This episode is based on the talk that I gave at the 2020 European Association for Social Anthropologists. I was delighted to take part in the first virtual 2020 EASA panel on Ethnography beyond the looking glass. I presented the work that I have been doing as part of the Nightworkshop project designed to research nightwork communities in urban spaces. In this talk I focus on the use of the body in research and the use of cyberethnographic methods to capture the sensorial experiences of a researcher immersed in night ethnography. The audio-visual methods that I have used to bring this information to the mixed audiences includes short ethnographic films and this podcast series, the Nightworkpod. The three short films, Invisible Lives, Nocturnal Lives and Nightshift Spitalfields are available to watch on Vimeo and Youtube or go to Nightworkshop. This work is based on a book chapter due for OPEN ACCESS publication in May 2021. You can read the abstract here.

This podcast episode is based on a talk that I gave as part of Night Modes panel, a NIGHT SCENE Virtual event by UCL Urban Laboratory (London, 2020). The episode is complemented by a video recording, which you can watch here. This talk is about the embodied precariousness experienced by migrant nightshift workers. The findings of this research result from a night ethnography that I did in 2015 in a fruit and vegetable market in Leyton, East London. This presentation, nonetheless, was (video)recorded during the full pandemic lockdown 2020. Apologies for the silence breaks due to the online recording quality. Special thanks to Prof Ben Campkin and Jo Marshall, both associated with UCL Urban Laboratory for organising this exciting round of presentations, as part of the NIGHT SCENES event series. To watch and listen to the other guest's talks (by DJ Ritu and Rob Shaw) on the Night Modes panel click here. More about Night spaces: migration, culture and Integration in Europe (NITE) will entail an ambitious programme of community co-designed cultural events and activities, and close engagement with policy-makers, with the aim to positively influence policy approaches on night-time economies, helping to release the potential night spaces offer in creating more inclusive cities. Authorities have historically wrestled with the issue of night-time control, and the hours after dark are often still perceived as harbouring threats to public order and potential criminality. However, current policy attention to night-time urban economies, exemplified by the creation of the office of Night Mayor in Amsterdam (2014) and Night Czar in London (2016) illustrate the increasing interest in the potentialities of the urban night. NITE will contribute with otherwise overlooked evidence on the production, experience and narration of migrant urban night spaces, in their material, symbolic and virtual dimensions. The project brings together five parallel sub-projects mapping night spaces in eight cities in the Netherlands, Ireland, UK, Germany, Denmark and Portugal. Read more ...

I close this series with the last episode called "Reflections from Researching the Nightshift". Here, I address the lessons learnt during my research on London's 'other workers' invested in the night shift.An excerpt from the interview with our guest, Marion Roberts, Emeritus Professor in Urban Design at the University of Westminster offers insights into the problematics with night-time expansion in London. For the full interview go to Ep. 04. Some of Prof Roberts important work informed and shaped the Greater London Authority’s policy and vision of London as a 24-hour City - 24-hour London – and the subsequent publication, From Good Night to Great Night: A Vision For London asa 24-hour City. For full-text click http://bit.ly/LENTE_report2018In making this series of podcasts about working the night shift I aimed to raise awareness of issues that need addressing in a 24/7 society relying on the workers trapped in its gig economy, at night. This podcast series follows my efforts to disseminate the findings to the academic community, via conferences, working papers, and journal articles. I also used documentary making tool to reach out to political actors, policymakers and stakeholders who have the power to improve the lives of night workers and the issues around isolation, health inequalities, fragmentation and lack of cooperation amongst night shift workers to unionise and demand their rights to decent work.

Episode: 04Time: 21’45”Date: Nov 2018Place: Interview recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria. Produced in London @anightworkshopGuest: Marion Roberts, Professor in Urban Design, University of Westminster | UKSynopsis: In this third and last episode of the series called “London the Glocturnal City, and its 'other workers' “our first guest, Marion Roberts, Emeritus Professor in Urban Design at the University of Westminster talks about her invested interest and research that she has carried out on various themes related to the night-time city since 2001. Currently she serves on the board of Data and Research sub-committee of the Greater London Authority, the sub-committee on London's night-time commission. Roberts and colleagues (2018) have published a report on the scale and importance of London’s Evening and Night Time Economy that was commissioned by the Greater London Authority, April 2016. The authors (Roberts et al, 2018) report provides a snapshot of London’s evening and night-time economies. It scrutinises the regulatory policies of licensing and planning, investigates crime and anti-social behaviour and drills down into the economic contribution of night-time activities. These outputs helped inform and shape the Greater London Authority’s policy and vision of London as a 24-hour City - 24-hour London – and subsequent publication, From Good Night to Great Night: A Vision For London as a 24-hour City.

“In 2016, a team of academics at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary, put together a proposal to start education programmes for displaced students across Europe, called Open Learning Initiative (OLIve), within a European consortium, Refugee Education Initiatives (REIs). These programmes recognised the role of quality education in protecting refugees and promoted sustainable solutions to the challenges they face in their adopted environments. Hence, in response to the rising number of refugees arriving in Europe at the time, it aimed to extend access to university education. This would be achieved through offering pre-sessional courses to refugee learners aspiring to study in European universities via OLIve. The programme would take place in Budapest, Vienna and London in 2016-2018 and Budapest, Vienna, London, Berlin and Thessaloniki in 2018-2020. It presented the opportunity to share knowledge and best practice across the consortium to improve access to universities around Europe. [...]Many universities in Europe extended their offers at the same time. [...] However, it is worth noting that these universities’ responses also coincided with a rise in right-wing political discourse, tougher immigration control and new bordering regimes throughout Europe.”-Lounasmaa, Masserano, Oddy and Harewood (2020) This episode offers a round-up of OLIve's organisation and structure in its various locations at Bard College Berlin, Central European University, Budapest, University of East London, Aristotle University at Thessaloniki and University of Vienna.

Paradox módon, miközben felmérések és statisztikai adatok bizonyítják a romák esélytelenségét, generációs kirekesztettségét, a magyar társadalom többsége még mindig úgy vélekedik, hogy a romák “túltámogatottak”, „mindent megkaptak”, de nem élnek, éltek ezzel a lehetőséggel és ezért kizárólag őket terheli felelősség. Ezzel szemben a szomorú valóság az, hogy a privatizáció, az állami vállalatok felszámolása, a jóléti újraelosztás radikális átszervezése és csökkentése hátrányosabban sújtották a roma, mint a nem-roma lakosságot. A romák társadalmi integrációját célzó intézkedések, elenyésző eredménnyel jártak. A rendszerváltás utáni gazdasági és társadalmi átrendeződések sokkal nagyobb mértékben rontották a romák helyzetét, mint amennyit ezek a programok tudtak tenni a romák valós integrációjáért.A rendszerváltozás tragikus hatásain túl, a romákkal kapcsolatos aggodalmaknak mély történelmi gyökerei vannak, amelyek hol a szabad barbárok csodálatában öltenek testet, hol pedig a “cigányok” megneveléséhez, civilizációjához, “integrációjához”, vagy kiirtásához vezetnek.A kurzusnak két fő célja van: (1) napjaink romákkal kapcsolatos narratíváinak átfogó kritikai vizsgálata; (2) fórumot biztosítani progresszív alternatív víziók és gyakorlatok megvitatásához.Adott szeminárium témáját felkért előadók vezetik fel, akik között megtalálható - többek között - újságíró, irodalmár, politikus és civil aktivista.https://biboszabadegyetem.org/a-cigany-problematol-a-roma-emancipacioig

Urban Arena is a podcast about creating just and sustainable cities. This month we're joined by Panagiota Kotsila, Isabelle Anguelovski, and Jonathan Luger from the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability.We're talking about drivers of urban injustice: https://wiki.urban-arena.eu/index.php?title=Database_of_drivers_of_injusticeIan was searching the following stat whilst rambling: the richest 10 percent of the world produces more than half its carbon. Thanks Oxfam. !!READ THIS!!Do you want to become an Urban Arena podcast correspondent! We want your voice on the pod. If you’d like to featured then please answer the question ‘What is a sustainable and just city?’ in a maximum of 3 minutes. Record it on your phone or recording device and send it over. It’s up to you what you put in your message, but we encourage you to think about urban sustainability and justice together. Email us at [email protected] // Find us on twitter or instagram - @arena_urban // Facebook UrbanA - Urban Arenas

Paksa Rudolf beszélget Gárdos Péterrel és Szántó T. Gáborral a holokauszt magyarországi filmes emlékezetéről és a történeti filmekről. Részletesen beszélünk Gárdos Péter: Hajnali láz című filmjéről, valamint Szántó T. Gábor: Hazatérés című művéről és filmes adaptációjáról, Török Ferenc: 1945 című filmjéről. A beszélgetésen szóba kerül a holokauszt és annak következményei a magyar társadalomra és a magyarországi zsidó közösségre.  Beszélünk arról is, miként készül egy történeti film, s miben gondolkodik másként egy forgatókönyvíró és egy rendező, mint egy történész. De említjük Kempelen Farkas "sakkautomatáját" és Semmelweis Ignác tragédiáját és Kafka macskáit is.

In this episode, I am hosting Zeynep Serinkaya Winter. We will discuss the gendered representations of disability in the Turkish cinema, focusing on melodramas produced between 1960 and 1980. Zeynep reveals how disability and gender intersect to signify bodies as spaces of modernization and consolidation of the nation-state project.Zeynep is a social scientist with an interdisciplinary background, currently working on digital dissidence, queer movements in Turkey and digital intimate publics. She completed her master’s degree in the Comparative Studies in History and Society Program at Koç University. Zeynep has also been actively involved in civil society work, advocating for freedom of expression. She is a founding member of the Civic Space Studies Association and the co-coordinator and translator for LGBTI News Turkey, where she occasionally contributes as a writer. Her translations have also appeared in publications such as Cogito and Jacobin. Currently, she continues her doctoral studies in the Design, Technology and Society program at Koç University.Zeynep’s research depicts the genre of melodrama as conducive to the enmeshment of ableism, hetero-patriarchy and nationalism. Melodrama’s sensationalist nature, coupled with its simplistic depiction of events and character development, can be seen as an infrastructure of essentialist representations reproducing ableism, hetero-patriarchy and nationalism.Zeynep highlights the fact that Turkish melodramas responded to the side effects of modernization efforts of Early Republican Turkey. The rapid industrialization, urbanization, state-led rise of a national bourgeoisie, internal migration from rural to urban areas had led to urban sprawl, poverty and a disenchanted working class. Melodramas became the medium through which emotions arising from these complex social events can be filtered and reduced to a dichotomy of traditional values vs modern lifestyles. A middle class consisting of able bodies is the golden mean of representation in melodramas, through which hetero-patriarchal gender norms are reproduced.By drawing upon eugenic discourses that had been circulating amongst the intelligentsia, Turkish melodramas marginalize both extreme richness and extreme poorness. Melodramas equate both with moral corruptions such as excessive drinking, overt sexualization, or gluttony and idleness. People living at these extremes are marked as undesired citizens via grotesque demonization or extreme victimization. For example, the image of a rich woman excessively drinking signifies that woman as a villain who does extreme evil deeds to separate the hero and the heroine. On the other hand, the image of a poor woman excessively drinking signifies that woman as a victim whose subjectivity had been completely erased by every unfortunate event that happened to her.Gendered representations of disability are incorporated into melodramas as a crucial narrative tool to perpetuate hetero-patriarchal norms. For example, melodramas equate mobility impairment with asexuality or sexual dysfunction. As Zeynep puts it: “Wheelchair users are often depicted as failing from performing their gender roles, as a husband that satisfies his wife or as a wife that can be procreated with.” Moreover, bodies that are marked as female and male experience different effects of disability in Turkish movies. For example, female blindness means vulnerability to male sexual aggression. Blind women are depicted as in need of male protection and care. Male blindness, on the other, means loss of patriarchal control over women.

Paksa Rudolf beszélget Fahidi Évával és Zoltán Gáborral a II. világháború kulturális emlékezetéről. Beszélünk Fahidi Éva: A dolgok lelke című kötetéről, valamint a szereplésével készült Sóvirág című darabról és A létezés eufóriája című filmről, illetve Zoltán Gábor két helytörténeti dokumentumregényéről az Orgiáról és a Szomszédről, valamint az 1944-es év líráját megidéző Szép versek 1944 című kötetéről. Szóba kerül még számos film: a Saul fia, az 1945, valamint Stocker Éva: Háború a zsidók ellen című filmje, valamint Erdélyi József, Pilinszky János, Radnóti Miklós költészete. Beszélünk arról, hogy melyek az autentikus holokausztfilmek, s mi a különbség a dokumentumregény és a törtnetírás között. Kik és hogyan lettek áldozatok, kikből lettek az elkövetők, s mit tettek a többiek?