Blog Archives

Case study: UK Covid mutual aid groups

By John Drury and Evangelos Ntontis In 2020, tens of thousands of people got involved in Covid mutual aid and similar community support groups, with over 4000 new groups being set up in Spring of that year. Who were they?

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A Rapid Response Ethnography of the Crowds around the Queen’s Passing

By Carina Hoerst, Klara Jurstakova, Nuria Martinez, Sam Vo, & Sara Vestergren On Thursday, 8 September, 2022, HM Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle after a 70-year-long reign. A 10-day period of mourning was announced ending with the funeral

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Queuing for the Queen or Queuing for the Queue? The creation of shared identities, friendships, and history

By Carina Hoerst & Sara Vestergren Media extensively broadcasted Queen Elizabeth II’s passing and funeral, and the crowds gathered to mourn her. The reasons for people to join the crowds and wait for up to 25 hours were multiple. Some

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Behavioural legacies of ‘freedom’ days

By John Drury July 19th last year (2021) was characterised as ‘freedom day’ by the UK government and media. On that date, there were three notable changes in policy in relation to the Covid pandemic: nightclubs were allowed to reopen, social

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Three forms of Covid leadership

By John Drury If the Covid pandemic has made one thing is clear, it is that we are interdependent in terms of risk and safety. So a collective response is required. From distancing, through ventilation, to vaccination programmes, decisions needed

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Refugees Welcome*!

(*terms and conditions apply) By Susie Ballentyne The UK government is currently offering a lacklustre package of support for refugees coming from Ukraine. As the controversial Nationalities and Borders Bill is debated and continues to pass through Parliament, what’s holding

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It’s 2021… and we are still dealing with misogyny in the name of open science

By Anonymous A few of you might have followed a very recent pile-on on Twitter. For those that have not, here is some context: a recent paper by Felig et al. (2021) investigated the notion of whether women that dress

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A ‘Warm Welcome’ to the UK? What social identity tells us about the challenges of Afghan resettlement

By Susie Ballentyne Over the past weeks and months, countless journeys have taken take place across Afghanistan. As the Taliban pushed north towards the capital in August 2021, hundreds of thousands of Afghans, fearing for their lives and those of

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Could Covid-19 volunteers be part of a collective solution to the pingdemic?

By Guanlan Mao and Rotem Perach The ongoing battle against Covid-19 has seen governments around the world require their citizens to follow various behavioural measures, such as self-isolation and physical distancing, in an effort to contain the spread of the

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The influence of toxic leadership on recent rioting in Northern Ireland

By Dermot Barr In the recent violence in Northern Ireland, children as young as 12 have thrown petrol bombs, families have been forced out of their homes, and undercover British special forces have reportedly been deployed. In this blogpost I

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