Uncommon Sense

What is public sociology and why does it matter more than ever? Gary Younge, Chantelle Lewis and Cecilia Menjívar join Michaela Benson to reflect on its meaning, value and stakes. In a time of perpetual crisis and gross inequality, how can sociologists best change minds and set agendas? Why are some voices valued over others? And who does being truly “public” involve more than simply being high profile?Gary Younge reflects on what sociologists and journalists can teach each other – and the ongoing struggle in the UK for space in which work on race can be truly incubated and explored. Cecilia Menjívar describes her deep engagement with migration and gender-based violence – and how in Latin America, “public sociology” is simply “sociology”. And Chantelle Lewis describes the lack of value applied to black scholarship in UK academia – and urges us to embrace hope, honesty and solidarity.An essential listening! Discussing thinkers ranging from E.H. Carr on history to Maria Marcela Lagarde on feminicide, plus Stuart Hall, Hazel Carby, bell hooks, ​​Sheila Rowbotham and many more.Guests: Gary Younge, Chantelle Lewis, Cecilia MenjívarHost: Michaela BensonExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesFrom The Sociological ReviewStrategies of public intellectual engagement – Mohamed Amine Brahimi, et al.An interventionist sociologist: Stuart Hall, public engagement and racism – Karim MurjiCurating Sociology – Nirmal Puwar, Sanjay SharmaBy our guestsGary’s books Dispatches from the Diaspora & Another Day in the Death of AmericaChantelle’s co-produced podcast Surviving SocietyCecilia’s work on migration and gender-based violenceFurther reading“Gary Younge: how racism shaped my critical eye” – Gary Younge“Women's Liberation & the New Politics” – Sheila Rowbotham“For Public Sociology” – Michael Burawoy“What is History?” – E.H. Carr“Beyond the blade” – investigation by The GuardianRead more about the work of Hazel Carby, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall and bell hooks, the life and work of Marcela Lagarde and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the work of Jane Addams on public housing, as well as the poet, essayist and activist June Jordan.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

From Shakespeare to RuPaul, we all love a performance. But what exactly is it? What are its boundaries, its powers, its potential, its stakes? Kareem Khubchandani, who also performs as LaWhore Vagistan – “everyone's favourite desi drag queen aunty” – joins Uncommon Sense to unpack the latest thinking on refusal, repetition and more. And to discuss “Ishtyle”, Kareem’s ethnography of gay Indian nightlife in Chicago and Bangalore, which attends to desire and fun in the lives of global Indian workers too often stereotyped as cogs in the wheels of globalisation.Kareem also reflects on the particular value of queer nightlife, and celebrates how drag kings skilfully unmask what might be the ultimate performance: heteromasculinity. We also ask: what do thinkers like Bourdieu and Foucault reveal about performance? Why is there still a way to go in our understanding of drag and how might decolonising it serve us all? Plus: why calling something “performative” is actually not about calling things “fake”? In fact, performance can make things “real”…With reflection on Judith Butler, “Paris is Burning”, “RuPaul's Drag Race” and clubbing in Sydney and Tokyo.Guest: Kareem KhubchandaniHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesFrom The Sociological ReviewAdvantages of upper-class backgrounds: Forms of capital, school cultures and educational performance – Vegard Jarness, Thea Bertnes Strømme‘You've Gotta Learn how to Play the Game’: Homeless Women's Use of Gender Performance as a Tool for Preventing Victimization – Laura Huey, Eric BerndtPerforming the Disabled Body in Academia – Luke WalkerBy Kareem KhubchandaniIshtyleDecolonize DragQueer Nightlife (co-edited with Kemi Adeyemi and Ramón Rivera-Servera)Dance Floor DivasKareem’s website, including more about LaWhore VagistanFurther reading and viewing“Introduction to Performing Refusal/Refusing to Perform” – Lilian G. Mengesha, Lakshmi Padmanabhan“Everynight Life” – Celeste Fraser Delgado, José Esteban Muñoz (editors)“Cruising Utopia” – José Esteban Muñoz“Gender Trouble” – Judith Butler“Camera Lucida” – Roland Barthes“Paris is Burning” (film) – Jennie LivingstoneSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

It is increasingly accepted that we cannot take nature for granted. But do we even know what nature is? Catherine Oliver brings her expertise in geography and sociology – plus her love of chickens – to the latest Uncommon Sense to reflect on what’s at stake in how we think of and relate to “nature” – and how we might do better. Along the way, she considers what happens when neoliberalism shapes what “good” nature is – whether in regeneration or meddling with metabolisms.Alexis and Rosie also ask Catherine: how might the chicken be “thriving” yet also “extinct”? What potential is there in speaking of the “more than” and “beyond” human? And what responsibility do social scientists have for the age-old binaries that split humans from wider nature?Plus: a celebration of Andrea Arnold’s “Cow”, Margaret Atwood’s “MaddAddam” trilogy and – Alexis’ favourite – “Captain Planet”.Guest: Catherine OliverHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesCatherine, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommendedAndrea Arnold’s film “Cow”Margaret Atwood’s “MaddAddam” book trilogyTV series “Captain Planet and the Planeteers”Evia Wylk’s essay collection “Death by Landscape”From The Sociological ReviewPerforming the classification of nature – Claire WatertonDaphne the Cat: Reimagining human–animal boundaries on Facebook – Verónica PolicarpoUnnatural Times? The Social Imaginary and the Future of Nature – Kate SoperBy Catherine OliverRising with the rooster: How urban chickens are relaxing the pace of lifeTransforming paradise: Neoliberal regeneration and more-than-human urbanism in BirminghamThe Opposite of ExtinctionReturning to 'The Good Life'? Chickens and Chicken-keeping during Covid-19 in BritainMetabolic ruminations with climate cattle: towards a more-than-human metabo-politics (co-authored with Jonathon Turnbull)Further reading“Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save” – Tyson Yunkaporta“Toward equality: Including non-human animals in studies of lived religion and nonreligion” – Lori G. Beaman, Lauren Strumos“A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet” – Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore“The Chicken Chronicles: A Memoir” – Alice Walker“The Chicken Book” – Page Smith, Charles DanielSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

Does anyone know what European means? Manuela Boatcă thought she did, until a late 1990s move from Romania to Germany unsettled everything she had taken for granted. In this episode, she challenges mainstream ideas of “Europe” to show how its borders extend to the Caribbean (and beyond) – a fact that’s obvious if we acknowledge colonialism’s past and present, but is an inconvenient truth for some in political power.Alexis and Rosie ask Manuela: How has Brexit revealed the contradictions built into so much discourse about “Europe”? How does “Creolizing” theory differ from “Decolonising” it? And what is the legacy of early sociologist Max Weber’s leading question: why the West?Plus: a celebration of Immanuel Wallerstein’s World Systems approach, which decentres the nation state. With reflection on Stuart Hall, Edouard Glissant, Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih.Guest: Manuela BoatcăHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesManuela, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommendedArton Capital’s The Passport Index“Europe” travel guidesAntoni Gaudi’s Sagrada FamíliaDaša Drndić’s novel “Canzone Di Guerra”From The Sociological ReviewThe material effects of Whiteness – Aleksandra LewickiPuzzlement of a déjà vu – Nirmal PuwarThe ambiguous lives of ‘the other whites’ – Dominika Blachnika-Ciacek, Irma Budinaite-MackineBy Manuela BoatcăThinking Europe Otherwise(Dis)United KingdomCounter-Mapping as MethodWhat does British citizenship have to do with Global Social Inequalities?Further reading“Provincializing Europe” – Dipesh Chakrabarty“Poetics of relation” – Édouard Glissant“The Creolization of Theory” – Shu-mei Shih, Françoise Lionnet“Sweetness And Power” – Sidney Mintz“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” – Max Weber“The Essential Wallerstein” – Immanuel WallersteinRead more about the work of Stuart Hall, Fernand Braudel, Aníbal Quijano, Enrique Dussel, Walter Mignolo, Fernando Coronil and Salman Sayyid.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

AUDIO CONTENT WARNING: description of extreme racist violenceIn 1993, Black British teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racist attack that sparked a long fight for justice and led the UK to ask questions of itself and its institutions. Three decades on – with The Runnymede Trust’s Shabna Begum, and Suresh Grover of The Monitoring Group – Karis Campion of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre hosts this special episode to ask: who are we now? What happened to anti-racist solidarity and how can it progress?Karis and guests reflect on the fragmentation of “political blackness”, “monitoring” as a radical act inspired by The Black Panther Party, and the importance of showing systemic racism while doing justice to individual lives. Plus: what does social media offer to anti-racism when the internet provides fertile ground for prejudice? And what are the costs of fighting for change in an unjust world?A collaboration between the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and The Sociological Review.Guests: Suresh Grover, Shabna BegumHost: Karis CampionExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesFrom Karis, Shabna and SureshKaris’ work at The Stephen Lawrence Research CentreShabna’s book “From Sylhet to Spitalfields”Suresh in conversation with Paul GilroyFurther reading“Abolition Geography” – Ruth Wilson Gilmore“Another Day in the Death of America” – Gary Younge“Here to Stay, Here to Fight” – Paul Field, et al. (eds)“I Write What I Like” – Steve Biko“Policing the Crisis” – Stuart Hall, et al.“Race and Resistance” – Ambalavaner Sivanandan“The Uses of Anger” – Audre LordeOnlineOver-policed and under-protected: the road to Safer Schools – The Runnymede TrustThe Baroness Casey Review (this episode was recorded prior to this publication)The Black Panther Party – US National ArchivesThe Stephen Lawrence Inquiry – Sir William MacphersonThe Monitoring GroupThe Runnymede TrustThe Stephen Lawrence Centre ArchiveFind out more about Quddus Ali and the cases of Michael Menson, Ricky Reel, Rolan Adams and Rohit Duggal, as well as the activist Claudia JonSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

What does Eurovision have to do with the Coronation? In this episode swap, the team at Who do we think we are? is talking about what we learn about “Global Britain” and its imagined community by looking at how migrants understand major cultural events.Elena Zambelli explains what social scientists mean when they talk about the imagined community. Laura Clancy, sociologist of the royal family, joins us to talk about the missing voices in conversations about the future of the British monarchy. Co-hosts Nando Sigona and Michaela Benson reflect on what British citizens living abroad, EU citizens and others who have made the UK their homes told them about how they understand Britain and their place within it following Brexit. What does hearing from them about the monarchy, the Commonwealth Games and Eurovision make visible about the new borders of political membership and symbolic boundaries of belonging?In this episode we cover:The imagined communityThe monarchy and the myth of the British nationEurovision, the Commonwealth Games and Royal EventsActive listening questions:What imagined community, or imagined communities, do you feel that you belong to?  Are there public events during which you do or could celebrate your belonging to this or these communities? Which ones? Who do you think is excluded from this imagined community and how? And what does this tell us about the symbolic boundaries of this community?Find more about:What EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU think about the monarchy in Elena and Catherine’s article in The Sociological Review MagazineThe concept of imagined community in Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and the critique offered by Partha Chatterjee’s The Nation and its FragmentsLaura’s sociology of the royal family in her book Running the family firm and the Surviving Society podcast miniseries The Global Power of the British MonarchyOur podcast picks for this episode are:Academic Aunties on “Harry and Meghan”The Allusionist on EurovisionConversations with IRiS on Political DemographyFollow Who do we think we are? on all major podcasting platforms, and on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.Get all the latest updates from the MIGZEN research project on Twitter and Instagram.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

“Follow”? “Block”? “Accept”? Anthropologist Ilana Gershon joins us to reflect on breakups in both our intimate and working lives. She tells Alexis and Rosie how hearing her students’ surprising stories of using new media – supposedly a tool for connection – to end romantic entanglements led to her 2010 book “The Breakup 2.0”. She also shares insights from studying hiring in corporate America and describes how, in the febrile “new economy”, the very nature of networking and how we understand our careers have been transformed.Ilana also celebrates Marilyn Strathern’s influential article “Cutting the Network” for challenging our assumptions about endless and easy connection. She responds to the work of sociologists Richard Sennett and Mark Granovetter, and highlights Teri Silvio’s theory of “animation” as a fruitful way of thinking about our online selves.Plus: Rosie, Alexis and Ilana share their pop culture picks on this month’s theme, from the hit TV show “Severance” to the phenomenon of “shitposting” on Linkedin.Guest: Ilana GershonHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesIlana, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommendedDan Erickson’s TV series “Severance”“shitposting” on Linkedin, as discussed by Bethan Kapur for VICEThe Quebec reality TV show “Occupation Double”Halle Butler’s novel “The New Me”From The Sociological Review“A Sociological Playlist” – Meg-John Barker and Justin Hancock“The Sociology of Love” – Julia Carter“Becoming Ourselves Online: Disabled Transgender Existence In/Through Digital Social Life” – Christian J. Harrison“The Politics of Digital Peace, Play, and Privacy during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Between Digital Engagement, Enclaves, and Entitlement” – Francesca SobandeFrom Uncommon Sense: “Intimacy, with Katherine Twamley”By Ilana Gershon“The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media”“The Breakup 2.1: The ten-year update”“Un-Friend My Heart: Facebook, Promiscuity, and Heartbreak in a Neoliberal Age”“Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don’t Find) Work Today”“Neoliberal Agency”Further reading“Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan” – Teri Silvio“Forms of Talk” – Erving Goffman“The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism” – Richard Sennett“The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain” – Francesca Sobande“The Strength of Weak Ties” – Mark S. GranovetterSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

What makes “good” taste? Who decides? And what’s it got to do with inequality? Sociologist Irmak Karademir Hazir grew up watching women in her parents’ clothing boutique. She explains how her fascination for taste emerged from that and why talking about things like fashion, film and music is far from trivial – it’s how we distinguish ourselves from others; how we’re recognised, or dismissed.Irmak tells Rosie and Alexis how sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu have theorised “distinction”, showing how “highbrow” taste is decided by those with money and other kinds of capital. They also discuss the idea of the “cultural omnivore” and ask: Is what looks like broad consumption – of everything from opera to grime – just elitism in disguise?Plus: Why are Marvel blockbusters Irmak’s “guilty pleasure”? Why is “symbolic violence” as scary as it sounds? And do we have a moral duty to be honest about our tastes?Guest: Irmak Karademir HazirHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Production Note: This episode was recorded shortly before the devastating earthquake in southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria.Episode ResourcesIrmak, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommendedThe movies of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe”John Waters’ film “Hairspray”Agnès Jaoui’s film “Le Goût des autres” (The Taste of Others)The BBC documentary series “Signs of the Times”From The Sociological Review“Feminism After Bourdieu” – Lisa Adkins and Bev Skeggs [special issue editors]“Aesthetic labour, class and taste: Mobility aspirations of middle-class women working in luxury-retail” – Bryan Boyle and Kobe De Keere“Taste the Joy: Food, Family, Women and Social Media” – Smriti SinghBy Irmak Karademir Hazir“Cultural Omnivorousness”“How (not) to feed young children: A class-cultural analysis of food parenting practices”“Do Omnivores Perform Class Distinction? A Qualitative Inspection of Culinary Tastes, Boundaries and Cultural Tolerance” (co-author: Nihal Simay Yalvaç)“Exploring patterns of children’s cultural participation: parental cultural capitals and their transmission” (co-authors: Adrian Leguina and Francisco Azpitarte)Further reading“Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste” – Pierre Bourdieu “Formations of Class & Gender: Becoming Respectable” – Bev Skeggs“Reading ‘Race’ in Bourdieu? Examining Black Cultural Capital Among Black Caribbean Youth in South London” – Derron Wallace“Stuart Hall: Selected Writings” – Catherine Hall and Bill Schwarz [book series editors]“Cultural omnivores or culturally homeless? Exploring the shifting cultural identities of the upwardly mobile” – Sam Friedman“‘Anything But Heavy Metal’: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes” – Bethany Bryson“The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” – Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer“Follow the algorithm: An exploratory investigation of music on YouTube” – Massimo Airoldi, Davide Beraldo and Alessandro GandiniSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

Les Back, a sociologist and author of "The Art of Listening," dives deep into the complexities of sound and listening in society. He discusses how a focus on listening can challenge visual-centric narratives and highlights the link between music and sociology. The conversation examines the hidden biases in everyday interactions and the impacts of cultural appropriation in music. Back emphasizes the necessity of a critical approach to our senses and the importance of inclusive communication in addressing social inequalities.

In this supposedly “post-colonial” age, the idea of the native continues to be distorted and deployed, whether in Narendra Modi’s India or calls for “British jobs for British workers”. How and why has this word – so powerful in the age of empire – lived on into the 21st century? Who gains? And how has it gone from being a term applied to those ruled over by colonisers, to a label chosen by people promoting their own interests against others?Nandita Sharma joins Alexis and Rosie to discuss all this and more, including the exclusionary logic at the heart of the post-colonial nation state. We further ask: how can true decolonisation occur if the very idea of the nation state still features colonial logic? Does it make the idea of decolonising the “national” curriculum an oxymoron?Also, Nandita exposes the assumptions revealed by researchers’ fears of “going native”, and reflects on the idea of a borderless world. Plus: a celebration of Manuela Zechner’s “Remembering Europe”.Guest: Nandita SharmaHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesNandita, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommendedManuela Zechner’s film-essay “Remembering Europe”Nakkiah Lui’s playwriting workSnotty Nose Rez Kids’ songs’ lyricsCathy Park Hong’s book “Minor Feelings”Daša Drndić’s book “Canzone Di Guerra”From The Sociological Review“Migrant NHS nurses as ‘tolerated’ citizens in post-Brexit Britain” – Georgia Spiliopoulos and Stephen Timmons“Securitized Citizens: Islamophobia, Racism and the 7/7 London Bombings” – Yasmin Hussain and Paul Bagguley“State containment and closure of gendered possibilities among a millennial generation: On not knowing Muslim young men” – Mairtin Mac an Ghaill and Chris HaywoodDecolonising Methodologies, 20 Years On: The Sociological Review Annual Lecture – Linda Tuhiwai SmithBy Nandita Sharma“Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants”“Against National Sovereignty: The Postcolonial New World Order and the Containment of Decolonization”“No Borders As a Practical Political Project” (co-editors: Bridget Anderson and Cynthia Wright)Further readings“Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider” – Satnam Virdee“Return of a Native: Learning from the Land” – Vron Ware“Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire” – Akala“Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control” – Bridget Anderson“Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism” – Kwame Nkrumah “Decolonization is not a metaphor” – Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang“Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples” – Linda Tuhiwai SmithFrederick Cooper’s work on how people fought against subordination in the French empireGurminder Bhambra’s work on Decolonizing WhitenessSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense