British politics, heritage and history. Laurie Taylor explores the divergent stories political parties construct about our history and their own historical roles. From disputes over the National Curriculum for History to the assertion of a lost 'social democratic' tradition by New Labour. Research Fellow, Emily Robinson, argues that politicians' manipulation of the past leaves them unable to speak of different futures. Also, Allison James talks about her research on the experience of sick childr...
Dec 12, 2012•28 min
How to be Gay - Laurie Taylor talks to David Halperin, the US Professor of History and Theory of Sexuality, whose controversial new book explores the way in which a gay male sensibility subverts mainstream culture, from Grand Opera to Broadway Musicals. Whilst some gay men repudiate what they perceive as a narrow and stereotypical version of their sexual identity; Halperin argues that a love of kitsch, camp and melodrama is, in fact, linked to a uniquely gay culture: Furthermore, its genius lies...
Dec 05, 2012•28 min
Red Tape in India - a major new study by the renowned anthropologist, Akhil Gupta, seeks to understand why state bureaucracy hinders the fight against poverty in the world's third largest economy. Laurie Taylor hears about his ethnographic study among officials in charge of development programs in rural Uttar Pradesh. Why is it that the expansion of government programmes have failed to improve significantly the lives of the poorest? Fellow anthropologist, Dr Alpa Shah, joins the discussion. Also...
Nov 28, 2012•28 min
Residential care revisited - Laurie Taylor considers Peter Townsend's landmark research, 'The Last Refuge', fifty years after its publication. Retracing Townsend's footsteps, a hundred, older volunteer researchers sought to find out what had happened to the 173 care homes in his classic study. Julia Johnson, one of the authors of the new study, charts the changes and continuities in care for older people in England and Wales. She's joined by Robin Darton, an expert in social care, Also, the arch...
Nov 21, 2012•28 min
What was behind the British riots? From Blackberry and gossip to hard facts and first hand accounts. Laurie Taylor talks to Daniel Briggs about his research into last year's summer of discontent and damage. A definitive account of the nature and causes of the riots of 2011. Also, is it all over for the weekend? The sociologists, Jill Ebrey and Guy Standing, ask whether or not the weekend as a time for rest, family life and pleasure, is threatened with extinction by contemporary patterns of work....
Nov 19, 2012•28 min
Ever in need of a new way to travel? 'Couchsurfing', in the form of online social networking, allows users to travel with and stay at the homes of fellow users. It's just one example of how the internet aids face to face intimacy - sometimes amongst strangers. Paula Bialski talks to Laurie Taylor about her book 'Becoming Intimately Mobile' . Based on five years of ethnographic research amongst coach surfers and online hitchhiking website users, it documents new forms of human hospitality and con...
Nov 07, 2012•28 min
Growth of the strip clubs - Why has erotic dance and stripping become a staple of the night time economy in the UK? Kate Hardy tells Laurie Taylor why her research suggests that the proliferation of these clubs has little to do with the demands of male customers. Instead, it's a by product of the economics of an industry which maintains its profits, even during a recession, by passing the financial risks on to its workers. Also, the anthropologist, Daniel Miller asks what the ubiquity of blue je...
Oct 31, 2012•28 min
Trouble at work: Laurie Taylor considers the findings of the largest UK study on ill treatment in the workplace ever undertaken. He's joined by the researchers, Ralph Fevre and Amanda Robinson, who claim that organisations which are well versed in modern management practices may create a culture in which bullying, harassment and stress thrive. Also, travellers versus tourists - Lara Week's research questions whether or not those seeking 'authentic culture' provide more to foreign countries than ...
Oct 24, 2012•28 min
Are the stringent checks at airports really for our benefit? 'Against Security', a new book by the acclaimed American sociologist, Harvey Molotch, explores the complex systems which are designed to make us feel safe in public places. He tells Laurie Taylor why he thinks that security measures in airports and subways, post 9.11, have damaged the pleasure and dignity of our daily lives. They're joined by the design critic, Stephen Bayley. Also, Sociology's failure to address the financial crisis. ...
Oct 17, 2012•28 min
The 'New' Arab Man: Middle Eastern, Muslim men are often represented as 'zealots' and oppressors of women. But Laurie Taylor hears how 2 decades of research by the Professor of Anthropology, Marcia Inhorn, is undermining such cultural stereotypes. Her study found that ordinary Arab men who confront childlessness and infertility are re-thinking conventional masculinity. Also, research by Matthew Bond into elite club membership in the House of Lords. Is a British establishment still evident in the...
Oct 10, 2012•28 min
Sickness benefit claimants and their fear of the 'brown envelope'. Laurie Taylor hears about a new study into the views and experiences of the long term sick and disabled in the context of ongoing welfare reforms. The researcher, Kayleigh Garthwaite, highlights their ambivalence - whilst some have a deep seated anxiety about losing rights and income; others hope it will distinguish between the genuinely ill, such as themselves, and those that are 'faking'. Also, the former social science magazin...
Oct 03, 2012•29 min
Bletchley Park, the decoding organisation, was at the heart of British intelligence operations in the Second World War. A mythology has grown around its secret activities, which some claim shortened the war by several years. Professor Christopher Grey talks to Laurie Taylor about his seminal research into the romance and reality of Bletchley Park. They're joined by Professor Anthony King. Also, race and 'belonging' in an English village. The social anthropologist, Katharine Tyler, explores the a...
Sep 26, 2012•28 min
Segregation: a Global History of Divided Cities' Laurie Taylor talks to Carl Nightingale, the author of a groundbreaking new book about the ideology and practice of racial segregation in the city. Traversing continents and millennia, he analyses the urban divide from its imperial origins to postwar suburbanisation; from the racially split city of Calcutta to the American South in the age of Jim Crow. Finally, he considers the extent to which separation by race continues to deform the contemporar...
Sep 19, 2012•28 min
'Odd Couples' - friendships which cross the boundaries of gender and sexuality. A new book challenges the widespread assumption that men and women are fundamentally different and can only forge significant bonds within romantic relationships. It charts the deep friendships between gay men and straight women, and also between lesbians and straight men. Laurie Taylor talks to the sociologist, Anna Muraco, who claims that such 'intersectional' friendships serve as as a barometer for shifting social...
Sep 12, 2012•29 min
What has cause the Italian family to decline so fast? What are the prospects for encouraging Italians to start having more children? Laurie is joined in the studio by three experts in order to discuss his explorations of the family in Italy. Geoff Andrews, David Gilmour and Annalisa Piras give their views on what has caused the Italian crisis and what hopes there are for the future. Producer: Charlie Taylor.
Sep 05, 2012•28 min
Italy, home to the Pope and the Holy See, perhaps the most Catholic of all countries, is undergoing a peculiarly un-Catholic crisis; it now has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. There are so few children being born that if the current trend persists, traditional Italians are at risk of dying out in just a handful of generations. How can the nation famed for Romanticism, for enormous affectionate families, for Mamma Mia and for an enviable certainty that all you need is good food, good ...
Aug 31, 2012•28 min
Italy, home to the Pope and the Holy See, perhaps the most Catholic of all countries, is undergoing a peculiarly un-Catholic crisis; it now has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. There are so few children being born that if the current trend persists, traditional Italians are at risk of dying out in just a handful of generations. How can the nation famed for Romanticism, for enormous affectionate families, for Mamma Mia and for an enviable certainty that all you need is good food, good ...
Aug 29, 2012•28 min
The first generation of women to establish themselves on Wall Street began their careers in the 1960s. Laurie Taylor hears from Melissa Fisher about her in depth study of the working lives of the women at the heart of America's financial centre, and Liz Bolshaw joins the discussion to bring a comparison with women in The City of London. Also, Beth Hardie joins Laurie to discuss her new report on youth crime in Peterborough called Breaking Rules. Does morality have a role in preventing people com...
Aug 15, 2012•28 min
What happens when middle class white people move into vibrant, ethnically diverse and challenging areas in inner city London? Emma Jackson talks to Laurie about the developing attitudes of the 'gentrifiers' in Peckham and in Brixton. Also, Irena Grugulis, author of Jobs for the Boys returns to the programme: She address points raised by listeners on her study of networking in the media and discusses the concept of 'social capital'. Producer: Charlie Taylor.
Aug 10, 2012•28 min
'Jobs for the Boys?' New research presented at the British Sociological Association's 2012 conference claimed that middle class people hoard job opportunities in the UK TV and film industry. In a pre- recorded interview from the conference, Professor Irena Grugulis, suggests to Laurie Taylor that working class people don't get these jobs because they don't have the right accents, clothes, backgrounds or friends. Indeed, it's hard to find an area of the economy where connections and contacts are ...
Aug 01, 2012•28 min
Advanced CCTV, security cordons and an £80 million pound electric fence: The security impact of the Olympics is already being felt in the London Borough of Newham. Security procedures are some of the most intense and developed in the world, designed to protect not only Olympic visitors but also future residents of the 40,000 new homes due to be completed by the end of the decade. Newham is one of the most impoverished areas in the country and the condition of its current residents stands in shar...
Jul 25, 2012•27 min
Building workers constitute between five and ten per cent of the total labour market in almost every country. We rely on them to construct the infrastructure of our societies yet we know little about their culture. The sociologist, Darren Thiel, talks to Laurie Taylor about his study into their every day lives on a London construction site. Also, drawing on research with musicians in the North East of England, Dr Susan Coulson finds that co-operation, creativity and entrepreneurship make uneasy ...
Jul 18, 2012•28 min
From Victorian seances to schemes which upload our minds into cyberspace, there are myriad ways in which human beings have sought to conquer mortality. The philosopher, John Gray, discusses his book "The Immortalisation Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death" with Laurie Taylor. The cultural historian Marina Warner joins the debate. Also, listeners' response to Thinking Allowed's recent discussion on the sociology of 'evil'. Professor Barry Smith, the director of the Institute ...
Jul 11, 2012•28 min
From the Paris Commune to the 'Right to the City', cities have long been the centre of utopian dreams and protests. They have generated riches, destitution, celebration and organised and often violent protest. Professor David Harvey, the acclaimed social geographer, talks to Laurie Taylor about the urban roots of the contemporary capitalist crisis and the vision of a city for all. They're joined by the sociologist, Sophie Watson. Producer: Charlie Taylor.
Jul 04, 2012•28 min
'Evil' is a concept more readily associated with theology and psychology than the social sciences. Tabloid headlines denounce 'evil' crimes but offer little in the way of explanation. Indeed, the very term implies that no explanation is possible. But Michel Wieviorka, the leading French sociologist, tells Laurie Taylor why he thinks that 'evil' can and should be subjected to sociological scrutiny. They're joined by Peter Young, Head of Criminology at the University of Kent. Also, the sociologist...
Jun 27, 2012•28 min
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near Mumbai's international airport. The Pulitzer prize winning writer, Katherine Boo, spent 4 years hearing the stories of the slum dwellers who stand little chance of joining the 'new' Indian middle class. She talks to Laurie Taylor about her new book "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum". Also, the sociologist, Jeff Kidder, highlights new research which analyses why so many Americans are morally...
Jun 20, 2012•28 min
Kinship is a key term in Anthropology. It describes the genealogical and biological ties which bind human beings to each other. The French anthropologist, Maurice Godelier, tells Laurie Taylor about his groundbreaking study into the evolution of kinship as a reality, as well as a concept. He disputes the idea that it constitutes the original building block of society; arguing instead that political and religious allegiances cut across family groups. He also suggests that traditional ideas of 'ki...
Jun 13, 2012•28 min
Laurie Taylor explores new research from this year's British Sociological Association conference. Lisa Mckenzie describes the growth in working class alienation on the St Anne's housing estate in Nottingham. Also, Dr Maria Papapolydorou, considers how class impacts on young peoples choice and experience of friendship. Producer: Jayne Egerton.
Jun 06, 2012•27 min
British comics are full of iconic and transgressive characters from Dan Dare to Minnie the Minx. Laurie Taylor talks to professor James Chapman the author of a new book charting the cultural history of British comics. They are joined by the broadcaster Matthew Sweet. Also, Professor Nicoli Nattrass explains why a disproportionate percentage of Black South Africans and African Americans subscribe to conspiracy theories about the origins of AIDS.. Producer: Jayne Egerton.
May 30, 2012•28 min
Philanthropy is most often associated with the fight against poverty and disease. But a new book claims that the philanthropic foundations established by the major American industrialists - Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford - have also promoted American values across the world. From Chile to Indonesia, they've invested in the creation of intellectual elites with a neo liberal agenda. And, it's claimed, they've had a significant role on the international stage, transforming America from a parochial ...
May 23, 2012•28 min
