The 2016 Summer Olympics open Friday night in Rio de Janeiro. Like soccer’s World Cup two years ago, the event has drawn the world’s attention to Brazil’s largest city and raised questions about health, security, and the country’s economic and political climate. University of Oklahoma anthropologist Erika Robb Larkins has spent the past year living and working in Rio. She told KGOU’s World Views Brazil has a track record of succeeding when it throws parties on a global scale – from the annual

As the 2016 Summer Olympics get underway in Rio de Janeiro, we revisit Suzette Grillot's 2014 conversation with University of Oklahoma anthropologist Erika Robb Larkins about the city's poorest neighborhoods. Larkins then joins the show from Brazil to provide an update on the city's mood and preparation ahead of Friday's opening ceremonies.

Europe continues to reel from violence that has swept over the continent in recent weeks. France is still mourning the loss of more than 80 people killed while celebrating Bastille Day earlier this month. They were killed when a man drove a truck through a crowded promenade in Nice as the seaside resort in the French Rivera celebrated the national holiday. France’s neighbor, Germany, saw four incidents of violence in less than a week between July 18 and 24. A German teenager in Munich went on a

Anthropologist Noah Theriault contributes to the blog Inhabiting the Anthropocene, which examines how humans have influenced climate and the environment. He'll discuss this proposed geological epoch with Suzette Grillot. But first, we check in with Rebecca Cruise, who's in Germany. The country recently saw four violent attacks in less than a week.

No matter where you land on the climate change discussion, humans have become a geophysical force that impacts everything from local ecosystems to the atmosphere itself. “Humans are having, for a single species, pretty much unprecedented effect on their entire biosphere, such that it could possibly be recorded permanently in the geological record,” University of Oklahoma anthropologist Noah Theriault argues. “If an extraterrestrial species came down and studied our planet sometime in the distant

A week after the beginning of a failed coup in Turkey, there are still so many unanswered questions about who was behind it and what’s next for the country that’s long walked a tightrope between religion and secularism. More than 250 people died in the July 15 uprising, mostly government supporters standing up to the attempt. Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told KGOU’s World Views 60,000 residents have been fired, arrested, or

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami killed more than 200,000 people and led to billions in aid distribution throughout the region. Edd Wright, the Southeast Asia representative for the Oklahoma City-based international development organization World Neighbors, works on what he calls disaster risk reduction in Indonesia. His group starts by working with governments to identify which villages are most at-risk from disaster, which is followed by a need-based assessment (the communities

Joshua Landis and Suzette Grillot discuss last weekend’s failed coup attempt in Turkey. Hundreds of people died during the uprising, and tens of thousands were arrested during this week’s crackdown. Then we'll hear a conversation with World Neighbors' Southeast Asia representative Edd Wright. Ever since the 2004 tsunami, he’s been trying to make sure Indonesia is prepared for another catastrophe.

From South Africa, to Palestine, to Haiti, to a small college town in the middle of the United States, you’ll find injustice everywhere. Clemson University women’s leadership lecturer Saadiqa Lundy has created empowerment and development programs in Africa and the Caribbean, But when Lundy met her husband Chenjerai Kumanyika, she became more of an activist and a protester. She says teaching a subject like that is completely different than actually being there. “I had a lot of fear, initially,

Two weeks after a majority of British voters declared they wanted to leave the European Union, there’s still a tremendous amount of uncertainty about how exactly that’s going to happen. “I’ve not heard anybody on this side of the [English] Channel who has said positive things about the British vote,” said Mitchell Smith, a political economist and the director of the University of Oklahoma’s European Union Center. He’s a frequent contributor to KGOU’s World Views and has been traveling with