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Our guest today is Gargi Bhattacharyya. Gargi is Professor of Sociology in the Institute for Connected Communities at the University of East London. They are also an activist, organiser and author of Rethinking Racial Capitalism, an account of the entanglement between capitalism and racism, which tracks their historical interconnections as a route to better understanding their interactions today.. 

Gargi is also author of We the Heartbroken, a new book out just this month from Hajar Press. In it they explore the role of emotion, grief and tragedy in building solidarity - and argue that  heartbreak can become the class consciousness of our time. 

In this interview we touch on both of these works. We started by discussing the concept of racial capitalism. What does the term mean, and why does Gargi think it is a useful framework for understanding the economy today?