths Carpets Limited, a firm that carpeted interiors across the globe from the mid-1800s.

More Information

Book Launch: Neoliberalism and Race, by Lars Cornelissen

Tuesday 9th December 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

University College London

Neoliberalism and Race uses historical methods to reconstruct neoliberal ideas of race and position them within the broader field of racist ideology. Using archival sources, Cornelissen identifies relationships between the neoliberal tradition and fascist race theory, the British Colonial Office, and the transnational eugenics movement, each of which markedly impacted neoliberalism’s trajectory.

This launch will be co-hosted with the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation.

More Information & Registration

Early Career Fellowship Award Announcement

Adam Smith

The ISRF has announced funding for five researchers to spend a year away from teaching and administration responsibilities.

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Homelessness, fear of starvation and racism – destitute migrant mothers and their children on the reality of life in the UK

Rachel Rosen & Eve Dickson

Drawing on in-depth research with migrant mothers and children in the UK, Rachel Rosen & Eve Dickson reveal how bureaucratic exclusion produces long-term destitution - and raises urgent questions about social justice.

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New publication: ‘Positioning Zimbabwe in the climate change mitigation-adaptation discourse: exploring benefits, barriers and risks’ by Nelson Chanza & Eric Kushinga Makombe

This article centres the experiences of Zimbabwe within the debates of climate-resilient development. In particular, it examines how mitigation and adaption efforts align with national development goals.

Access Here

Media: ‘Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people’s personal data with Europol’ by Ludek Stavinoha, Apostolis Fotiadis & Lola Hierro

With colleagues, ISRF Mid Career Fellow Ludek Stavinoha published a major investigation in El Pais, Le Monde, and Solomon on the role of Frontex and Europol in the criminalisation of migrants and solidarity activists.

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Film Premiere: ‘Beekeeping at the end of times’ by Larisa Jašarević & Azra Jašarević

This film explores the impact of climate change on the honey ecologies of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the stories of Bosnian Muslim beekeepers. Connecting Sufi lessons, Islamic wisdoms and apocalyptic lore to the current ecological crisis, it offers ways of thinking and organising against “the end of times".

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Book Launch: ‘The Bonds of Freedom: Liberated Africans and the End of the Slave Trade’ by Jake Subryan Richards

Based on archival research across four continents, The Bonds of Freedom follows the journeys of people who were “liberated” through the maritime seizure of slave ships and then forced back into bondage between 1807 and 1880. The book examines their ongoing fight for freedom in the face of empire.

Register Here

Podcast Episode: ‘Are Summer Riots the ‘new normal’?’ hosted by ‘Talking About Race’

ISRF Mid Career Fellow Anthony Ince joined Kulvinder Nagre and Maya Goodfellow for a conversation on the ongoing anti-migrant protests in the UK. The ‘Talking About Race’ podcast, produced by Race on the Agenda, brings experts together to discuss issues facing Black and Global majority communities across the UK and beyond.

Tune In

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Now live: deadline 31 October 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

Apply Here

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching January 2026

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competition

3. Upcoming ISRF Events

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

How Do We Escape Today’s AI?

Christopher Newfield

Another of my perversely non-escapist beach reads this month was Karen Hao’s new book, The Empire of AI. You can tell she means the word “empire” literally from her subtitle, Inside the Reckless Race for Total Domination. Hao has written a superb work of deep reporting and reflection. By centring the story on OpenAI, she offers a systematic corrective to the sense of so-called “Artificial Intelligence” that you get from the breathless fluff and propaganda of our mediasphere.

The branch of computer programming mislabelled “artificial intelligence” has infiltrated all mainstream thinking about many domains—labour, capital investment, social development, and human consciousness itself. Hao has an engineering degree and broke some of the early stories about OpenAI while working for the MIT Technology Review and the Wall Street Journal. Yet these qualifications don’t quite explain her immunity to technology bullshit…

Read On...

Independent Scholar Fellowship competition (ISF11)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 31st October 2025

The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support Independent Scholars to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.

An ‘Independent Scholar’ is understood by the ISRF as someone pursuing research outside of an academic role, whether or not currently in employment, who is engaged in intellectual work of a nature and standard comparable to that of a professional academic scholar.

More Information & Application

Book Launch: Bordering Social Reproduction: Migrant Mothers and Children Making Lives in the Shadows, by Rachel Rosen and Eve Dickson

Thursday 25 September 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (BST). In person & online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

In their co-authored book Bordering Social Reproduction, former ISRF Fellow Rachel Rosen and Eve Dickson argue that while welfare bordering may operate quietly in the shadows, it is nonetheless a form of punitive exclusion from the means of life and central to the (re)production of the racialised nation state. It enforces immiseration and debt across generations, rendering the labour of everyday life grinding and relentless.

More Information & Registration

Book Launch: Threads of Labour: Tapestry of an Ex-Industrial Community, by Lisa Taylor

Thursday 20th November 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

Venue TBC.

Charting a collaborative art-based project using carpet-making skills and the industrial heritage of the region, Threads of Labour investigates how a cleaved ex-industrial community used arts methodologies as a cohesion strategy. Drawing on images from the company's archives, the book mines the history of Firths Carpets Limited, a firm that carpeted interiors across the globe from the mid-1800s.

More Information

Book Launch: Neoliberalism and Race, by Lars Cornelissen

Tuesday 9th December 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

University College London

Neoliberalism and Race uses historical methods to reconstruct neoliberal ideas of race and position them within the broader field of racist ideology. Using archival sources, Cornelissen identifies relationships between the neoliberal tradition and fascist race theory, the British Colonial Office, and the transnational eugenics movement, each of which markedly impacted neoliberalism’s trajectory.

This launch will be co-hosted with the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation.

More Information & Registration

Can higher education be a neurodivergent-affirming space without funding?

Helen Kara

How can academia and other sectors create enabling environments for neurodivergent people? Discussing the concept of neurodivergent-affirming spaces, Helen Kara argues that better understandings and practices can emerge through supporting the work of neurodivergent researchers themselves.

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Strategic Corruption: A Useful Concept or a Catch-All?

Tena Prelec

Drawing on insights from a recent ISRF-funded workshop, Tena Prelec reflects on the affordances and limits of the concept of 'strategic corruption'.

Read On...

From oil to cod – ISRF event explores what yesterday’s empires reveal about today’s wars

Adam Smith

An ISRF-hosted series of lectures on decolonisation sheds new light on contemporary conflicts.

Read On...

New publication: ‘Reproductive subsumption: Notes on the making of reproductive labour in capitalism’, by Elena Baglioni

This article explores how workers are differently formed in capitalism by focusing on how capitalism changes the relation between production and social reproduction and with what consequences for labour.

Access Here

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Now live: deadline 31 October 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

Apply Here

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching January 2026

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Upcoming ISRF Events

3. Blog

4. Fellows News

5. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

Why Democratic Communism Could Be the Answer to the Climate Emergency

Christopher Newfield

In this monthly Director’s Note, Christopher Newfield considers how democratic communism, grounded in ecological Marxism and democratic planning, could offer a compelling alternative to capitalist growth.

We can’t simply add more diverse voices to deliberation, but must plan a system that allows for deliberation about incommensurable goals that leads to a stable, mutually agreeable accommodation.

This is currently beyond the capabilities of humanity, as our 19th century stall-out suggests. We still aren’t ready to implement the ideas Neurath and Keynes came up with so many decades ago.

And yet a just economy and survivable world depends on developing these capabilities. The best way to get them is to build the processes in which these capabilities will be used.

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Book Launch: Bordering Social Reproduction: Migrant Mothers and Children Making Lives in the Shadows, by Rachel Rosen and Eve Dickson

Thursday 25 September 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (BST). In person & online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

Bordering Social Reproduction explores what happens when migrants subject to policies that seek to deny them the means of life nonetheless endeavour to make and sustain meaningful lives. Developing innovative theorisations of welfare bordering, the volume provides rich ethnographic insights into the everyday lives of destitute mothers and children who are denied mainstream welfare support in the United Kingdom due to their immigration status.

More Information

Book Launch: Threads of Labour: Tapestry of an Ex-Industrial Community, by Lisa Taylor

Thursday 20th November 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

Venue TBC.

Charting a collaborative art-based project using carpet-making skills and the industrial heritage of the region, the book investigates how a cleaved ex-industrial community used arts methodologies as a cohesion strategy. Drawing on images from the company's archives, the book mines the history of Firths Carpets Limited, a firm that carpeted interiors across the globe from the mid-1800s. Women's labour and tastes were business critical to the production and sale of Firths carpets. Drawing on the author's personal connection to the village, an ethnographic sensibility and novel research techniques, ex-worker responses to a village radically altered by ruination are explored. Ex-workers felt nostalgia for the dignity of work and a sense of homesickness in a village ghosted by industrial spectres of the past. Threads of Labour argues that left-behind deindustrialised places require acts of social re-making if their communities are to survive.

More Information

Book Launch: Neoliberalism and Race, by Lars Cornelissen

Tuesday 9th December 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person & online.

Venue TBC.

Beginning in the interwar period and running through to recent developments, Neoliberalism and Race shows that racial themes have always pervaded neoliberal thinking. The book's key argument is that neoliberal thought is constitutively racialized—its racial motifs cannot be extracted from neoliberalism without rendering it theoretically and politically incoherent. The book aptly explores a wide variety of racial constructs through the structure of neoliberal ideology, deconstructing the conceptualizations in the works of landmark thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Peter Bauer, Thomas Sowell, Charles Murray, and others from the early twentieth century to the present.

More Information

Awards Announcement: Eleventh Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition

Stuart Wilson

In October 2024, the ISRF launched its eleventh Flexible Grants for Small Groups competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, a selection panel nominated the following 17 projects for award.

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Why Neoliberals Destroy Universities

Lars Cornelissen

In both the UK and the US, neoliberals have systematically targeted higher education for destructive reform. Lars Cornelissen argues that this is a function of neoliberalism's enduring hostility to the university sector.

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New publication: ‘Muslim-Mancunian Women: Racial-Colonial Literacy, Counter-Knowledge and Epistemological Justice’, by Fatima Khan and Sadiya Akram

Epistemological justice, which exposes the role of colonialism in conceptualising contemporary society, particularly racial inequalities, has gained prominence within sociology. Yet, sociologists often ignore that the material conditions of professional sociology inhibit racial justice-oriented knowledge making.

Access Here

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching winter 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Blog

3. Fellows News

4. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

A New Regulatory Framework for University Cuts

Christopher Newfield

In this monthly Director’s Note, Christopher Newfield reflects on cuts and mismanagement in UK and US universities, and proposes a new regulatory framework to guide more accountable and constructive reforms.

Universities are not tobacco or oil companies. But their managements have long concealed or distorted the effects of their marketised business model, with a dependence on student debt paired with inadequate public funding.

At the same time, the managers with financial authority are as unregulated as were pesticide manufacturers and oil companies—and as unaccountable to staff, students, research, teaching, knowledge, public benefit or society. Pro forma consultations with unions focus on completing redundancies rather than collaborative rebuilding.

The result is the long-term decline of an essential social sector at the core of so-called knowledge societies, future industries, basic productivity growth, and stronger, happier societies with better intellectual lives, that has entered long term decline. Yet I see no urgency in government, in management, or even in much of the sector. I see plenty of resignation.

One conclusion is that universities need a regulatory framework as badly as AI, chemical and fossil fuel companies do. The obvious model is an Environmental Impact Assessment or Statement. It would function as an Educational Impact Statement (EIS).

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‘There is no green transition’: Why oil runs through the history of Empire and decolonisation

Adam Smith

Political economist Adam Hanieh explains how the history of state-owned oil companies is tied up with imperialism and anti-colonial struggle.

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Bulletin 32: Crisis and Conjuncture: Climate, Borders, Politics

Lars Cornelissen & Baindu Kallon

In May, the ISRF published issue 32 of the Bulletin. This issue speaks to the links, tensions and affinities between migration and issues of climate and politics. Based on papers presented at the ISRF's 2024 annual conference, contributions aim to recalibrate existing categories of analysis in the face of escalating political, humanitarian, and environmental crises.

Read On...

New publication: Threads of Labour: Tapestry of an Ex-Industrial Community, by Lisa Taylor

Charting a collaborative art-based project using carpet-making skills and the industrial heritage of the region, the book investigates how a cleaved ex-industrial community used arts methodologies as a cohesion strategy. Drawing on images from the company's archives, the book mines the history of Firths Carpets Limited, a firm that carpeted interiors across the globe from the mid-1800s.

Pre-Order Here

New publication: Taming Egg Donors: The Egg Donation Reproductive Market in Spain, by Anna Molas

In this important new ethnographic study, Anna Molas discusses the Spanish egg donation market, one of the most prominent fertility markets in the world. She explores how young women are incorporated as egg donors into the global reproductive industry and reveals the fragile processes of selection, monitoring, and control that ensure the supply of human eggs.

Pre-Order Here

New Publication: Bordering social reproduction: Migrant mothers and children making lives in the shadows, by Rachel Rosen and Eve Dickson

This book shows how enforced destitution and debt work alongside detention and deportation as part of a tripartite of exclusionary technologies of the racial state. It advances the novel concept of weathering to comprehend mother' and children's life-making practices under duress – arguing that these are neither acts of heroic resilience nor solely symptomatic of lives rendered disposable, but indications of the fragilities of repressive migration regimes and, on occasion, refusals to accept their terms of existence.

Click Here to Buy

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching winter 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Blog

3. Fellows News

4. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

ISRF in the Polycrisis

Christopher Newfield

Alternatives to the polycrisis are being built by the intelligence of small networks of people working together, out of view of the hypernormalized media that forms our simulated public space. The ISRF is one such network, and the London team had a great time talking about what our friends and Fellows have been doing over the last year at the Foundation’s annual advisory board meeting in Amsterdam at the end of May.

We had two sessions led by board members themselves. One was on culture and creative methods; the other was on the current state of heterodox economics. These are both core research areas for the ISRF…

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First Book Fellowships Award Announcement

Adam Smith

As part of a scheme to help recent PhD graduates turn their theses into publishable books, the ISRF has announced funding for seven researchers.

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Bulletin 32: Crisis and Conjuncture: Climate, Borders, Politics

Lars Cornelissen & Baindu Kallon

In May, the ISRF published issue 32 of the Bulletin. This issue speaks to the links, tensions and affinities between migration and issues of climate and politics. Based on papers presented at the ISRF's 2024 annual conference, contributions aim to recalibrate existing categories of analysis in the face of escalating political, humanitarian, and environmental crises.

Read On...

Women in Transition: Gender Roles and the Privatization of Energy Production

Margot Verdier

Margot Verdier explores the gendered impacts of the fossil fuel phase-out in Western Macedonia, Greece.

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How one woman’s artwork kept alive the memory of an indigenous people whose culture was destroyed by colonialism

Adam Smith

Shanawdithit's drawings provide a firsthand account of the violence endured by the Beothuk at the hands of settlers in the first British colony of Newfoundland.

Read On...

New publication: Taming Egg Donors: The Egg Donation Reproductive Market in Spain, by Anna Molas

In this important new ethnographic study, Anna Molas discusses the Spanish egg donation market, one of the most prominent fertility markets in the world. She explores how young women are incorporated as egg donors into the global reproductive industry and reveals the fragile processes of selection, monitoring, and control that ensure the supply of human eggs.

Pre-Order Here

New Publication: Bordering social reproduction: Migrant mothers and children making lives in the shadows, by Rachel Rosen and Eve Dickson

This book shows how enforced destitution and debt work alongside detention and deportation as part of a tripartite of exclusionary technologies of the racial state. It advances the novel concept of weathering to comprehend mother's and children's life-making practices under duress – arguing that these are neither acts of heroic resilience nor solely symptomatic of lives rendered disposable, but indications of the fragilities of repressive migration regimes and, on occasion, refusals to accept their terms of existence.

Click Here to Buy

Podcast: Book launch for Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-74, with Sandra Araújo

On the 27th of February, the ISRF hosted a book launch to celebrate the publication of Sandra Araujó’s brilliant new book, Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-74. This podcast is based on that event.

Click Here to Listen

Video: Decolonisation lecture series, part 1: A World Remade by Decolonization?

On the 9th of April, the ISRF hosted the first in a three-part lecture series on decolonisation. The lecture, given by former ISRF Fellow Martin Thomas, developed a global history of post-war decolonisation.

Click Here to Watch

Video: Decolonisation lecture series, part 2: Shanawdithit: A Woman at the End of the World

On the 30th of April, the ISRF hosted the second in a three-part lecture series on colonial history and decolonisation. The lecture, given by ISRF Fellow Julia Laite, narrated the history of Shanawdithit’s fascinating and important life, alongside the history of the island of Newfoundland, which was England’s first transatlantic colony.

Click Here to Watch

Video: Decolonisation lecture series, part 3: Oil, Decolonisation, and the Future of the Climate Emergency

On the 15th of May, the ISRF hosted the third in a three-part lecture series on colonial history and decolonisation. The lecture, given by ISRF Fellow Adam Hanieh, explored oil’s influence on national independence struggles, from the 1955 Bandung Conference to the rise of OPEC and the nationalisation of crude reserves.

Click Here to Watch

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching winter 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Upcoming ISRF Events

3. Blog

4. Fellows News

5. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

Reversing Helplessness

Christopher Newfield

In the past two months, ISRF has held two meetings of our Political Affect research group. The second of these was on the topic of Drive in both psyche and society, brought to us by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany.

I left the next day for Portugal, where among other things I watched Lisbonnais dealing with a total Iberian power failure by sharing bus space and cash and heading to parks for an afternoon and evening of group conversation.

As I was returning to London, Nigel Farage’s right-wing party, Reform UK, won a by-election and dominated local elections a few days later…

Read On...

Decolonisation lectures, part 3: Oil, Decolonisation, and the Future of the Climate Emergency

Thursday 15 May, 2025, 6:00pm (BST). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor Adam Hanieh's lecture explores oil’s influence on national independence struggles, from the 1955 Bandung Conference to the rise of OPEC and the nationalisation of crude reserves. It examines how these shifts reshaped global power, exposing both the successes and limits of decolonisation, and their contemporary relevance in understanding the roots of today’s climate crisis.

More Information & Registration

Liberalism, Fascism and the Politics of Rights

Lara Montesinos Coleman

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Lara Montesinos Coleman rethinks the relationship between rights, law, and resistance in the face of fascist resurgence.

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How the last 50 years of economic policy can help explain Labour’s latest benefit cuts

Adam Smith

The UK Chancellor's Spring Statement is consistent with longstanding trends in social security and employment policy, as explored in great detail in Jay Wiggan's recent book.

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Exploring the Contradictions of Planning in Post-War Britain

Yasminah Beebeejaun

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, ISRF Fellow Yasminah Beebeejaun explores the linkages between Britain's colonial legacy and post-war urban planning, focussing on themes of race, migration, and de facto segregation.

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On Refugees

Artur Kula

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Artur Kula discusses the way themes of national belonging fit into Polish public memory and bear on current political discourse surrounding immigration.

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Trump’s tariffs are not the end of globalisation

Adam Smith

For historian Martin Thomas, trade tariffs and foreign aid cuts should be seen within the context of a wider story around decolonisation and the end of empire.

Read On...

New Publication: Bordering social reproduction: Migrant mothers and children making lives in the shadows, by Rachel Rosen and Eve Dickson

This book shows how enforced destitution and debt work alongside detention and deportation as part of a tripartite of exclusionary technologies of the racial state. It advances the novel concept of weathering to comprehend mother's and children's life-making practices under duress – arguing that these are neither acts of heroic resilience nor solely symptomatic of lives rendered disposable, but indications of the fragilities of repressive migration regimes and, on occasion, refusals to accept their terms of existence.

Click Here to Buy

Video: Decolonisation lecture series, part 1: A World Remade by Decolonization?

On the 9th of April, the ISRF hosted the first in a three-part lecture series on decolonisation. The lecture, given by former ISRF Fellow Martin Thomas, developed a global history of post-war decolonisation.

Click Here to Watch

Video: Decolonisation lecture series, part 2: Shanawdithit: A Woman at the End of the World

On the 30th of April, the ISRF hosted the second in a three-part lecture series on colonial history and decolonisation. The lecture, given by ISRF Fellow Julia Laite, narrate the history of Shanawdithit’s fascinating and important life, alongside the history of the island of Newfoundland, which was England’s first transatlantic colony.

Click Here to Watch

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching autumn 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Upcoming ISRF Events

3. Blog

4. Fellows News

5. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

Decolonization of Economic Policy

Christopher Newfield

The ISRF has been partnering with Gresham College to run an annual lecture series in London. Last year, our topic was Migration, which was also one of three themes at our 2024 Conference in Warsaw. This month, we’re starting a new series on Decolonisation. ISRF Fellows Martin Thomas, Julia Laite and Adam Hanieh will be speaking over the next few weeks. You can find the details here.

If you haven’t visited Gresham’s Barnard’s Inn Hall in Holborn near the Chancery Lane tube stop, do consider coming. It’s one of England’s unique educational places—a free adult education college founded during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

We’ve also just started the fourth set in our series of seminars on political economy. This one is called “Redesigning Finance for Climate Justice” and is oriented around a research project led by Daniela Gabor, who recently moved to SOAS, University of London. Our first meeting discussed a paper titled “Financing Technological Innovation in China”, a surprising, illuminating piece of research by Cornel Ban (Copenhagen Business School) and Xuan Li (Zhejiang University of Technology). The paper analyses the innovation system that has allowed China not merely to play catch-up with the West but, in many domains, particularly green tech, to leapfrog it. The paper also made me think about decolonisation as an economic as well as a political process…

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Documentary Screening: Like Lockdown Never Happened, by Joy White

Thursday 3 April 2025, 6:30pm-9:30pm (BST). In person.

BLOC, Queen Mary University of London

With a focus on contemporary Black music, this book takes a deep dive into a few of the various forms that popular culture took over this period, including Kano’s Newham Talks series; Steve McQueen’s BBC anthology Small Axe; the Verzuz DJ Battle series; TikTok’s Don’t Rush Challenge. The documentary reflects on some of the key themes in the book.

More Information & Registration

Decolonization Lectures, part 1: A World Remade by Decolonization?

Wednesday 9 April, 2025, 6:00pm (BST). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor Martin Thomas's lecture shares perspectives from global history, comparative politics, and international relations to revaluate whether the twentieth-century collapse of European colonialism was as definitive as often portrayed. It suggests that, while in some ways, ending European Empires remade our contemporary world, in others processes of decolonization are far from complete.

More Information & Registration

Decolonization Lectures, part 2: Shanawdithit: A Woman at the End of the World

Wednesday 30 April, 2025, 6:00pm (BST). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor Julia Laite's lecture seeks to narrate the history of Shanawdithit's fascinating and important life, alongside the history of her island, which was England's first transatlantic colony.

More Information & Registration

Decolonization Lectures, part 3: Oil, Decolonisation, and the Future of the Climate Emergency

Thursday 15 May, 2025, 6:00pm (BST). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor Adam Hanieh's lecture explores oil's influence on national independence struggles, from the 1955 Bandung Conference to the rise of OPEC and the nationalisation of crude reserves.

More Information & Registration

What’s My Social Media Telling Me?

Dale Mineshima-Lowe

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Dale Mineshima-Lowe looks at data on social media use in Myanmar to explore whether social media can facilitate climate change information and resilience.

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Israel’s war on Gaza is deliberately targeting children – new UN report

Rachel Rosen and Mai Abu Moghli

A fresh round of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza which has killed more than 400 Palestinians has destroyed any hope that the ceasefire negotiated in January would hold.

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Should They Stay or Should They Go (Back)?

Ana Budimir, Ružica Šimić Banović and Valentina Vučković

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Ana Budimir, Ruzica Simic Banovic and Valentina Vuckovic explore the diverse ways Eastern European governments are using policy tools to engage with their diasporic communities.

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Three Memorable Ways the COVID Pandemic Shaped Black Music – Five Years On

Joy White

Allowed outside for a mere one hour per day, for many of us, Black musical forms offered a way to pass the time. In a period of social isolation, it also connected us with each other.

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The Unvirtuous Circle: What Happens when Radical Right Populists Control Immigration Policy?

Sean Kippin

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Sean Kippin explores the record of different far-right political parties on immigration policy, arguing that their policy failure feeds into further populist rhetoric on migration.

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Video: Book Launch for Kristina Kolbe, The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of ‘Diversity’ in Classical Music

On the 20th of March, the ISRF hosted a book launch to celebrate the publication of Kristina Kolbe’s brilliant new book, The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of ‘Diversity’ in Classical Music. We were joined by Anna Bull, Billy Holzberg, and Anamik Saha.

Click Here to Watch

Video: Book Launch for Jay Wiggan, The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain: Class Struggle, Labour Market Restructuring and Welfare Reform

On the 7th of March, the ISRF hosted a book launch to celebrate the publication of Jay Wiggan’s important new study, The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain: Class Struggle, Labour Market Restructuring and Welfare Reform. We were joined by Chris Grover and Anne Daguerre.

Click Here to Watch

New Publication: Spaces of Anticolonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities (University of Georgia Press)

In Spaces of Anticolonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities, Professor Stephen Legg provides a spatial analysis of the anticolonial governmentalities that emerged in the colonial capital of British India.

Click Here to Buy

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching autumn 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Upcoming ISRF Events

3. Blog

4. Fellows News

5. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

The Fight About AI

Christopher Newfield

I love technology—airplanes, smartphones, electric vehicles, vaccines, computers, the internet—when it expands human capabilities. I hate technology as an imposed force which we must laboriously gear up to confront for the sake of safeguarding our already impaired agency.

The “Artificial Intelligence” rollout is as imposed a technology as we have faced in recent years. ISRF is hosting a workshop this month called Social and Cultural Frameworks for ‘Artificial Intelligence’, which is a good deadline for me to organise my thoughts about how we got here…

Read On...

Book Launch: The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain, by Jay Wiggan

Friday 7 March 2025, 1:00pm-3:00pm (GMT). In person.

Chrystal Macmillan Building, University of Edinburgh, UK

In his searching new study, The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain, Jay Wiggan surveys the last fifty years of labour activation strategies. Adopting a materialist lens, the book positions successive market-friendly welfare reforms as an attempt by capital to curtail the autonomy and bargaining power of labour.

Though this event will not be live streamed, a video recording will be made available afterwards.

More Information & Registration

Book Launch: The Sound of Difference, by Kristina Kolbe

Thursday 20 March 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

The Sound of Difference critically examines how diversity work takes shape in classical music, a sector so deeply implicated in hierarchies of class, structures of whiteness, and legacies of imperialism. The book draws from ethnographic and interview data to analyse how diversity discourses are constructed through the organisational and creative processes of music production.

More Information & Registration

Documentary Screening: Like Lockdown Never Happened, by Joy White

Thursday 3 April 2025, 6:30pm-9:30pm (GMT). In person.

BLOC, Queen Mary University of London

With a focus on contemporary Black music, this book takes a deep dive into a few of the various forms that popular culture took over this period, including Kano’s Newham Talks series; Steve McQueen’s BBC anthology Small Axe; the Verzuz DJ Battle series; TikTok’s Don’t Rush Challenge. The documentary reflects on some of the key themes in the book.

More Information & Registration

Can We Be Optimistic for Our Grandchildren?

Constantinos Repapis

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Constantinos Repapis revisits John Maynard Keynes's 1930 essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, to reflect on the current polycrisis.

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Towards a Green International Monetary System: The Ecor and a Green World Central Bank

Nicolás Águila, Paula Haufe and Joscha Wullweber

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Nicolás Águila, Paula Haufe and Joscha Wullweber argue for the Ecor, a new international monetary tool, based on Keynes's Bancor, that could break the current impasse surrounding climate transition financing.

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How refugee entrepreneurs are supplying sustainable energy to the camps they live in

Sarah Rosenberg-Jansen

Refugees are providing energy within camps home to millions of displaced people around the world, establishing shops, phone charging stations, even cinemas.

Read On...

‘Stress Testing Democracy’: A Brief History of Poland and Migration

Adam Balcer

In this contribution to Bulletin 32, Adam Balcer discusses the sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in Poland and its normalisation at the hands of centrist politicians.

Read On...

Fairness in University Financing: We Must Do Better

Lars Cornelissen

Lars Cornelissen argues that the debate over university financing is hampered by a limited conception of what fairness means and, by extension, what universities are really for.

Read On...

New Publication: Spaces of Anticolonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities (University of Georgia Press)

In Spaces of Anticolonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities, Professor Stephen Legg provides a spatial analysis of the anticolonial governmentalities that emerged in the colonial capital of British India.

Click Here to Buy

Video: Book Launch for Sandra Araujó, Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-74

On the 27th of February, the ISRF hosted a book launch to celebrate the publication of Sandra Araujó’s brilliant new book, Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-75. We were joined by Mustafah Dhada and Martin Thomas.

Click Here To Watch

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching autumn 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Application window closed on 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competition

3. Upcoming ISRF Events

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

Feeling Good, Not Bad

Christopher Newfield

I remember when I thought that the 2020s would be a decade of rejuvenation.

The Covid-19 pandemic had been terrible, but it unleashed the powers of massive public spending and this held lessons for the climate crisis. But that possibility was stamped out fairly quickly.

What is the larger pattern we’re stuck within? Outside of some big improvements that always come up—China’s remarkable reduction in mass poverty, advances in information and communication technology, the falling cost of renewable energy—the 21st century has been defined by brutal headwinds.

This is a not a pleasant list, but bear with me…

Read On...

Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 14th February 2025

Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply to complete a significant piece of research over a maximum of one year. Candidates should be within 10 years of PhD award at the time of application.

Awards will normally be used to buy out a salaried academic contract – which may be permanent or fixed-term – at an Institution of Higher Education and Research. The awards are intended to provide full relief from all teaching duties and all associated academic administration for a period of (up to) one year. However, independent scholars or individuals not currently in an academic role may also apply.

More Information & Application

Book Launch: Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-74, by Sandra Araújo

Thursday 27 February 2025, 5:00pm-7:00pm (WET). In person.

Lisbon, Portugal.

In this in-depth and compelling study, ISRF Fellow Sandra Araújo uses archival and oral sources to uncover a full-fledged intelligence agency and explore Portugal’s counterinsurgent spying on Muslim communities during Mozambique’s liberation struggle.

More Information & Registration

Book Launch: The Sound of Difference, by Kristina Kolbe

Thursday 20 March 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

The Sound of Difference critically examines how diversity work takes shape in classical music, a sector so deeply implicated in hierarchies of class, structures of whiteness, and legacies of imperialism. The book draws from ethnographic and interview data to analyse how diversity discourses are constructed through the organisational and creative processes of music production.

More Information & Registration

Responding to the Social, Political and Ecological Crisis by Prioritising Migrant and Disability Justice

In this contribution to Bulletin 31, Rebecca Yeo argues that campaigns for migrant justice and disability justice have much to learn from one another.

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‘The Coming Anarchy’: How lessons from the Occupy movement might provide answers to today’s most pressing social issues

Alex Prichard and Ruth Kinna are rethinking the meaning and value of anarchy in the 21st century.

Read On...

Four things you really need to know about the oil industry’s stranglehold on capitalism

ISRF Fellow Adam Hanieh's new book draws back the veil on our ever growing dependency on oil.

Read On...

Of House and Immigrants

In this contribution to Bulletin 31, Theresa Audrey O. Esteban reflects on how post-war Rotterdam's urban geography and political climate shifted in response to changing migration patterns.

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Deconstructing Migration as Connected Histories and Right to Development

In this contribution to Bulletin 31, Angelika Fortuna argues that global inequality, rooted in colonial history and continued uneven development, sits at the root of migration flows.

Read On...

Video: Book Launch for Joy White, Like Lockdown Never Happened (2025)

On the 23rd of January, the ISRF hosted a book launch to celebrate the publication of Joy White’s brilliant new book, Like Lockdown Never Happened. We were joined by Karis Campion, Jade Levell, and Nathaniel Télémaque.

Click Here to Watch

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

More Information

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching autumn 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Application window closed on 10th January

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

1. Director’s Note

2. ISRF News

3. Live Competitions

4. Upcoming ISRF Events

5. Blog

6. Fellows News

7. Competitions 2025

Director’s Note

Fear Factor

Christopher Newfield

The political mood is foul in Santa Barbara, California, where I’ve spent the holidays visiting family and friends. For some strange reason, I don’t share it.

The bad mood is often specific to Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House. There’s a gloomy feeling of la drôle de guerre, that the current calm is about to give way to daily chaos, stealing, threats and fear.

But there’s another source of mostly unspoken gloom among academics, which stems from there being no sign of a fighting spirit about the future of their campuses…

Read On...

Welcoming Baindu Kallon to the ISRF Team!

We’re delighted to introduce the newest member of our team, Baindu Kallon! Baindu joined the ISRF in December 2024 as Academic Events and Fellowship Coordinator. She organises the ISRF events programme while also managing alumni relations and outreach initiatives. She also leads the external assessment process of competition processing.

Previously, Baindu was based at Coventry University, working with the South-South Migration, Inequalities and Development (MIDEQ) Hub. She worked with a network of over 100 researchers to deepen engagement and identify impact arising from MIDEQ’s research. Her academic work and research has focused on migration politics and regional integration in West Africa, global migrant labour regimes, and exclusionary politics of urban development in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is currently working on a co-authored journal article for an upcoming special issue for The Review of African Political Economy. The article brings Afro-Guyanese scholar Walter Rodney in dialogue with Frantz Fanon to examine how their mobility, and subsequent transnational lives, shaped their approaches to challenging imperialism in Africa and the Caribbean.

Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 14th February 2025

Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply to complete a significant piece of research over a maximum of one year. Candidates should be within 10 years of PhD award at the time of application.

Awards will normally be used to buy out a salaried academic contract – which may be permanent or fixed-term – at an Institution of Higher Education and Research. The awards are intended to provide full relief from all teaching duties and all associated academic administration for a period of (up to) one year. However, independent scholars or individuals not currently in an academic role may also apply.

More Information & Application

Flexible Grants for Small Groups (FG11)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 10th January 2025

Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply as Principal Investigator(s) to lead a small group of 2-10 scholars (which may include graduate students). Applicants should hold a PhD and will normally have a permanent appointment at an institution of higher education and research.

The awards are intended as providing flexible support for a period of (up to) one year for the activities of the research group.

More Information & Application

Book Launch: Like Lockdown Never Happened, by Joy White

Thursday 23 January 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person.

UD Music, London, E15 2QS.

Under COVID-19, music listening increased as people used it to help counter the psychological fallout of lockdown—the isolation, restriction and boredom. In her new book, Like Lockdown Never Happened, Dr Joy White shows how Black music and culture reshaped our lives in the first 18 months of the pandemic.

More Information & Registration

ISRF Bulletin 30 is out now!

This Bulletin comes out of a Congress the ISRF organised with a small group of its Fellows in January 2024. It critically explores the conceptual pair of prehistories and afterlives, used here to speak to the ways past, present, and future blend into each other.

Featuring contributions from The Youth for Justice Collective, Eva van Roekel, Greg Constantine, and Sarath Jakka.

Read On...

Democratic Backsliding in the Sahel and the Myth of Migration to Europe

In this contribution to Bulletin 31, Michael Nwankpa argues that democratic backsliding in the Sahel is partly caused by cynical interventions by Western states motivated by myths of mass African migration.

Read On...

Towards a Deep History of Gaia: Displacements, Integration, and Rights Beyond Migration Myths

In this contribution to Bulletin 31, Aurea Mota discusses the radical potential and political limits of rights of nature in the effort to achieve environmental justice.

Read On...

Video: Book Launch for Sarah Rosenberg-Jansen, Voices in the Dark (2024)

On the 28th of November, the ISRF hosted a book launch to celebrate the publication of an important new book, Voices in the Dark. We were joined by Samer Abdelnour and Kirsten McConnachie.

Click Here to Watch

8th Early Career Fellowship competition (ECF8)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 14th February 2025

Individual scholars and pairs are eligible to apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

More Information

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

More Information

11th Independent Scholar Fellow Competition (ISF11)

Launching late summer 2025

Independent scholars not employed at a university or research institution can apply for a one-year fellowship to complete a significant piece of new research.

12th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG12)

Launching autumn 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competition

3. Upcoming ISRF Events

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2024

Director’s Note

Research after Trump

Christopher Newfield

The ISRF runs several lines of internal research, mostly in pilot mode, looking for research questions on which we might run larger-scale projects in the future. Four of these were set back – let’s say, “clarified” – by Trump’s recent re-election.

Trump is the guy who resets the odometer back to zero. You get him out of office, put a few plans in motion to address glaringly obvious problems – like the climate crisis – go a ways down the road and put a few kilometres on the odometer.

And then Trump returns. He pushes the button and everything returns to zero. While he’s in office, the odometer runs in reverse…

Read On...

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups (FG11)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 10th January 2025

Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply as Principal Investigator(s) to lead a small group of 2-10 scholars (which may include graduate students). Applicants should hold a PhD and will normally have a permanent appointment at an institution of higher education and research.

The awards are intended as providing flexible support for a period of (up to) one year for the activities of the research group.

More Information & Application

Book Launch: Like Lockdown Never Happened, by Joy White

Thursday 23 January 2025, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person.

UD Music, London, E15 2QS.

Under COVID-19, music listening increased as people used it to help counter the psychological fallout of lockdown—the isolation, restriction and boredom. In her new book, Like Lockdown Never Happened, Dr Joy White shows how Black music and culture reshaped our lives in the first 18 months of the pandemic.

More Information & Registration

‘Migrants have been beaten, hounded by dogs and burned with cigarettes’ – on the frontline of the Poland-Belarus border crisis

Families attempting to start a new life in Europe have become stuck in the woods between two countries, regularly receiving horrific treatment at the hands of the authorities.

Read On...

What Newfoundland – and Messy Family Histories – Can Tell Us About the Harms of Colonialism

ISRF Fellow Julia Laite’s family have been on Newfoundland since the 17th century. Her latest project explores ancestry, empire, exploitation – and Shanawdithit, the Beothuk woman who witnessed the death of her world under colonialism.

Read On...

How Portugal spied on Muslims in colonial Mozambique

At the ISRF’s November Congress, Fellow Sandra Araújo revealed the remarkable hidden history behind her forthcoming book.

Read On...

Video: Book Launch for Adam Hanieh, Crude Capitalism (2024)

On the 13th of November, the ISRF hosted a book launch to celebrate the publication of an important new book, Crude Capitalism. We were joined by Adrienne Buller and Angus McNelly.

Click Here to Watch

New Publication: Like Lockdown Never Happened: Music and Culture During Covid (Repeater Books)

Dr Joy White (ISRF Independent Scholar Fellow 2015-16 and Academic Advisor) explores how Black music and culture framed how we passed the time in the first 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Click Here to Order

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

More Information

2nd First Book Grant (FBG2)

Closed on 1st November 2024

Newly qualified post-docs (within three years of PhD award) are eligible to apply for support to convert their PhD thesis into a book.

7th Mid-Career Fellowship (MCF7)

Closed on 28th March 2024

Scholars more than ten years post-PhD were eligible to apply for support to complete a one-year piece of original research. Award announcements are expected in the summer.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competition: FG11

3. Upcoming ISRF Events

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2024

Director’s Note

We Could End the Cosmetic Fixes that Damage Higher Education

Christopher Newfield

Let’s say you work for Disney, and you’re part of the group that CEO Bob Iger instructed to “fix streaming.” By “fix” he meant, keep it from losing money in every quarter for a total loss of $4 billion in 2022. Bob offered a public hint about how to do this: “Basically we invested too much.”

You come up with a simple plan…

Read On...

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups (FG11)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 10th January 2025

Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply as Principal Investigator(s) to lead a small group of 2-10 scholars (which may include graduate students). Applicants should hold a PhD and will normally have a permanent appointment at an institution of higher education and research.

The awards are intended as providing flexible support for a period of (up to) one year for the activities of the research group.

More Information & Application

Book Launch: Crude Capitalism, by Professor Adam Hanieh

Wednesday 13 November, 5:30pm-7:00pm (GMT). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London (30 Holborn, EC1N 2HH)

In his new book, Crude Capitalism, Adam Hanieh shows how capitalism would not have become what it is without oil to fuel it, which may mean that we will need to do without capitalism if we want to do without oil. Synthesising unique empirical detail with a grand historical narrative, Hanieh changes our sense of oil’s centrality while opening new prospects for going beyond it. He will be joined by Adrienne Buller and Angus McNelly.

More Information & Registration

Book Launch: Voices in the Dark, by Dr Sarah Rosenberg-Jansen

Thursday 28 November, 6:00pm-7:30pm (GMT). In person and online.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London (30 Holborn, EC1N 2HH)

Voices in the Dark draws upon a decade of original research to provide evidence on the energy lives of refugees. Focusing on refugee camps in Rwanda and Kenya, the book identifies that urgent change is required within humanitarian responses to forced migration and the climate crisis to ensure that future energy provision in displacement settings is sustainable, reliable and affordable for refugees. Sarah will be joined by Samer Abdelnour and Kirsten McConnachie.

More Information & Registration

‘Egg of the serpent’ – Green Border director Agnieszka Holland on the scapegoating of migrants and her fears for the future of democracy

Speaking at the October ISRF conference, the Polish auteur also blamed politicians for blocking the international collaboration needed to tackle the climate emergency.

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Being Poor is Expensive: Bashy’s new album showcases all that’s important about Black music today

Joy White argues that the rapper and actor’s latest album, which he began during the pandemic, joins the dots from Windrush and lovers rock to contemporary rap.

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A new ‘race science’ network is linked to a history of eugenics that never fully left academia

Lars Cornelissen writes for The Conversation on the post-war history of the eugenicist groups that lived in the margins of academia.

Read On...

New Publication: ‘Almost-Invisible White Supremacy: Racism, Silence and Complicity in the Interracial Interaction Order’ (Sociology)

Dr Fatima Khan (ISRF Early Career Fellow 2024–25) reports on a study with 32 young Muslims and finds that the reproduction of white supremacy always depends on the silence-complicity from the majority. (Open Access.)

Click Here to Access

New Publication: Like Lockdown Never Happened: Music and Culture During Covid (Repeater Books)

Dr Joy White (ISRF Independent Scholar Fellow 2015-16 and Academic Advisor) explores how Black music and culture framed how we passed the time in the first 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Click Here to Order

New Publication: Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso Books)

Professor Adam Hanieh (ISRF Political Economy Fellow 2023-24) sets out the expansive history of the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis.

Click Here to Order

New Publication: The sound of difference: Race, class and the politics of 'diversity' in classical music (Manchester University Press)

Dr Kristina Kolbe (ISRF Early Career Fellow 2023) critically examines how discourses of ‘diversity’ in the classical music, a sector that is notably implicated in hierarchies of class, structures of whiteness, and legacies of imperialism.

Click Here to Order

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Live now: deadline 5pm GMT, Friday 10th January 2025

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

More Information

2nd First Book Grant (FBG2)

Closed on 1st November 2024

Newly qualified post-docs (within three years of PhD award) are eligible to apply for support to convert their PhD thesis into a book.

7th Mid-Career Fellowship (MCF7)

Closed on 28th March 2024

Scholars more than ten years post-PhD were eligible to apply for support to complete a one-year piece of original research. Award announcements are expected in the summer.

1. Director’s Note

2. Live Competition: First Book Grant

3. Upcoming ISRF Events

4. Blog

5. Fellows News

6. Competitions 2024

Director’s Note

Warsaw in Our Age of War

Christopher Newfield

We are heading to Warsaw next week for our third ISRF annual conference, called “Migration and Democracy in a Time of Climate Crisis.” As the name suggests, it will focus on three core issues – Migration, Democracy and the Climate Crisis.

So how are those issues doing in 2024?…

Read On...

2nd First Book Grant (FBG2)

Deadline: 5pm GMT (6pm CET), Friday 1st November 2024

Newly qualified post-docs (within three years of PhD award) are eligible to apply for support to convert their PhD thesis into a book.

Researchers may apply from across the social sciences and the humanities. The awards are intended to provide a research stipend (to cover living costs) for a period of up to twelve months, plus appropriate research expenses.

More Information & Application

Conference: Migration and Democracy in a Time of Climate Crisis

7-9 October, Warsaw, Poland.

Our three topics for this year’s ISRF Conference have become trapped in a vicious cycle. Climate crisis increases migration, which has triggered anti-democratic backlash, which reduces international cooperation on climate, which allows the climate crisis to intensify. Each of these relationships is real, and each is rooted in myth. The ISRF invites papers on any of these three topics, or any combination of them. How can we interrupt this cycle and even reverse it? How can we treat underlying causes rather than addressing symptoms?

For inquiries, contact lars.cornelissen@isrf.org

More Information

Book Launch: The Duty to Secure, by Professor Rita Floyd

Thursday 24 October, 5:30pm-7:00pm (BST). In person and online.

“Securitization” names the use of threat-specific, often liberty defying, rigorously enforced and sometimes forcible emergency measures.In her new book, The Duty to Secure: From Just to Mandatory Securitization (Cambridge 2024), Professor Rita Floyd explores how and when such measures can be morally permissible, articulating a range of criteria that includes just cause, right intention and proportionality. She will be joined by Professor Mary Kaldor and Professor Jamie Shea.

More Information & Registration

Cambridge Social Ontology: Summer School and Workshop

Nuno Martins reports on a summer school on Social Ontology held at Cambridge in August.

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A Different Portrait of the Rohingya: An Interview with Greg Constantine

Lars Cornelissen sits down with two-time ISRF Fellow Greg Constantine to talk about his recent research on the untold history of the Rohingya.

Read On...

How to Apply for ISRF Funding to Turn Your PhD Thesis into a Book

The ISRF’s First Book Grant Competition is open for applications from recent PhD graduates who want to produce a publishable work.

Read On...

The Coming University Crunch: Chronicle of Closures Foretold

Lars Cornelissen shows that the prospect of university closures was always baked into the defence of student-funded higher education.

Read On...

New Publication: Like Lockdown Never Happened: Music and Culture During Covid (Repeater Books)

Dr Joy White (ISRF Independent Scholar Fellow 2015-16 and Academic Advisor) explores how Black music and culture framed how we passed the time in the first 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Click Here to Order

New Publication: Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso Books)

Professor Adam Hanieh (ISRF Political Economy Fellow 2023-24) sets out the expansive history of the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis.

Click Here to Order

New Publication: Ek Khaale – Once Upon a Time

On this website, divided into nine chapters, ISRF Fellow Dr Greg Constantine offers a visual restoration of the history of the Rohingya. At present, seven chapters have been published. The other two will be published over the course of September.

Click Here to Read

New Publication: The sound of difference: Race, class and the politics of 'diversity' in classical music (2024, Manchester University Press)

Dr Kristina Kolbe (ISRF Early Career Fellow 2023) critically examines how discourses of ‘diversity’ in the classical music, a sector that is notably implicated in hierarchies of class, structures of whiteness, and legacies of imperialism.

Click Here to Order

2nd First Book Grant (FBG2)

Now live—deadline: Friday 1st November 2024

Newly qualified post-docs (within three years of PhD award) are eligible to apply for support to convert their PhD thesis into a book.

More Information & Application

11th Flexible Grants for Small Groups Competition (FG11)

Launching autumn 2024 (date to be confirmed)

Funding support for small groups (2-10 scholars) to complete a piece of research or undertake face-to-face joint group work.

7th Mid-Career Fellowship (MCF7)

Closed on 28th March 2024

Scholars more than ten years post-PhD were eligible to apply for support to complete a one-year piece of original research. Award announcements are expected in the summer.

Academic Events & Fellowship Co-ordinator

Role Title: Academic Events & Fellowship Co-ordinator

Hours: 35 hours per week

Salary: From £35,000

Annual Leave: 25 days plus bank holidays and office closure days

Location: London Office (62 Bayswater Road, W2 3PS)

About the Role

As the ISRF’s Academic Events & Fellowship Co-ordinator you will be contributing to the Foundation’s day-to-day activities, with both academic and administrative responsibilities.

On the one hand, you will be actively contributing to the academic work of the Foundation: handling academic enquiries from prospective applicants, recruiting external assessors (peer reviewers) for grant applications, organising and hosting ISRF Events (such as workshops, conferences, and seminars etc.), liaising with ISRF Fellows and associates, and supporting the work of the Director of Research and the Academic Editor.

On the other hand, you will be supporting administrative processes within the office, which may include database and spreadsheet management, website content management, social media posting, and supporting the work of the Administrator.

This is a uniquely varied and wide-ranging role within a small team, which will offer the opportunity to develop a variety of skills and interests, both academically and administratively. There will be significant room for academic specialisation and intellectual input into the ISRF’s programme of activities, and opportunities to engage with a diverse range of academics across multiple social science & humanities disciplines. As such, the post would be ideal for a PhD holder with expertise in one of the Foundation’s core research interests, as well as an interest in broader, interdisciplinary social sciences, arts and humanities.

Closing date for applications is 5pm (GMT) on Friday 25th October 2024.

More Information