Matrix Podcast

One could say that, by definition, music is the most diasporic of art forms. It is movement itself. It is hybridity. It passes from place to place and from time to time, heedless of natural or social borders. Music belongs everywhere, and yet it is always from somewhere. Diasporic themes and histories have been central not only to the creation and commodification of new musical forms, but also to the emergence of global identities and solidarities.

In this conversation, recorded on October 28, 2021, the University of California, Berkeley’s Social Science Matrix, together with the Townsend Center for the Humanities, Cal Performances, and the Black Studies Collaboratory, took advantage of the precious artist-in-residency of Angélique Kidjo on the UC Berkeley campus to open a conversation about the global circulation of African musical forms and musicians, its worldwide significance, and its social power.

Angélique Kidjo was joined in conversation by Tianna Paschel, Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of African American Studies; Ivy Mills, Lecturer, Visual and Literary Cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora; and Victoria Grubbs, Lecturer and Black Studies Collaboratory Postdoctoral Fellow.

In this episode, Julia Sizek, a PhD candidate in Anthropology at UC Berkeley, interviews Dr. Victoria Massie, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, and Faculty Affiliate for the Center for African & African American Studies (CAAAS), the Medical Humanities Program and the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (CSWGS) at Rice University in Houston.

A recent alumna of the Ph.D. program in Sociocultural Anthropology and the Designated Emphasis in Science & Technology Studies programs at UC Berkeley, Massie's work draws on black feminist kinship studies at the intersection of racial capitalism and biocapitalism to understand the centrality of emerging biotechnologies for mobility for people of African descent, with a focus on Cameroon. Outside of her work as anthropologist, Massie is a creative non-fiction writer.

On the podcast, Sizek interviews Massie about her research tracking diasporic connections between the US and Cameroon, and the wider world of genetic ancestry testing.

Produced by the University of California, Berkeley's Social Science Matrix, the Matrix Podcast features interviews with scholars from across the UC Berkeley campus. Listen to other episodes here. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

A transcript is available at: https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/genetic-ancestry-testing-and-reconnection-an-interview-with-dr-victoria-massie/.

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) has become increasingly popular as an online tool for conducting social science research. What are the specific advantages and downsides of using online crowdsourcing tools like MTurk for conducting research? What practical and/or moral dilemmas might emerge in the course of the research process, and what concrete strategies have scientists developed to address them?

Presented as part of the Social Sciences and Data Science event series, co-sponsored with the UC Berkeley D-Lab, this panel discussion, recorded on October 1, 2021 brought together researchers from diverse disciplines, who shared their experience with the MTurk platform and discussed social and ethical aspects of MTurk more generally.

Moderated by Serena Chen, Professor and Chair of Psychology and the Marian E. and Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. Distinguished Chair for Innovative Teaching and Research at UC Berkeley, the panel featured Ali Alkhatib, Interim director of the Center for Applied Data Ethics at the University of San Francisco; Stefano DellaVigna, Daniel Koshland, Sr. Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Business Administration at UC Berkeley; and Gabriel Lenz, Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley.

In this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Hector Callejas, a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies and a 2021-2022 ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Completion fellow. Callejas specializes in Native American and Indigenous studies and Latin American studies. He researches and teaches on the relationship between Indigeneity, race, space, and power in the Americas. His dissertation theorizes the territorial turn in Latin America from a settler colonial perspective. It draws on extensive ethnographic and archival research on transnational Indigenous politics in contemporary El Salvador.

In the podcast, we discuss his research and how Indigeneity is understood in El Salvador, as well as contemporary Indigenous movements in El Salvador.

Produced by the University of California, Berkeley's Social Science Matrix, the Matrix Podcast features interviews with scholars from across the UC Berkeley campus.

A transcript of this interview is available at: https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/politics-of-indigeneity-in-el-salvador/.

In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Xavier Buck, Deputy Director of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, a nonprofit that has preserved and promoted the legacy of the Black Panther Party for over 25 years.

Buck graduated with a PhD in History from UC Berkeley in 2021. His work blends organizing and educational pursuits in the service of sustaining movements for Black lives, and he has previously been a fellow at Prosperity Now, the Education Trust – West, and the Digital Equity Initiative at the City & County of San Francisco.

In the podcast, we discuss Buck's work in public history, including his @historyin3 channel (which can be found on TikTok and Instagram), his current work at the Huey P. Newton Foundation, and his dissertation research, which shows how Black experiences in Louisiana from 1927 to 1945 were integral to Black political organizing, cooperative economics, and government partnerships in California from 1945 to 1975.

Produced by the University of California, Berkeley's Social Science Matrix, the Matrix Podcast features interviews with scholars from across the UC Berkeley campus. Stream the episode above, or listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/a-new-voice-for-black-history-xavier-buck-phd/.

On August 31, 2021, the United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a 20-year war against the Taliban that began following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Recorded on September 7, 2021, this "Matrix on Point" panel discussion featured a panel of scholars discussing the geopolitical and humanitarian consequences of the withdrawal. The panel featured Omar Sharifi, Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Humanities, American University of Afghanistan, and Country Director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies; Robert Crews, Professor of History, Stanford University; Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Associate Professor in the Global Policy Area of the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs; and Georgi Derluguian, Professor of Social Research and Public Policy, NYU Abu Dhabi. Daniel Sargent, Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of History and the Goldman School of Public Policy, moderated the panel.

Co-sponsored by UC Berkeley's Social Science Matrix (https://matrix.berkeley.edu) and the Institute of International Studies (https://iis.berkeley.edu/), this panel was presented as part of the Matrix on Point Event Series, a discussion series promoting focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing issues. Offering opportunities for scholarly exchange and interaction, each Matrix On Point features the perspectives of leading scholars and specialists from different disciplines, followed by an open conversation. Learn more at https://matrix.berkeley.edu.

In this podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Juliana Friend, a PhD candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, whose research focuses on the intersection of technology, privacy, and culture.

Her dissertation, "Don't Click Here! Porn, Privacy, and Digital Dissidence in Senegal," examines how digital dissidents are transforming the idea of sutura (discretion or modesty), a concept used to describe the appropriate relationship between private and public life in Senegal.

Her research shows how citizenship, subjectivity, and nation are being redefined in online spaces by eHealth activists and women who work with pornographic images. Her dissertation research has been featured in The Conversation, and she was a 2020-2021 Charlotte W. Newcombe fellow.

This interview focuses on the concept of sutura and Juliana's research on the topic in Senegal.

A transcript of this interview is available at: https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/matrix-podcast-interview-juliana-friend/.

In this episode, Julia Sizek, a Phd candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology, interviews scholars Hannah Zeavin and Valerie Black about teletherapy, which describes all forms of remote therapy, from letter-writing to chatbots. Both of these UC Berkeley researchers study the history and experience of these tools of therapy, which are often assumed to be more impersonal than and inferior to forms of in-person therapy, but which have seen a surge during the pandemic. They discuss the past and present of teletherapy, how the ongoing pandemic has affected mental health care, and the business of artificial intelligence-based therapy.

Valerie Black is a PhD Candidate in anthropology at Berkeley completing her dissertation, "Dehumanizing Care: An Ethnography of Mental Health Artificial Intelligence." Her multisited dissertation research has been conducted in Silicon Valley at a mental health chatbot company and in Japan at a mental health videogame company. Her research concerns how chatbots and other AI health might reshape our understanding of care and labor. She was recently awarded the Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship to complete her work on her dissertation.

Hannah Zeavin is a Lecturer in the Departments of English and History at Berkeley, and sits on the Executive Committee for the Berkeley Center for New Media.she received her PhD from NYU's Department of Media, Culture, and Communication in 2018. Her research considers the role of technology in American life. Her book (2021, MIT Press), The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy, is a transnational history of mediated and distance therapy, starting with Freud himself. Her second book, Mother's Little Helpers: Technology in the American Family (MIT Press, 2023), considers the history of techno-parenting in the 20th and 21st centuries.

A transcript of this interview is available at: https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/matrix-podcast/

Youjin Chung is Assistant Professor of Sustainability and Equity at the University of California Berkeley, with a joint appointment in the Energy and Resources Group and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management.

Her work encompasses the political economy of development, feminist political ecology, critical agrarian and food studies, and African studies. She draws on ethnographic, historical, and participatory visual methods to examine the relationship between gender, intersectionality, development, and socio-ecological change in Sub Saharan Africa with a focus on Tanzania. She is interested in understanding how agrarian landscapes, livelihoods, and lifestyles articulate with capitalist forces, and how these processes of uneven encounter reshape the identities and subjectivities of rural women and men, as well as their relationships with the state, society, and the environment.

She is currently working on a book manuscript, Sweet Deal, Bitter Landscape, which examines the gendered processes and outcomes of a stalled large-scale agricultural land deal in coastal Tanzania. Her second project, tentatively titled Flesh and Blood, investigates the role of gender, race, and species in the making of the "livestock revolution" in Tanzania and the wider region.

Previously, Dr. Chung was Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. She received her PhD and MSc in Development Sociology from Cornell University, and an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, Jesus College. She completed a Dual BA in International Studies, and Journalism and Communication at Korea University.

Learn more about Social Science Matrix at Learn more at https://matrix.berkeley.edu.. Visit Professor Chung's website: https://youjinbchung.net/

A transcript of this interview is available at: https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/matrix-podcast-interview-with-youjin-chung/

On May 14, 2021, Social Science Matrix convened a “Matrix on Point” panel discussion focused on the long (and continuing) struggle for racial justice in America. At the center of the discussion: the critical momentum of Black-led protests and the Black Lives Matter movement from the past year, situated within the larger historical context of social movements for racial justice in the United States and the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Movement.

The panel featured Monica Bell, Associate Professor of Law & Sociology at Yale Law School; Leigh Raiford, Associate Professor of African American Studies at UC Berkeley; and Brandon M. Terry, Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Social Studies at Harvard University. The panel was moderated by Christopher Muller, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley.

This event was presented as part of the Matrix on Point discussion series, which promotes focused, cross-disciplinary conversations on today’s most pressing contemporary issues.