Post dictatorship art in Argentina and beyond. Laurie Taylor talks to Vikki Bell, Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, about the role of the arts in a society's journey to democracy. Whilst scholars of transitional justice tend to focus on the courts and the streets; this study asks how culture enables a country marked by state oppression to both mark, as well as transcend, its past. They're joined by Professor Sanja Bahun from the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies at ...
Oct 29, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tea workers in Darjeeling. Laurie Taylor talks to Sarah Besky, Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the University of Michigan, about her study of the tough lives of tea plantation workers, and the struggle to re-make one of the world's most expensive teas for the 21st century consumer. Also, the sociologist, Adam Fletcher, discusses an emerging underground trade in junk food at English secondary schools. Is this an unforeseen result of 'healthy food' policies?
Oct 22, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Drug Mules - Laurie Taylor talks to Jennifer Fleetwood, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Leicester, about her study of women in the international cocaine trade. Drawing on 'in depth' interviews with female traffickers imprisoned in Ecuador, she uncovered narratives which went beyond the stock dichotomy of helpless 'victims' versus confident 'agents'. Also, a 'dads only' parenting project. Alan Dolan, Associate Professor in the Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick, cons...
Oct 15, 2014•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Place hacking the hidden city. Laurie Taylor talks to Bradley Garrett, Lecturer in Geography and Environment at the University of Southampton, about his research into the world of urban exploration. Bridges, sewerage and underground rail systems are just a few of the sites penetrated by crews of place hackers who want to journey beyond the boundaries of everyday metropolitan life. They are joined by writer and film maker Iain Sinclair whose work also involves uncovering unseen layers of the city...
Oct 08, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gay life at home and in the 'city' - a special edition of Thinking Allowed presented by Laurie Taylor. From squatted terraces to rented bedsits, the social historian, Matt Cook, explores the domestic and family lives of gay men - the famous, infamous and unknown - in London over the past century. The social anthropologist, Rachael Scicluna, charts the changing domestic lives of metropolitan lesbians. And US sociologist, Amin Ghaziani, describes the way in which urban enclaves such as Greenwich V...
Aug 06, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Race & consumption - Laurie Taylor talks to Ben Pitcher, Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, about the ways in which racial meaning is produced in everyday acts of consumption. From the depiction of 'red Indians' by children's authors to the wearing of Bob Marley T shirts and the enthusiasm for 'ethnic' street food; our ideas of race are made and re-made across the terrain of contemporary culture. They're joined by Lola Young, Crossbench Peer and former Professor of Cultural St...
Jul 30, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elevators - a cultural history. Before skyscrapers transformed the urban landscape a new conveyance made them possible. The elevator, invented in New York in the 1850s, became a factor of metropolitan modernity on both sides of the Atlantic - forever in motion and reflecting the intimacy, as well as the anonymity, of capitalist cities. Laurie Taylor talks to Andreas Bernard, Visiting Professor of Cultural Studies at Leuphana University of Luneburg, and author a of new book which explores the ori...
Jul 23, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rio, protests and the World Cup. Laurie Taylor talks to Jessica Leigh Glass, graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Georgia State University, about her research into the street protests taking place in Rio since June 2013. Initially arising in reaction to a hike in public transport fares, the protests broadened to target wider social inequalities, expenditure on multi-million dollar projects ahead of the 2014 World Cup & the 2016 Olympics and the clearing of some favelas. What...
Jul 16, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tennis: From Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon. Laurie Taylor talks to life long tennis fan and cultural historian, Elizabeth Wilson. The story of tennis illuminates social change and struggle across the 20th century, going hand in hand with the march of modernity, globalisation, commercialisation and gender equality. Also, Daniel Holman, a post doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, discusses class differences in the use of 'talking treatments' for mental health problems with ...
Jul 09, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Flip flops: the world wide trail of an everyday commodity. Laurie Taylor talks to Caroline Knowles, Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, whose study takes a ground level view of the lives and places of globalisation's back roads, via that most ubiquitous of footwear - the flip flop sandal. Also, research into Russia's elite and how they acquire social distinction. Dr Elisabeth Schimpfossl, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, looks at the strategies em...
Jul 02, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Surfing - a political history. Laurie Taylor looks beyond the tanned bodies, crashing waves and carefree pleasure, talking to Scott Laderman, Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. His study traces the rise of surfing in the context of the rise of imperialism and global capitalism. From its emergence in post annexation Hawaii and its use as a diplomatic weapon in America's Cold War to the low wage labour of the surf industry today; he uncovers a hidden history involving a...
Jun 25, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Before the Windrush - Laurie Taylor talks to John Belchem, Professor of History at the University of Liverpool, about his study of race relations in 20th century Liverpool. Long before the arrival of the Empire Windrush after the Second World War, the city was already a teeming mix of different nationalities and races. Black Liverpudlians pioneered mixed marriages and parentage but they also experienced rejection and discrimination. Nisha Katona, city born resident and trustee of National Museum...
Jun 18, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast IVF - it's 35 years years since the initial success of a form of technologically assisted human reproduction which has led to the birth of 5 million 'miracle' babies. Laurie Taylor talks to Sarah Franklin, Professor in Sociology at the University of Cambridge, about her study into the meaning and impact of IVF. Has the creation of new biological relatives transformed our notion of kinship? They're joined by Henrietta Moore, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Also, t...
Jun 11, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Offshoring - the economy of secrecy. The concealment of wealth in tax havens is part of public debate, but John Urry, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, argues that offshore worlds now also involve relations of work, pleasure, energy and security. He talks to Laurie Taylor about new patterns of power which pose huge challenges to democratic government. Also, Dr Aliakbar Jafari, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Marketing at the University of Strathclyde, discusses his research on...
Jun 04, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Chinese women & the resurgence of gender inequality. Laurie Taylor talks to Leta Hong Fincher, about 'Leftover Women', her study of the pressures facing Modern Chinese women who are often locked out of social equality, property rights, and legal protection from domestic abuse. Also, 'smokestack nostalgia' - the meaning of post-industrial imagery. Tim Stangleman, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, questions the continuing desire to reflect back and find value in our industrial ...
May 28, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism - similarities and differences. Comparisons of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiment are strikingly absent in British accounts of race and racism. Laurie Taylor talks to Nasar Meer, Reader in Comparative Social Policy at Strathclyde University, about a new study which attempts to remedy this omission. They're joined by Rumy Hasan, Senior Lecturer at the Sussex Centre for Migration Research at the University of Sussex. Also, the sociology of 'sleep'. How does sleep...
May 21, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 'Illicit' dance in India. Laurie Taylor talks to Anna Morcom, Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, about her extensive research into marginalised dancers in contemporary South Asia. From bar dancers to transgender erotic performers, she has chronicled their relationship with 'legitimate' performing arts; their struggles against stigma and the ways in which post colonial nation building has excluded these 'non elite' carriers of culture. Also, can war ever be a force for good?...
May 14, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The rise & fall of the working class: Laurie Taylor talks to Selina Todd, social historian at St Hilda's College, Oxford, about her sweeping study of ordinary British people between 1910-2010. Rooting her analysis in first person accounts from factory workers, servants and housewives, she reveals a hidden history full of the unexpected: How many of us know that cinema audiences once shook their fists at Winston Churchill? Also, US sociologist, Yasemin Besen-Cassino, discusses her research on...
May 07, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The winner of Thinking Allowed's first Ethnography award, in association with the British Sociological Association. Laurie Taylor and a team of esteemed academics - Professor Beverley Skeggs, Professor Dick Hobbs, Professor Henrietta Moore and Dr Louise Westmarland - set themselves the task of finding the study that has made the most significant contribution to ethnography over the past year. In the past, ethnographic studies have cast light on hidden or misunderstood worlds, from the urban poor...
Apr 30, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Ethnography award 'short list': Thinking Allowed, in association with the British Sociological Association, presents a special programme devoted to the academic research which has been short listed for our new annual award for a study that has made a significant contribution to ethnography, the in-depth analysis of the everyday life of a culture or sub culture. Laurie Taylor is joined by three of the judges: Professor Beverley Skeggs, Professor Dick Hobbs and Dr Louise Westmarland. Producer:...
Apr 23, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gardens of the British Working Class - the historian, Margaret Willes, considers the remarkable feats of cultivation by the working class in Britain, even if the land they planted and loved was not their own: From lush gardens nurtured outside crumbling workers' cottages to 'green' miracles achieved in blackened yards. In doing so, she reveals the ingenious ways in which determined workers transformed drab surroundings. She's joined by Lisa Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies a...
Apr 16, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Capitalism - renewal or decline? Laurie Taylor explores the future of our market driven economy. He's joined by David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Colin Crouch, Professor Emeritus in Sociology at the University of Warwick. Professor Harvey examines the contradictions at the heart of capitalism arguing that it's far from being the permanent or only way of organising human life. Professor Crouch, convers...
Apr 09, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kissing - a cultural history. How do we make sense of the kiss and why did it become a vital sign of romance and courtship? Laurie Taylor talks to Marcel Danesi, Professor of Linguistic Anthropology about his new book 'The History of the Kiss' which argues that kissing was the first act of "free romance" liberated from the yoke of arranged unions. When the kiss first appeared in poetry and songs of the medieval period, it was as a desirable but forbidden act. Since then it has evolved into the q...
Apr 02, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Poverty and 'Shame' - shame was once described as the 'irreducible core' of poverty by Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen. Laurie Taylor looks at new cross cultural research which examines the psycho-social consequences of being poor in countries as diverse as Britain, Pakistan and South Korea. Elaine Chase, Research Officer at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, considers the way that shame and stigma have been experienced by British people receiving welfare a...
Mar 26, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Race in police 'misconduct' proceedings - Laurie Taylor considers new research exploring the perception that ethnic minority police officers are disproportionally subjected to such investigations. Graham Smith, Senior Lecturer at University of Manchester School of Law, looked at data provided by 3 English police services over a 4 year period between 2008 and 2011. Also, Evangelical Fishermen - the lives and beliefs of fundamentalist Christians living in a remote Scottish fishing village. Joseph ...
Mar 19, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Post-Katrina New Orleans: how disaster recovery became a lucrative business. Laurie Taylor talks to Vincanne Adams, US Professor of Medical Anthropology, about her account of market failure after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She discovered private companies profiting from the misery they sought to ameliorate and a second order disaster that intensified inequalities based on race and class. Why were residents left to re-build their lives and homes almost entirely on their...
Mar 12, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Surnames and social mobility - How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? Laurie Taylor talks to Gregory Clark, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis, about movement up the social ladder over 8 centuries, from medieval England to modern Sweden. Using a unique methodology, Professor Clark tracked family names to assess social mobility across diverse eras and societies. His conclusion is that mobility rates are less than are often estimated ...
Mar 05, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 'Webcam' - the use of webcam, especially through Skype, has recently become established as one more standard media technology, but one with profound implications for many facets of human life, from self-consciousness and intimacy to the sustaining of long-distance relationships and the place of the visual within social communications. Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology at University College London, talks to Laurie Taylor about a study which took him from London to Trinidad. Also, the 'Gene...
Feb 26, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Great Indoors. Laurie Taylor talks to cultural theorist Ben Highmore about his history of the family home in the 20th century and how houses display currents of class, identity and social transformation. Also, the evolution of the bathroom. Architectural historian Barbara Penner looks at that most intimate space in the home, and considers how it became an international symbol of key modern values, such as cleanliness, order and progress. Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
Feb 19, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast In memory of Stuart Hall: a special programme paying tribute to the leading cultural theorist and former director of the Birmingham Centre for Cultural Studies. A pioneer of 'multiculturalism', he documented the changing character of 'post Imperial' British society. Laurie Taylor is joined by Caspar Melville, Lecturer in Global Creative and Cultural Industries at SOAS, Baroness Lola Young and Jeremy Gilbert, editor of the journal, New Formations. They explore Stuart Hall's life, influence and le...
Feb 12, 2014•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
