MAPPING THE PANDEMIC FROM LEFT FIELD PHIL COHEN Published on line by Compass Wednesday June 24 2020 This essay looks at a range of public, personal and governmental responses to the pandemic for what it tells us about the kind of society and culture we live in. Drawing on insights from anthropology and psychoanalysis a model of risk perception is … [Read more...] about Mapping the Pandemic
WAYPOINTS: Towards an ecology of political mindfulness
We are living through disturbed and disturbing times in which the maps drawn by political scientists no longer make sense of what is happening on the ground. Against this background the propagandists of neo-liberal individualism urge us to cultivate ‘resilience’ and ‘mindfulness’ as a way of seizing and surviving the present moment. Mindfulness in particular has been … [Read more...] about WAYPOINTS: Towards an ecology of political mindfulness
Postcards to Grandad – a Family Romance
In this prose poem Phil Cohen explores the ‘other scenes’ of his family history, the stories he was not told about where he came from. Many of them were about the mysterious, and in his eyes romantic figure of his father’s father, a Jewish revolutionary from Vitebsk who emigrated to live in the Glasgow Gorbals during the period of Red Clydeside before and after the First World … [Read more...] about Postcards to Grandad – a Family Romance
Telling the Olympic Legacy Story – an Ethnographic Approach – Japan Visit
TALKS ABOUT THE OLYMPICS IN JAPAN Telling the Olympic Legacy Story - an ethnographic approach Phil Cohen For seven years prior to the London 2012 Games I carried out ethnographic research with local communities most directly affected by the creation of a new Olympic Park In East London. Subsequently I carried out a further … [Read more...] about Telling the Olympic Legacy Story – an Ethnographic Approach – Japan Visit
Citizens Atlas of London
We are developing a toolkit of educational resources to support a network of citizen mappers located in the ‘opportunity areas’, designated by the London 2050 infrastructure plan.The network will collaborate on the production of an online Atlas, mapping the past, present and future of these regeneration areas and, outlining an … [Read more...] about Citizens Atlas of London