The article came out of a RGS session chaired by @jluger.bsky.social and @sabinalawreniuk.bsky.social last summer. Our analysis remains timely. After the ballot shortage in Seoul's recent local elections led to new far right conspiracies (and despite the conservative candidate's victory!) 3/3

Korean election body’s efforts to curb conspiracy theories backfire amid ballot shortages

The National Election Commission reportedly printed fewer ballots after conspiracy theories about leftover ballots being used to steal elections, but Wednesday’s ballot shortage has now supercharged a...

english.hani.co.kr

We out here.

🎧Final episode for @urbanpolitical.bsky.social in our series on authoritarian urbanism w/ @jluger.bsky.social, Miklós Dürr, Ayşegül Can & Oksana Zaporozhets We discuss whether contemporary urbanism continues to be 'neoliberal', and how the leading tendency is towards something more autocratic:

103 – Beyond Neoliberal Urbanism?

Are we seeing the emergence of a new conjuncture for urbanism? The final part of our mini series asks whether authoritarian neoliberalism has created the conditions for a more illiberal and distinct t...

urbanpolitical.podigee.io

Upcoming Event: Social and Cultural Geography beyond the Academy – Opportunities in Policy and Practice Friday 28 November, 11.00-12.30, ONLINE (UK) This event joins academic and non-academic geographers to discuss their transition from the academy into the world beyond Further info: scgrg.co.uk

Northumbria #EncounteringUrbanWorlds Amsterdam trip arriving by ferry.

Very proud to say that our special issue with @urbanstudiesjournal.com is now all up online! We address the authoritarian turn in urban governance globally, as neoliberal policies lose legitimacy and require more coercive means of enforcement. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Neoliberal crises and the city: Wrestling with authoritarian neoliberal urbanism(s) - Güldem Özatağan, Gareth Fearn, Ayda Eraydin, 2025

This Special Issue presents ‘authoritarian neoliberal urbanism’ as an empirical marker and a concept that signposts the ascendence of a new constellation in whi...

journals.sagepub.com

Nice to see this in bright pink hard copy.

fitness influencing, lifting, fight clubs - they all are Trojan horses for fascism

Global Project Against Hate and Extremism@globalextremism.bsky.social · last yr.

Neo-Nazi fight clubs are exploding worldwide—and now they’re recruiting teenage boys. A new report finds 187 Active Club chapters in 27 countries, with a surge in “Youth Clubs” targeting 15–18-year-olds and training them for a coming “race war.” Read more:

It was powerful and profound to be in Hiroshima a few weeks ago. No bombs. No war.

Creative and accessible adaptive retooling of former elevated highway in Seoul. Inviting by day or by night.

Shanghai past, present, future. The Bund by night is an awesome spectacle.

Thank you to @samhalvorsen.bsky.social and Adriana Massidda for joining us yesterday for our Annual Lecture - great capstone to the year's activities.

¡No Pasarán!

We host Dr. Sam Halvorsen (QMUL) and Dr. Adriana Massidda (Sheffield) next Monday (9th June) for our Northumbria Social and Cultural Geographies Research Group Annual Lecture, on 'Strategies of Popular Participation in Buenos Aires'. Welcome to join in person or get in touch for the MS Teams link.

En route to Exeter to chat about Authoritarian urban space and affects. Always awed by these Victorian train sheds.

Linking Silicon Valley's NRx 'California Forever' to Kigali's technocratic master plans, our article of the week explores how illiberalism thrives through urban density and the viral speed of digital 'Extrastatecraft'. By @jluger.bsky.social et al. in @urbanstudiesonline.com buff.ly/sPpXvuA

Blue skies for some qualitative research in the Lake District with Northumbria Geography first year students.

Lovely day for some place-based assessments on the peri-urban with 2nd year BA students.

New #OA study by @jluger.bsky.social and Miklós Dürr explores whether there is something inherently #illiberal about the urban condition, e.g., does the urban condition uniquely produce and scaffold #illiberalism? buff.ly/30sn8LQ #PlatformUrbanism

Happy to see this open access @urbanstudiesonline.com paper published, which began as a chat with Miklós Dürr at Tyneside Bar in August 2022. We suggest that illiberalism is a facet of global urban life. Part of an upcoming special issue: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The urban question under illiberalism? Three thematic approaches - Jason D Luger, Miklós János Dürr, 2025

Advocating the value of an urban lens for researching and understanding illiberalism, we propose a threefold thematic anchoring for emerging inquiry into cities...

journals.sagepub.com

Three sessions on "The Critical Urban Lives of Ruins" here at the #AAG tomorrow (Wed) and Thursday am. What work do ruins do? And what might they reveal that's new?

Had a bit of fun with this short-fiction piece in an upcoming issue of Critical Studies on Security. In this, a character finds himself trapped on 'Alpha Male Island', a site of 'Manospheric' fantasy. He then manages to escape, and reconsider his subjectivity. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YKBVN...

The ordinary affects of ‘Alpha Male Island™’: a survivor’s journal

Published in Critical Studies on Security (Ahead of Print, 2025)

tandfonline.com

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome... im cabaret, au cabaret, to cabaret!

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · last yr.

“And then we break windows, assault cops and shit all over the floor.” “Amazing, what do you call this act?” “The January 6th Prison Choir!” consequence.net/2025/02/j6-c...

No Nazis. No Kings.

CFP for the RGS-IBG in Birmingham, for anyone still looking for a session (see attached). Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words, as well as a short biography, to Sabina Lawreniuk (sabina.lawreniuk@notttingham.ac.uk) and Jason Luger (jason.luger@northumbria.ac.uk) by Weds 5th March 2025.

The price of cobalt in Congo. The price of coffee in Cali. The price of neon in Neom. Predictive AI and bombs in the sky.

Jacob Miller and I wrote a short thing on the violent ruination of Trump's America. @gregseigworth.bsky.social was gracious enough to include it along with many other short pieces in this 'Capacities to: Affect up Against Fascism' collection, which is open access: imbricate.press/book/capacit...

Capacities To: Affect Up Against Fascism

<p>Capacities To: Affect Up Against Fascism is a collection of more than forty essays, poems, and visual works that convey myriad approaches for understanding, surviving, and creating counter-movement...

imbricate.press

This symposium @antipodeonline.bsky.social could not account for the latest developments shaped by the far-right (such as centering E.M. as a far-right world builders) but it is still very timely and offers important insights. antipodeonline.org/2024/12/12/n... #geo #geosky @jluger.bsky.social

Intervention Symposium—“Worldbuilding and Worldbreaking: New Spatialities of the Far-Right” - Antipode Online

Introduction by Jamey Essex (University of Windsor), Carolyn Gallaher (American University) and Jason Luger (Northumbria University) Almost two centuries ago, Marx and Engels conjured an image of a Eu...

antipodeonline.org

At a restaurant last night the couple next to me fed the menu into chat gpt and asked it what to order. Humanity won't survive the year.

Favorite workspace away from home.