Lots of non-fiction with a smattering of often speculative fiction.
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I'm not sure I'd have got past the long classic Noir scene-setting if I hadn't been looking for a easier read and there was the promise of how these two worlds would collide. Wasn't overly convinced by the twists either, maybe felt a bit like Klinger the lead character. But if you like a bit of gentrification politics mixed into your Noir it might be for you.
How Gentrification is killing our cities, and what we can do about it
What does …
Kern looks at the study of Gentrification and how it has changed since the 60s. Breaking away from a class basis to see the wider power relations at play: an extension of settler colonialism, patriarchy, racism, hetreronormativity. The book also challenges the idea that Gentrification is an inevitable part of the development of the city. In this it’s successful, suggesting that Gentrification is displacement, and that displacement can be challenged. It questions if part of the conflict is over the 'taste' for different communities. The suggested approaches to challenging Gentrification are tied to the intersectional understanding. Not being a book written by a campaigner it doesn’t avoid the complexity to offer comfortable solutions. They also at times feel like they risk being individually framed, but would support diversity in shared space, and challenge the underlying power that makes Gentrification happen.
Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Republic of Congo and a pioneer of African …
The book originally published (1999) before Belgium's Parliament had an inquiry (2001) into their role in the assassination of Lumumba. It is carefully researched, focusing on the people in power: Belgian, but also in the UN, and to a lesser extent the US and UK. Their decisions, to act and not act, that very deliberately lead to the death of Lumumba, and the undermining of the potential democratic nationalist movement that he could lead. As such, despite De Witte's own analysis, contained toward the end of the book, it is more of history of the actions of those individuals and less the larger powers that they are part of. Even so it does make a compelling case about the Western states interests overriding those of the people of DRC itself.
Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Republic of Congo and a pioneer of African unity, was murdered on January …
I’d consider myself as relatively well informed about the problems of borders, and the southern European one in particular. However, this book lays it bare, and it’s even worse than I understood.
The book is written from the journalistic first person. I’d like to call it ‘classic journalism’, maintaining ‘impartiality’. But not impartial as in not caring about those with absolutely no power. It cares, about people individually and as a group, but it’s only campaigning because doing so lights a fire under power. The book starts with the online contact being made from someone trapped in a Libyan prison. It then broadly follows Sally Hayden’s own experience of becoming one of the few, maybe only, journalists truly keeping in touch with migrants and their families, investigating the camps, NGOs and UN and reporting about the horrific situation that the EU is complicit in making. By writing it from this …
I’d consider myself as relatively well informed about the problems of borders, and the southern European one in particular. However, this book lays it bare, and it’s even worse than I understood.
The book is written from the journalistic first person. I’d like to call it ‘classic journalism’, maintaining ‘impartiality’. But not impartial as in not caring about those with absolutely no power. It cares, about people individually and as a group, but it’s only campaigning because doing so lights a fire under power. The book starts with the online contact being made from someone trapped in a Libyan prison. It then broadly follows Sally Hayden’s own experience of becoming one of the few, maybe only, journalists truly keeping in touch with migrants and their families, investigating the camps, NGOs and UN and reporting about the horrific situation that the EU is complicit in making. By writing it from this perspective it does run the risk of making us care because there is another white saviour, the journalist. Hayden is critical of the view through the saviours perspective in the book. A tough balance, but I’ll admit the approach does make the book accessible to me, the white north European reader, and the voices of the migrants themselves are highlighted throughout.
A large part of the book is spent with the situation in Libya. I’m not even going to try and describe the stories, it wouldn’t do them justice. The people Hayden is most in contact with are Christian Eritreans which at times, Christians having a particularly hard time in Libya, feels a little out of balance in their prominence in the stories over those Muslim migrants. That’s as it is there clearly is an effort to bring in details of other migration routes, and other migrants. Including a fair section that gives a voice to West African so called ‘economic migrants’. It does do a good job of dispelling a lot of the constructed separation of types of migrants.
By weaving her own journalistic journey, with the personal stories of individual migrants and the politics and actions of traffickers, Nation States, the EU, NGOs and the UN, Sally Hayden makes the book a compelling read. Even if you think you know what’s going on it’ll probably be a revelation.
