Thinking Allowed

Laurie Taylor lifts the lid on a sector of the economy associated with wealth, innovation & genius. Mark Graham, Professor of Internet Geography at the Oxford Internet Institute, uncovers the hidden human labour powering AI. His study, based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of fieldwork, is the first to tell the stories of this army of underpaid and exploited workers. Beneath the promise of a frictionless technology that will bring riches to humanity, the interviews he has conducted reveal a grimmer reality involving a precarious global workforce of millions labouring under often appalling conditions. Also, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, discusses her research with software developers at a non-flashy, run-of-the-mill tech company. Beyond the awesome images of the Gods of Silicone Valley, she finds that technology breaks due to human-related issues and staff are often engaged in patch up and repair, rather than dreaming up the next killer app.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Laurie Taylor talks to Ann Murcott, Honorary Professorial Research Associate, at SOAS, University of London about the origins and development of food packaging, from tin cans and glass jars to bottles and plastic trays. How central is packaging to global food systems and should we be concerned about wasteful packaging ? Also, Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, offers a spirited defence of processed food from a feminist, economic, and public-health perspective.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Laurie Taylor talks to Jana Costas, Chair of People, Work & Management at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany about the unseen cleaners beyond the shiny surface of Potsdamer Platz, a designer micro-city within Berlin's city centre. Behind the scenes they pick up cigarette butts from pavements, scrape chewing gum from marble floors and scrub public toilets, long before white-collar workers, consumers and tourists enter the complex. How do they feel about work which some would stigmatise as degrading? How do they salvage a sense of personal dignity? Also, Katie Bailey, Professor of Work and Employment at Kings College, London unpacks her analysis of accounts related by nurses, creative artists and lawyers as to why they find their work meaningful.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Laurie Taylor talks to Helen Sampson, Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, about her voyage into the lives and work of seafarers. 25 years of fieldwork on merchant cargo ships has given her an unusual insight into the changing realities of life onboard and the gap between romantic notions of sea travel and the harsher realities - from isolation from friends and family to the monotony of daily life, increasing regulation and surveillance. Also, Sara Caputo, Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, illuminates the way in which the history of mapping the oceans reflects the creation of the modern world as we know it, via centuries of trading, exploring and conquering.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Is misogyny implicated in radicalisation, across the political spectrum?

Laurie Taylor talks to Elizabeth Pearson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London about her primary research among two of Britain’s key extremist movements: the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, and those networked to it; and the anti-Islam radical right, including the English Defence League, For Britain and Britain First. Also, Katherine Williams, a former post-doctoral student in Politics and International Relations at Cardiff University, explores women's engagement with the far right and queries the notion that women do not support such politics, given the contemporary resurgence and global electoral successes of the far right, in its many guises.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Yvonne Jewkes, Professor of Criminology at the University of Bath, talks to Laurie Taylor about the design of prisons and the importance of an architecture of hope which nurtures the possibility of rehabilitation, from Limerick to Norway. They’re joined by Lynne McMordie, Research Associate at the Institute for Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research at Heriot-Watt University, whose research suggests that the congregate nature of hostels and shelters for homeless people often compound the problems of residents, rather than providing a safe space or route to secure housing.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Laurie Taylor talks to Becca Voelcker, Lecturer in the Art Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, about her research into the relationship between sight and power. Everyday life is full of moments where we are seen, often without our knowledge, even in the virtual world, where cookie trails and analytics make us visible to profit making companies. Going back in time, Jeremy Bentham's panopticon depended on seeing its occupants to control them. If we cannot control who sees us today are we also being controlled? How does that square with the many moments when being seen is also a means of social recognition?

Also, David Lyon, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Law at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario explores the surveillance which permeates all aspects of our lives today. Every click on the keyboard, every contact with a doctor or the police, each time we walk under a video camera or pass through a security check we are identified, traced, and tracked. So how does surveillance make people visible, how did it grow to its present size and prevalence, and what are the social and personal costs?

Producer: Jayne Egerton

The Stethoscope and the X-ray: Laurie Taylor explores two medical innovations which have achieved iconic status. Nicole Lobdell, Assistant Professor of English at DePauw University, charts the when, where, and how of our use of X-rays, what meanings we give them and what metaphors we make out of them. Is there a paradox to living in an age where we rely on X-rays to expose hidden threats to our health and security but also fear the way they may expose us?

Urban baristas in a US city and Chinese managed coffee bars in Italy.

Laurie Taylor talks to Geoffrey Moss, Professor of Instruction in the Department of Sociology, Temple University, about the subcultural lives of hipsters who are employed in Philadelphia. Such young people have taken low-wage service sector jobs, despite their middle-class origins and educational background, because they enjoy the city's hipster subculture. Working within cool, noncorporate coffee shops with like minded colleagues blurs lines between work and leisure. For those that are artistic, barista life has provided a flexible work schedule which allows time for creative pursuits. But this new research suggests that these subcultural lives are now greatly diminished by class, race and gentrification.

Also, Grazia Ting Deng, Lecturer at Brandeis University's Department of Anthropology, explores the paradox of “Chinese espresso". The coffee bar is a cornerstone of Italian urban life, with city residents sipping espresso at more than 100,000 of these local businesses throughout the country. So why is espresso in Italy increasingly prepared by Chinese baristas in Chinese-managed coffee bars? Deng investigates the rapid spread of Chinese-owned coffee bars since the Great Recession of 2008 and draws on her extensive ethnographic research in Bologna. She finds that longtime residents have come, sometimes resentfully, to regard Chinese expresso as a new normal and immigrants have assumed traditional roles, even as they are regarded as racial others.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Do today's power brokers correspond to the familiar caricatures of old? Laurie Taylor talks to Aaron Reeves, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford, who has delved into the profiles and careers of over 125,000 members of the British elite from the late 1890s to today, as well as interviewing over 200 leading figures from diverse backgrounds. Were they born to rule, travelling from Eton to Oxbridge? Do they espouse different values from their earlier variants? And are those born into the top 1% just as likely to get into the elite today as they were 125 years ago? Also, Rachel Louise Stenhouse, Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Education at Manchester Metropolitan University looks at private school entry to Oxbridge. By examining a bespoke intervention in a private school in England, she sheds new light on how students are advantaged when applying to elite universities, finding that applicants need to demonstrate that ‘they can think’ and ‘perform’ under pressure. But is an ease of performance evidence of knowledge and skills or, more often, of educational privilege?

Producer: Jayne Egerton