- Article
- Article
The stranger who started an epidemic
New Orleans, 1853. James McGuigan arrives in the port city and succumbs to yellow fever.
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Social isolation and the search for sanctuary
Threatened with deportation, Furaha Asani turned to her church for support. Met with silence and disinterest, she walked away, but argues that churches should do much more for migrants.
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Drug sharing in desperate times
When Nicole was threatened with deportation, her mental health deteriorated. Now without a job, a passport or a doctor, she depends on others to send her their leftover anxiety drugs.
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- Article
Doctor in the house
A house is not always a home – sometimes it’s impermanent, impersonal. But other aspects of the itinerant life can be the source of a sense of home.
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- Article
The ‘undesirable epileptic’
Abused in her marriage for being 'a sick woman', Aparna Nair looked to history to make sense of the response to her epilepsy. She discovered how centuries of fear and discrimination were often endorsed by science and legislation.
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Medics, migration and the NHS
In the 1960s the NHS became Britain’s biggest employer. So to help fill all those jobs, the government brought in thousands of workers from abroad.
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The family food of a kebab van man
Melek Erdal celebrates the physical and mental resilience of her father Yusuf, forged by isolation and dislocation, and reinforced by the distinctive cuisine of his home country, Turkey.
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- Article
What is structural violence?
Structural violence is seemingly invisible. But its tentacles have invaded every part of many people’s lives, thoughts, experiences and expectations, shaping them in ways they don’t even realise.
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- Article
Leaving Mexico and finding refuge in hope
In Mexico, violence of all kinds – organised, street, domestic – is accepted as normal. From the UK, Laura Morales speaks out and fights to help those suffering back home.
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My mother, and metaphors of a pandemic
A pandemic. Two members of one family, living thousands of miles apart. And months of calls and messages that helped them grow closer.
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When you can’t return home
Migrants and refugees cannot choose to return home, so homesickness becomes a profound and long-lasting feeling. This powerful force infuses migrant cultures, and is rarely given the serious attention it warrants.
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Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high
The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.
- Book extract
- Book extract
“Above resistant pavements, I floated”
In this extract from ‘Living with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts’, walk with Iain Sinclair through the streets of London.
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Sharing Nature: Parks for people
Paula Broom’s photograph of Sydney’s Centennial Park shows the complexity and joy we find in urban greenery.
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Fake news and the flu
Discover how history shows that fake news could play a deadly role – by generating potentially lethal misinformation during a future pandemic.
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Western magic’s fascination with the foreigner
Could modern magic shows be perpetuating damaging cultural stereotypes? Shelley Saggar shows how ‘exotic’ costumes and imagery are far from harmless fun.
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Surviving grief when discussing death is off limits
When Iqra Choudhry’s dad died, she lost her words. Here she explains how finding a way to talk and write about loss has been essential for surviving it.
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- Article
Are you still nursing?
Julia Martins might get the side-eye for breastfeeding a three-year-old in the UK but, as she explains, examples from history, as well as the cultural norms of Brazil, where she grew up, are firmly on the side of extended nursing.
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The ugly truth about fast fashion
Aja Barber reflects on her relationship with fast fashion, outlines its polluting and destructive effects, and shares the small, personal changes we can make that could help.
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My rainforest upbringing
In the introduction to her serial, research biologist Nataly Allasi Canales charts the influences that led her to passion for preserving the species of the Peruvian Amazon, where she spent her childhood.
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The Martians are coming
For over a hundred years, antagonistic alien invaders have been a popular focus for the imagined end of the world. But the destructive consequences of human behaviour is far more frightening.
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姜、蒜、葱 Ginger, garlic and spring onions
Nina Mingya Powles felt adrift in the UK, living thousands of miles from home. But nurturing familiar tastes and smells in her tiny balcony garden helped her roots begin to grow.
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Written on my body
Scars mean David Jesudason has never enjoyed seeing his reflection. Recounting the stories behind the marks on his face and body, he finds the only one that symbolises hope and happiness.
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- Article
Equality in genetics
Genetic counsellor Sasha Henriques harnessed her energy and resolve to tackle the racial biases she saw in her profession – with positive and promising results.
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- Article
Writing in remission
Reading the writings of the lifelong hypochondriac Jacques Derrida during lockdown, Brian Dillon realises his own health anxiety has become unusually subdued.