1. Another good piece from Language Magazine (thanks, Melanie!) on translanguaging, Breaking down Barriers, from Jacob Huckle https://www.languagemagazine.com/2022/08/15/breaking-down-barriers/

Huckle explains that his article “will outline some potential barriers in the domains of policy, practice, and personal belief and end with a call for critical self-reflection on the part of advocates of translanguaging to ensure that we ourselves don’t get in the way of realizing its full transformative power”.

2. How Can the Global South Confront the Unequal North-South Academic Collaborations? is the title of an interview with Karuti Kanyinga from The Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Nairobi, Kenya on the Danish Development Research Network (DDRN) blog https://ddrn.dk/10068/

The discussion refers to the policy brief that DDRN published earlier this year, ‘Decolonising Academic Collaboration: South-North Perspectives’ https://ddrn.dk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-Decolonising_Academic_Collaboration.pdf PDF below.

“A frequent outcome of North-driven projects is that researchers in African countries end up mainly as the collectors or providers of data, and on-the-ground “fixers” for Northern academics. In its most problematic (but not uncommon) form this leads to data grabbing where African researchers collect empirical data, sometimes in highly dangerous circumstances, and may even carry out parts of the analysis – yet are not recognised as co-authors.”

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3. Here’s a webinar and blog post on ‘Teaching and Learning in the Face of Conflict’ from Alicja Gałązka for Oxford University Press (OUP):

webinar https://youtu.be/T_vrtv4iny4

blog post https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2022/06/27/teaching-learning-in-the-face-of-conflict/

“People removed from the conflict may be wondering why their mental health is suffering as a result of the news and images they’re seeing. Part of this can be explained by the fact that our brains are designed to scan for threats to protect us from potential danger. This can lead to an almost unstoppable, constant scouring of the news to help us prepare for the worst – a phenomenon many might know better as ‘doom scrolling’.”

I’ve given up doom scrolling but I’m not sure that’s good, as I’ve sort of given up on the news completely!

4. And, finally, two dangers to which I have never given a moment’s thought, washing the dishes or taking a shower during a thunderstorm https://theconversation.com/why-its-not-safe-to-shower-during-a-thunderstorm-188862

Includes a video explanation of how a Van de Graaff Generator works just in case you, like me, have forgotten https://youtu.be/laDmuQFmK3Y