Thinking Allowed

Thinking Allowed explores the changing nature of home in a 3 part summer series recorded in the homes of our listeners. Who do we live with, how do our homes operate and what do they say about us and about the dramatic social transformations of the last century and the century to come? By invitation, in each edition a new type of home is invaded, analysed and explained by Laurie Taylor and a panel of two sociologists round the kitchen table.Much political debate still revolves around the assumption that most of us live in conventional family homes. However research suggests that in 20 years time only 2 out of 5 people will be in marriages and married couples will be outnumbered by other types of household. Behind closed doors, Britain is changing: Single living has increased by 30% in 10 years but at the same time financial pressures are fuelling a growth in extended families - people sharing bills, childcare and mucking-in in a way which makes private life far less private.After generous invitations from Thinking Allowed listeners, Laurie Taylor visits three. In this edition he visits a big multi-generational family in Bristol accompanied by the sociologists Rachel Thomson and Esther Dermot. They attempt to divine the future for Britain's private life. Producer: Charlie Taylor.

Are we right to blame the parents? Is there anything they could do? Laurie Taylor speaks to two researchers behind a massive investigation into the families of British gang members. Judith Aldridge and Jon Shute tell him what they discovered about the lives and experience of families with children in gangs and whether it is possible to intervene. Also, Gordon Mathews, the author of a book about Chungking Mansions, the cheapest accommodation in Hong Kong, describes its multifarious residents. This ramshackle building in the heart of the tourist district is home to a polyethnic melting pot of people - from Pakistani phone stall operators to American backpackers and Indonesian sex workers.Producer: Charlie Taylor.

What role does the mobile phone have in showing off, hooking up and getting dumped? Laurie talks to Emma Bond about her new study into how young people use mobile phones in their intimate sexual relationships. Also on the programme the historian Teofilo Ruiz talks about the radical thesis of his book the Terrors of History: Is our struggle to find rational solutions to the fearful events of history entirely in vain? Is the idea of progress nothing more than a sweet lie? David Byrne also joins them to discuss whether anything can be done to address the cruel vicissitudes that history makes us suffer. Producer: Charlie Taylor.

Laurie Taylor discusses the mummy's curse and other Oriental myths with Marina Warner and Roger Luckhurst. The Ancient Egyptians had no real concept of the curse; instead, Luckhurst argues, it was a product of the Victorian imagination, a result of British ambivalence about Egypt's increasing self-determination. The curse was part of a wider Western tradition of portraying the East as exotic and irrational, dominated by superstitions. That attitude is revealed in the British reaction to English language translations of The Arabian Nights, which played into Oriental stereotypes of barbarity, cruelty and unbridled sexuality. Marina Warner discusses the reasons why the stories of Aladdin et al are as popular as ever in modern, multi-cultural Britain. Author Audrey Linkman discusses the relationship between photography and death in her study of post-mortem portraits from the late 19th century to the modern day, and how they reflect contemporary attitudes towards mortality. Producer: Stephen Hughes.

Development of a country is conventionally measured by GDP, but that can mask a growing inequality in that nation and makes no reference to freedoms, rights or education. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum outlines her 'human capabilities' approach which she has developed with the Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen. She tells Laurie that her index can be applied around the world and across all cultures as an index which measures how populations are flourishing or flailing. Producer: Charlie Taylor.

What is personal, what is confidential and what is private? These are all questions which are addressed in a new sociological study of the nature of privacy. Christena Nippert-Eng claims that 'privacy violations' are particularly damaging because they go to the heart of our rights to determine ourselves as individuals. Her work brings precision to an analysis of current reactions to the unwarranted intrusions of the press. Also on the programme, how the millions of migrants from the Philippines attempt to parent their stay at home children by mobile phone. Do they think they are successful? Do their children agree? Mirca Madianou talks about her study of mothers in Britain and their children back home. Producer: Charlie Taylor.

30 years ago riots broke out in Liverpool which lead to 160 arrests and 258 police officers needing hospital treatment. The four days of street battles, arson and looting lead to violent disturbances in many other British cities and have changed community relations and disorder policing in the country forever. On today's Thinking Allowed, Laurie Taylor explores a study of first hand accounts of those tumultuous days, from police officers, rioters and residents. Richard Phillips and Diane Frost recreate the times. Also on the programme, what makes a child political? Dorothy Moss discusses research which reveals how engaged young children are in issues and social change. Producer: Charlie Taylor.

British comedy, from Music Hall to TV sitcom, was once a democratic medium. Humour united people otherwise divided by class and education. But new research finds that the Alternative Comedy Movement transformed comedy's place in our culture. It rejected the 'lowbrow' tone of earlier humour, creating the basis for comic taste to provide new forms of social distinction. The sociologist, Sam Friedman joins Laurie Taylor to debate comedy snobbery. Also, mobile communications have elided the distinction between work and home. The cultural studies lecturer, Melissa Gregg, and the Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, Rosalind Gill, ask if the lines between our personal and professional lives are increasingly blurred. Producer: Jayne Egerton.

Have the working class in modern Britain become objects of fear, scorn and ridicule? That's the claim of Owen Jones who joins Laurie and Imogen Tyler on today's Thinking Allowed. He claims that the media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminal and ignorant a vast, underprivileged section of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, disgust-filled word - 'chavs'. If this is true, then how has the reality of the working-class majority become regularly served up as a feral rump for our contempt and amusement? Also, what happens to Goths when they get old? Laurie talks to Paul Hodkinson about his study of members of that youth cult which used to be called Gothic Punk. How have they adapted their love of black clothes, multiple piercings, make up and androgyny to mortgages, children and the rites of passage incumbent upon middle age? Producer: Charlie Taylor.

One third of us now think we are sleep deprived. Why should that be? Who loses the most and how is society reacting? Laurie is joined by Stephen Williams to discuss a new area for sociology, the contested area of the 'politics of sleep'. Also, what happens when a woman commits murder? It is a very rare event and can challenge ingrained notions about the nature of femininity. Perhaps because of that, a new study finds that there are existing stereotypes which guide the reaction of both the media and the judiciary to women who kill. Lizzie Seal and Louise Westmarland join Laurie to discuss our attitudes towards women, murder and femininity Producer: Charlie Taylor.