Bliss

Bliss is the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam @issnl. Join the conversation!

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

💡 Women's Month Series 2026 | The Southern Africa Rural Women’s Assembly Seed Guardians 💡

In 2009, 250 women came together and established RWA with the slogan Guardians of Land, Life, and Love.

Read the blog here: https://t.co/aPhbL57YIa

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG POST 📢Beyond Finance: Rethinking Gendered Outcomes in Africa’s Commodity Transformation

Financing agriculture is never just technical, it's political. Who does capital see? Whose labour counts? Whose power gets constrained

Read here: https://t.co/7fPK4OjLQ6

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG📢 Bridging climate change and disaster scholarship

Hyeonggeun J. and Douwe S argue that critical vulnerability scholars from disaster and climate studies are essential for understanding and addressing contemporary climate-related disasters.
Read: https://t.co/WhTvqP6m4B

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

India’s protracted hunger crisis and the digitalisation of its Public Distribution System 

The Public Distribution System in India went biometric with Aadhaar to curb leaks C. Sathyamala and S. Laha argues digitalisation has led to exclusion

Read here: https://t.co/ridsYMJdfV

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG POST: Solidarity under Siege: Germany’s crackdown on the Palestine movement

In this blog, Josephine Solanki analyses and contextualises Germany's crackdown, which ranges from legal changes, protest bans, and police violence.

Read here: https://t.co/xLvAdyKM5g

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG POST 📢A commentary on ‘The Humanitarian Reset’

'The Humanitarian Reset' launched March 2025 by UN's Tom Fletcher promises faster, lighter aid. But is it truly transformative, or another top-down reform like 2016's Grand Bargain?

Read here: https://t.co/pfJtsbiyaT

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG POST 📢Food crisis in the UK and the digitalisation of welfare

In this blog, the authors highlight a growing food crisis in the UK, alongside a ‘digital-by-default’ welfare transformation.

Read the blog here: https://t.co/byCwaJ4AmR

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

New Blog Post 📢The Prabowo regime and Indonesia’s colonial continuities

Fatimatuz Zahra argues the regime operates on colonial logic—treating its own people, especially marginalized groups, as subjects to discipline and extract.

Read here: https://t.co/ZcYriz6ShO

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG📢When the System Says No: Digitalization and Accountability in Food Aid

Drawing on fieldwork in South Sudan, Hayley Umayam shows how digital exclusion in food aid is framed as a system error rather than the result of human decisions.

Read here:https://t.co/yJLkzT6yB5

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG POST 📢Recentering Protection for Civilians in a Fragmenting World Order

In this blog, Amra Lee highlights critical discussions on protecting civilians, with a view to establishing a Working Group in 2026.

Read here: https://t.co/sxo5SzKW63

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

💡NEW BLOG POST📢 From digital solutionism to digital resilience💡

Pierrick Devidal argues that humanitarians need to move away from a techno-solutionist and productivity-driven approach to one based on rights and digital resilience-building.

Read here: https://t.co/xEEqsEQ3Gp

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

📢The digital paradox

Digital food assistance in Sudan is a paradox: lifesaving, yet weaponised. Internet shutdowns turn aid into a tool of exclusion, control, and extraction—reinforcing violent power relations rather than alleviating them.

Read here: https://t.co/yuKLk1WEFu

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

NEW BLOG POST 📢 IHSA Conference Series: A shrinking humanitarian space requires a New Way of Thinking

Alasdair Gordon-Gibson examines the evolving context for humanitarian action and argues for a new and broader approach.

Read here: https://t.co/1rjEpsnGPl

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

💡 Two Blog Series Return Next Week 💡

Next week marks the return of two of our blog series: our IHSA 2025 reflections and the Politics of Food and Technology blog series.

New posts go live next week here: https://t.co/yFBfLpTjho

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

New Blog Post 📢Vicarious Trauma and the Systemic Failure in Sexual Violence Response

Drawing on her personal frontline experience, Emaediong Akpan argues that caring for survivors is impossible without caring for those who serve them.
Read the blog here: https://t.co/uayfIfjubA

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

New Blog📢16 Days Activism Against GBV Series| The Future of Transgender Liberation is International Law

Paxton M.  argues that international law is already being used to improve the quality of life for transgender peoples across the world.

Read here: https://t.co/TrKzSwuNMe

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

16 Days Activism Against GBV Series| Beyond Convictions

In this blog, Abubakar Jibril argues that genuine gender justice must be reimagined through survivors' lived experiences, centring healing, dignity and accountability beyond the courtroom.

Read here:https://t.co/mnfG2f0fE0

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

New Blog Post 📢 16 Days Activism Against GBV Series| Pursuing Justice for Survivors of CRSV in Ukraine

In this blog, Katerina Lefkidou examines current challenges in addressing conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine.

Read the blog here: https://t.co/jj9dxMgFmv

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

💡16 Days Activism Against GBV Series: Effective Gender Justice as a Pathway to Peace 💡

In this blog, Michelle Jarvis emphasizes that gender justice requires transforming justice processes and gender structures

Read the blog here: https://t.co/PYvqMv9jwM
#UNiTE #16daysactvism

[Bliss @ISS_Blog]

New Blog Post📢Humanitarian Response in the Absence of Data

Jeremy Taylor of the Norwegian Refugee Council, explores programming challenges from data dependence in humanitarian work and proposes improvements for a digitally resilient system.
Read here: https://t.co/qpsroV8Ge0