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After a Year, is it Time to Log Off?
In this morning’s tutorial with a postgraduate our conversation meandered here and there, touching on writing, juggling deadlines and inter-weaving theoretical ideas with the blessed Harvard referencing. It reminded me of the best things about being a university tutor – I was actually helping! Except, I was sitting in my house with my laptop perched…
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A Year ‘at a distance’: Is there hope ‘when this is all over’?
A year ago we started to experience changes to even the most menial of tasks, including the weekly shop. Stripes of yellow and black tape appeared on supermarket floors guiding us around (sometimes unfathomable) one way systems, and indicating where we should stand in a ‘socially distanced’ queue. Plastic screens that used to adorn checkouts…
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Winners and Losers: A Year of Tourism During Covid-19
So now we know. Figures published by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation show that the impact of COVID-19 on tourism has been devastating. International arrivals to the UK fell by 74% in 2020; levels not seen since the early 1990s. 1 billion international arrivals have been ‘lost’, along with export revenues of $1.3 trillion.…
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Rebuilding after COVID-19: Is Now the Time for a Universal Basic Income?
Has the time finally come for a universal basic income (UBI)? Many believe so, especially in light of the economic fall-out from the covid-19 pandemic. Experiments of basic income are running in many advanced welfare states. What for centuries has been an outpost of radical, even obscure, philosophical and economic debates could soon become a…
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Who needs a wall? US-Mexico Immigration during a Pandemic
`Never say never’ … the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico has fallen. Well, not literary, but since the inauguration of Joe Biden, they have stopped building it. Yet this is largely symbolic, as due to pandemic, the U.S.-Mexico border continues to be closed. In fact, since March 2020 the US-Mexico border has been…
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A Year of Youth Work in Lockdown: What have we been doing if not innovating?
A year ago I was planning a workshop hosted by Youth Focus NW. Speakers were coming from across the country and there were lots of discussions over whether the event should be cancelled or go ahead. Taking the lead from the Cheltenham Festival, we went ahead with our chairs spaced a metre apart. That was…
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COVID-19, (im)mobility and Health Inequalities
COVID-19 has had a huge impact on human mobility and migration. Governments across the world took extraordinary measures to curtail international travel and movement of peoples whilst simultaneously calling all their citizens to return home. Domestic systems of disease management followed including enforced quarantine and closed borders. The pandemic was initially thought as an equalizer;…
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The Continued Impact of Coronavirus on LGBTQ+ People
Research and contemporary reports on the impact of COVID-19 indicate how those from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds have been most impacted by the virus. This has been particularly the case for disabled people and ethnic minorities. February 2021 was LGBT History Month, a time to focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who shaped…
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A Year On in Lockdown Ministry
A year of ministry in lockdown brings with it a conflicting mixture of befuddlement, anger and hope. The anger comes from standing alongside many families in their bereavement with so few people allowed in our buildings; thirty in Church, and ten or twenty at Crematoria. No hymn singing allowed even in a brief respite near…
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Digital Inclusion and a ‘Good Society’ in the wake of COVID-19
12 months ago I reimagined a good society in the wake of Covid-19. The vision was one of mutual aid, community strength and public policy, led by strong, independent and diverse voices. One year on, this vision has in some sense been enacted; yet the pandemic has revealed more obstacles on the road to a…
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Pandemic or Infodemic? 2020, the Year of ‘Fake News’?
The information paradox dictates that as news sources multiply and information becomes overabundant, the more likely it is for exaggerated, implausible and untruthful stories to gain traction. The pandemic aside, it is the ‘infodemic’ we should now be fighting? Over the last 12 months, conspiracy theories have not only become a main mode of communication…
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Hellish Repetition: Lockdown Anticipated in Samuel Beckett’s ‘What Where’
Endgame stages a world in which old people expire in dustbins, a worker incarcerated at home reels under the weight of contradictory imperatives, while a self-regarding overseer, obsessively gives, and reviews his own performance. Beckett left us a play for our times. A year on from our first collective experience of lockdown, ‘hyperconnectivity’ has shaped…
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Keir Exposure – Constructive Opposition a Year on?
Covid-19 Anniversary Blog 22/04/2020.. London, United Kingdom. First virtual PMQs and Ministerial statement on Coronavirus, with First Secretary of State Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP and the Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer MP. Picture by Jessica Taylor © UK Parliament “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear”, writes US Political Consultant…
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The Unmet Rights of Children in Care: the State of Affairs 12 months on
In April 2020 regulations in the United Kingdom (UK) relating to the protection and care of children who live in residential family centres and who are cared for by foster carers, were relaxed. This raised alarm bells about the increased risk of these children’s rights not being met. Twelve months on, what is current state…
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Covid-19 Anniversary Blog
The 24th March 2021 will be the anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown in the UK. Since then we have been on a roller-coaster, both personally and professionally, and witnessed unprecedented changes to our way of life. Some will be temporary – others will be permanent; but as we approach the anniversary, can we predict…
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‘Catholicism at a Crossroads’: Technology in Times of Crisis in Modern Ireland
Since the mid-90s secularisation in Ireland has been discernible, with sharp declines in mass attendance, vocations, regular family prayer and Catholic sacramental engagement. This period dovetails with allegations of sexual abuse amongst the clergy, and the mistreatment of unmarried mothers (Fallen Women) in religious-run institutions (Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes). It also coincided with…
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The Pandemic X Brexit: A World with Hard Borders?
As we see the imposition of hard borders within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the first time since the Acts of Union in 1707, the cosmopolitan dream of a world without borders appears to be slipping away. The European Union, once an organization eager to push for the dismantling of…
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COVID Creativity: new possibilities or a fresh challenge?
When Arts Council England launched its 10-year strategy in January, no-one could have guessed what was just around the corner. ‘Let’s Create’ is a strategy full of hope; about opening up opportunities, developing shared experiences and recognising the creative potential in each of us. COVID-19 has challenged us all, on a professional and personal level.…
