Sociologists have had surprisingly little to say about poetry as a topic while sometimes also making grandiose claims that sociology is/should be like poetry. These are the prompts which begin Andrew Smith’s Class and the Uses of Poetry: Symbolic Enclosures (2024, Palgrave Macmillan). Drawing upon discussions with working class readers of poetry, and interviews with unpublished poets, Smith draws our attention to the ways in which poetry has been enclosed, or fenced off, from working class readers. Influenced by, though offering some criticisms, of, Bourdieu’s approach to the sociology of culture, he shows us how readers become aware of this enclosure but nevertheless engage in collective understanding of the poems they are presented with. In doing do, Smith reminds us of the need to emphasise the aesthetic elements of poetry, and culture more generally, including its creative and expressive affordances. A reader of his book realises that a critical sociology of poetry needs to attest not just to the symbolic capital in who is seen as ‘legitimate’ readers and producers of poetry but also how those shut off from it lose out on the uses of poetry.

Our discussion covers what led Smith to pursue this work, how sociology has, and might in future confront poetry, his experiences of running these reading groups and suggests why, perhaps, we should also perhaps reject the ‘society of the segue way’ and savour some of the finitude which poetry might offer.

Your host, Matt Dawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow and the author of G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation (2024, Palgrave Macmillan), along with other texts.

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Can older racists change their tune, or will they haunt us further once they're gone? Rich in mystery and life's lessons, God's Waiting Room: Racial Reckoning at Life's End (Rutgers University Press, 2024) considers what matters in the end for older white adults and the younger Black nurses who care for them. An innovation in creative nonfiction, Casey Golomski's story of his years of immersive research at a nursing home in South Africa, thirty years after the end of apartheid, is narrated as a one-day, room-by-room tour. The story is told in breathtakingly intimate and witty conversations with the home's residents and nurses, including the untold story of Nelson Mandela's Robben Island prison nurse, and readers learn how ageism, sexism, and racism intersect and impact health care both in South Africa and in the United States, as well as create conditions in which people primed to be enemies find grace despite the odds.

Casey Golomski is an associate professor of anthropology and women's and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire in Durham and lives in Medford, Massachusetts. He is the author of Funeral Culture: AIDS, Work, and Cultural Change in an African Kingdom.

Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press).

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How do we become moral persons? What about children’s active learning in contrast to parenting? What can children teach us about knowledge-making more broadly? Answer these questions by delving into the groundbreaking ethnographic fieldwork conducted by anthropologists Arthur and Margery Wolf in a martial law era Taiwanese village (1958-60), marking the first-ever study of ethnic Han children. 

Jing Xu skillfully reinterprets the Wolfs’ extensive fieldnotes, employing a unique blend of humanistic interpretation, natural language processing, and machine-learning techniques. Through a lens of social cognition, Unruly' Children: Historical Fieldnotes and Learning Morality in a Taiwan Village (Cambridge UP, 2024) unravels the complexities of children’s moral growth, exposing instances of disobedience, negotiation, and peer dynamics. Writing through and about fieldnotes, the author connects the two themes, learning morality and making ethnography, in light of social cognition, and invites all of us to take children seriously. This book is ideal for graduate and undergraduate students of anthropology and educational studies.

Throughout the interview, the term “Chinese” is used in the broad sense of cultural heritage.

Jing Xu is a research scientist at the Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle. She holds a B.A. and M.A. from Tsinghua University, China, a Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, and received postdoctoral training in developmental psychology at the University of Washington. She pursues interdisciplinary research, bringing together anthropological and psychological perspectives to study how humans become moral persons. She is the author of two monographs: The Good Child: Moral Development in a Chinese Preschool (Stanford U Press, 2017) and “Unruly” Children: Historical Fieldnotes and Learning Morality in a Taiwan Village (Cambridge U Press, 2024).

Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, medical anthropology, hope studies, and the anthropology of borders and frontiers. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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How do Black women experience education in Britain?

Within British educational research about Black students, gender distinctions have been largely absent, male-dominated or American-centric. Due to the lack of attention paid to Black female students, relatively little is known about how they understand and engage with the education system, or the influences which shape their long-term strategies and decision-making in order to gain educational 'success'.

Babygirl, You've Got This! Experiences of Black Girls and Women in the English Education System (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. April-Louise Pennant will illustrate the educational experiences and journeys of Black British women graduates and considers the influence of the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, culture and social class on their educational journeys. Dr. Pennant uniquely documents the entire educational journey - from primary school to university - within both predominantly white (PW) and predominantly global majority (PGM) educational institutions in order to examine the various accessibility, financial and academic hurdles which face Black girls and women.

The book combines theoretical frameworks such as Critical Race Theory, Bourdieu's Theory of Practice and Black Feminist epistemology, alongside the personal accounts of the author and a range of Black British women graduates. Through analysis of the strategies, choices and decisions made by Black British women in their educational journeys, the book ultimately provides insights into how to navigate the education system effectively, and provides alternatives to normalised understandings of educational 'success'.

Find out more about Dr. April-Louise Pennant on her website!

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science and Past in Postcolonial India (Cambridge UP, 2022) presents a novel ethnographic examination of archaeological practice within postcolonial India, focusing on the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as a site where scientific knowledge production intersects with state bureaucracy. Through granular analysis of ASI's quotidian operations, this monograph demonstrates how archaeological micro-practices materially influence the construction of political and religious identities, while simultaneously serving as empirical evidence in India's highest judicial proceedings.

This unprecedented study illuminates the epistemological ecology of postcolonial knowledge production from within the bureaucratic apparatus itself. As the first book-length investigation of archaeological practice beyond the Euro-American tradition, it reveals how non-Western archaeological theory and methodology generate distinct forms of knowledge, thereby expanding our understanding of archaeology's role in postcolonial state formation.

About the Author:

Ashish Avikunthak is a distinguished scholar working at the intersection of archaeology, cultural anthropology, and avant-garde filmmaking. He is Professor of Film Media at the University of Rhode Island's Harrington School of Communication, where his research bridges theoretical and practical approaches to cultural production. His experimental films have been exhibited internationally at prestigious institutions including Tate Modern, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Pacific Film Archive, as well as major film festivals such as Rotterdam and Locarno.

About the Host:

Stuti Roy has recently completed her MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford.

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Amrita Narayanan is a practicing Clinical Psychologist (Psy.D. 2007) and Psychoanalyst (Indian Psychoanalytic Society, 2019). She is the author of Women's Sexuality and Modern India: In a Rapture of Distress (Oxford University Press, 2023). She was the Editor of and essayist in The Parrots of Desire: 3000 years of Erotica in India (Aleph Books, 2018) a collection of poems, short prose and fiction in translation from Indian languages, linked by an introductory essay on the central themes in Indian erotic literature. She was an essayist for Pha(bu)llus: a cultural history of the Phallus (Harper Collins, 2020). Amrita is currently visiting faculty at Ashoka University where she teaches classes at the undergraduate and masters level.

Amrita's research interests are in cultural factors in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, the psychodynamics of women's sexual agency, and how cultural factors shape the aesthetics of women's sexual agency. Her writing has appeared in academic journals such as Psychodynamic Practice and Psychoanalytic Review; newspapers such as The Hindu and The Indian Express; and popular press periodicals such as Outlook, Open Magazine India Today and The Deccan Herald. Amrita has received the Sudhir Kakar Prize for psychoanalytic writing, the Taylor and Francis Prize for Psychoanalytic writing, and the Homi Bhabha Fellowship.

The interviewer is Psychoanalyst and Writer, Ashis Roy, New Delhi.

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In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Tazin Abdullah speaks with Dr. Gerald Roche, Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, Media, and Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and head of research for the Linguistic Justice Foundation.

Tazin and Gerald discuss his research into language oppression and focus on his recent book The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet (Cornell UP, 2024).

In The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet, Gerald Roche sheds light on a global crisis of linguistic diversity that will see at least half of the world's languages disappear this century.

Roche explores the erosion of linguistic diversity through a study of a community on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau in the People's Republic of China. Manegacha is but one of the sixty minority languages in Tibet and is spoken by about 8,000 people who are otherwise mostly indistinguishable from the Tibetan communities surrounding them. Recently, many in these communities have switched to speaking Tibetan, and Manegacha faces an uncertain future.

The author uses the Manegacha case to show how linguistic diversity across Tibet is collapsing under assimilatory state policies. He looks at how global advocacy networks inadequately acknowledge this issue, highlighting the complex politics of language in an inter-connected world. The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet broadens our understanding of Tibet and China, the crisis of global linguistic diversity, and the radical changes needed to address this crisis.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Why some cities are more effective than others at reducing inequalities in the built environment.

For the first time in history, most people live in cities. One in seven are living in slums, the most excluded parts of cities, in which the basics of urban life—including adequate housing, accessible sanitation, and reliable transportation—are largely unavailable. Why are some cities more successful than others in reducing inequalities in the built environment? 

In Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg (Princeton UP, 2024), Benjamin Bradlow explores this question, examining the effectiveness of urban governance in two “megacities” in young democracies: São Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. Both cities came out of periods of authoritarian rule with similarly high inequalities and similar policy priorities to lower them. And yet São Paulo has been far more successful than Johannesburg in improving access to basic urban goods.

Bradlow examines the relationships between local government bureaucracies and urban social movements that have shaped these outcomes. Drawing on sixteen months of fieldwork in both cities, including interviews with informants from government agencies, political leadership, social movements, private developers, bus companies, and water and sanitation companies, Bradlow details the political and professional conflicts between and within movements, governments, private corporations, and political parties. He proposes a bold theoretical approach for a new global urban sociology that focuses on variations in the coordination of local governing power, arguing that the concepts of “embeddedness” and “cohesion” explain processes of change that bridge external social mobilization and the internal coordinating capacity of local government to implement policy changes.

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A heartbreaking account of grief, Black boyhood, and how we can support young people as they navigate loss.

JahSun, a dependable, much-loved senior at Boys' Prep was just hitting his stride in the fall of 2017. He had finally earned a starting position on the varsity football team and was already weighing two college acceptances. Then, over Thanksgiving, tragedy struck. An altercation at his older sister's home escalated into violence, killing the unarmed teenager in a hail of bullets. JahSun's untimely death overwhelmed his entire community, sending his family, friends, and school into seemingly insurmountable grief. Worse yet, that spring two additional Boys' Prep students would be shot to death in their neighborhood. JahSun and his peers are not alone in suffering the toll of gun violence, as every year in the United States teenagers die by gunfire in epidemic numbers, with Black boys most deeply affected.

Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools (U Chicago Press, 2024) closely attends to the neglected victims of youth gun violence: the suffering friends and classmates who must cope, mostly out of public view, with lasting grief and hidden anguish. Set at an ambitious urban high school for boys during the heartbreaking year following the death of JahSun, the book chronicles the consequences of untimely death on Black teen boys and on a school community struggling to recover. Sociologist Nora Gross tells the story of students attempting to grapple with unthinkable loss, inviting readers in to observe how they move through their days at school and on social media in the aftermath of their friends' and classmates' deaths. Gross highlights the discrepancy between their school's educational mission and teachers' and administrators' fraught attempts to care for students' emotional wellbeing. In the end, the school did not provide adequate space for grief, making it more difficult for students to heal, reengage with school, and imagine hopeful futures. Even so, supportive relationships deepened among students and formed across generations, offering promising examples of productive efforts to channel student grief into positive community change.

A searing testimony of our collective failure to understand the inner lives of our children in crisis, Brothers in Grief invites us all to wrestle with the hidden costs of gun violence on racial and educational inequity.

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At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Jennifer Greenburg reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality.

Dr. Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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