Uncommon Sense

“What is the effect of receiving something from someone who is not your biological kin?” Anthropologist Delwar Hussain introduces his new project on Queer Inheritance, born when a friend welcomed Delwar and his partner to enjoy items belonging to her late uncle – a man they had never met. This led Delwar to wonder: how are queer people today preparing for their deaths? How, with this in mind, can we think of “inheritance”? And what does the “good death”, of which inheritance is a key part, mean to queer people?While the word “inheritance” often leads us to thoughts of taxation and legislation, class and inequality, finance and family feuds, this episode heads in a different direction. Reflecting on both physical items, but also those things that remain intangible and untaxable – wisdom, life stories, mentorship, communion – this conversation unites two classic areas of anthropological thought: kinship and the gift. Inheritance, Delwar reminds us – particularly at the peak of the HIV/AIDS crisis, for example, and when homosexuality was illegal in countries like the UK – can be a radical and communicative act. At other times, it reproduces dominant norms, among them heteronormativity and the privileging of biological kin. And then there’s disinheritance, too…A fascinating and exploratory conversation about family, choice, meaning and death. Plus: the enduring popularity of Kath Weston’s “Families We Choose”.Guest: Delwar Hussain; Hosts: George Kalivis, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Delwar Hussain‘Just who do I leave my worldly possessions to, darling?’: A Study of Queer Inheritance – research project funded by a Wellcome Accelerator Award Boundaries Undermined: The Ruins of Progress on the Bangladesh/India Border (2013)Delwar’s profile at The University of EdinburghFrom the Sociological Review FoundationUncommon Sense episodes: Love & Reproduction, with Alva Gotby (2025); Performance, with Kareem Khubchandani (2023); Desire, with Angelique Nixon (2025)Discover our lesson plans for use in the classroom!Further resources“Families We Choose” – Kath Weston“The Gift” – Marcel Mauss“Forgetting Family” – Jack Halberstam, in “A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies”“How to Survive a Plague” – David France“Abolish the Family” – Sophie Lewis“Anthropology and Inheritance” – Current Anthropology special issue featuring the pieces by João Biehl, Adam T. Smith and Tim Ingold, mentioned by DelwarRead more about the work of Judith Butler and Resto Cruz.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

12/19/25 • 39:01

How have maternal - and grandmaternal - ways of knowing been sidelined and undervalued? What role has sociology’s focus on its ‘founding fathers’ played? And what’s the cost, in South Africa and beyond? Babalwa Magoqwana, Director of the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at Nelson Mandela University, joins us from Gqeberha.In this fascinating conversation on knowledge and value, gender and care, Babalwa celebrates her grandmother - “a learning space, a space of imagination” - who provided her with “ways of knowing” that remain sidelined in academia. By foregrounding such maternal and grandmaternal figures, Babalwa argues, not only might we reduce the dissonance felt by students whose experience jars with that shown to them by classic sociological theory (of the “nuclear family”, for example); we also quickly see how the production of what we value as “knowledge” has been a colonial imposition - including rigid gender binaries, or notions of seniority rooted solely in chronology - that did not originate in Africa itself. Motherhood, says Babalwa, has been reduced to the identity of a single female person. We must de-gender it and recognise that all of us need to care.Plus: Babalwa celebrates the work of Ifi Amadiume, author of ‘Male Daughters, Female Husbands’, and Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, author of ‘The Invention of Women’. She also reflects on the unrecognised labour of Black women in the neoliberal university. And we ask: can we speak of “African Sociology” in general? Babalwa explains why we may.Guest: Babalwa Magoqwana; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Babalwa MagoqwanaInyathi Ibuzwa Kwabaphambili: Theorising South African Women's Intellectual Legacies (2024, with S. Magadla and A. Masola)On maternal legacies of knowledge, ukwambathisa, and rethinking of the sociology of Eastern Cape, South Africa (2023, with P. Maseko)Thirty years of Male Daughters, Female Husbands (2021, with S. Magadla and N. Motsemme)Reconnecting African Sociology to the Mother (2020, with J. Adesina)“Forced to Care” at the Neoliberal University (2019, with Q. Maqabuka and M. Tshoaedi)From the Sociological Review FoundationUncommon Sense episodes: Margins, with Rhoda Reddock (2024); Natives, with Nandita Sharma (2022); Love & Reproduction, with Alva Gotby (2025)Discover our lesson plans for use in the classroom!Further resources“I Write What I Like” – Steve Biko“Three Mothers” – Anna Malaika Tubbs“Male Daughters, Female Husbands” – Ifi Amadiume“The Invention of Women” and “What Gender is Motherhood?” – Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí“Forced to Care” – Evelyn Nakano Glenn“Scholars in the Marketplace” – Mahmoud Mamdani“Eating from One Pot” – Sarah MosoetsaSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

11/21/25 • 45:28

What’s behind the reductive pursuit of “paradise” in travel to the Caribbean? How does tourism continue the legacy of colonialism? And how is this being resisted? We’re joined by Angelique Nixon, a scholar and activist at The University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, whose book “Resisting Paradise” examined how tourism shapes Caribbean life and identity, including via deep-rooted notions of “paradise” grounded in colonialism and exploitation. Angelique describes how the Caribbean, a region of such diverse islands, has been constructed a site for the fulfilment of particular desires, while other forms of desire have been suppressed in mainstream narratives. Angelique joins us to discuss this, as well as her new project, “Submerged Freedom”.Plus: Angelique reflects on writing as a “Black sexual intellectual”, and describes how Franz Fanon led her to reflect on tourism as “the stagnation of decolonisation” – as reproducing and reinforcing existing racialised inequalities. Also, we celebrate thinkers including the sociologist Kamala Kempadoo, authors Edwidge Danticat, Jamaica Kincaid and Erna Brodber. And we profile the radical Caribbean philosopher Sylvia Wynter, whose work challenged the assumptions of western liberal humanism and highlighted the importance of working on ourselves as part of decolonial work.Guest: Angelique Nixon; Host: Rosie Hancock; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Angelique NixonResisting Paradise (2015)On Being a Black Sexual Intellectual (2019)Angelique’s academic profile, including information on her latest project, “Submerged Freedom”CAISO – feminist non-profit civil society organisation committed to ensuring wholeness, justice and inclusion for Trinidad and Tobago’s LGBTQI+ communitiesFrom the Sociological Review FoundationUncommon Sense episodes on: Europeans, with Manuela Boatcă (2023) and Margins, with Rhoda Reddock (2024)Len Garrison: Archives and Self-Esteem – audio essay by Hannah Ishmael (2025)Further resources“Island Futures” – Mimi Shiller“An Eye for the Tropics” – Krista Thompson“Sexing the Caribbean” – Kamala Kempadoo“Paradise and Plantation” – Ian Strachan“The Repeating Island” – Antonio Benítez-Rojo“The Wretched of the Earth” – Franz Fanon“After The Dance” – Edwidge Danticat“A Small Place” – Jamaica KincaidSylvia Wynter: Beyond Man – short introductory video by Al JazeeraSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

10/24/25 • 47:26

A bonus offering for Uncommon Sense listeners! We’re sharing our mini-series, Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism, in which three experts introduce us to three key figures in the story of UK anti-racism, illuminating how they show us what that term really means – and what it takes – but also how their work and ideas speak to sociology.How can archives fight racism? How can progressive educational resources tackle the harm of discrimination? Why have millennia of British history so often been presented through a reductive and harmful white gaze? Hannah Ishmael – lecturer in Digital Culture and Race at King’s College London – introduces Len Garrison, an activist, archivist and determined educationalist who worked to improve education, particularly for minoritised populations – and to disprove and displace assumptions about the history of Black presence in the UK. Garrison was central in creating ACER – the African Caribbean Education Resource project – and became a leading founder of BCA – the Black Cultural Archives – in Brixton, where, with others, he enacted his conviction that archives have the power to change the reality and representation of people’s lives.An essay on the meaning and value of archives, and the nature and potential of anti-racist education. With reflection also on Bernard Coard and Stuart Hall, and the importance of attending to what people do as well as what they write.Episode Readings and Resources: https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.lscb4869Episode CreditsAuthor: Hannah IshmaelProducer: Alice BlochSound: Emma HoultonMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Kieran Cairns-LoweSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

10/3/25 • 19:20

A bonus offering for Uncommon Sense listeners! We’re sharing our mini-series, Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism, in which three experts introduce us to three key figures in the story of UK anti-racism, illuminating how they show us what that term really means – and what it takes – but also how their work and ideas speak to sociology.What did Black radical politics look like in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s? What was its relation to the Black women’s movement, which highlighted the multiple oppressions faced by Black women? How, in studying such movements, can we celebrate brilliant activists, without erasing the importance of movements and collectives? In this essay, A.S. Francis – author of “Gerlin Bean: Mother of the Movement” – introduces Gerlin Bean, the Jamaican-born activist who came to the UK as a student nurse and became central to Black British Feminist Socialism. They describe Bean, who passed away in early 2025, as a radical listener and mediator who applied to her entire way of living an acute awareness of how race and gender intersect to create particular types of disadvantage – and spoke to those she helped, on the ground, with a skillset that sociologists and others could learn a lot from.Episode Readings and Resources: https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.jgfc6963Episode CreditsAuthor: A.S. FrancisProducer: Alice BlochSound: Emma HoultonMusic: Joe GardinerArtwork: Kieran Cairns-LoweSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

10/3/25 • 24:47

A bonus offering for Uncommon Sense listeners! We’re sharing our mini-series, Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism, in which three experts introduce us to three key figures in the story of UK anti-racism, illuminating how they show us what that term really means – and what it takes – but also how their work and ideas speak to sociology.What does tech have to do with anti-racism? Why do we dismiss complex economics at our peril? And how do global struggles for justice connect to local ones? Here, John Narayan – Chair of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations, and a lecturer in European and International Studies at King’s College London – introduces us to Ambalavaner Sivandanan, or “Siva”, a giant of anti-racism who showed us how to truly understand discrimination, and how we can best confront it, together – not just at the interpersonal level or that of language alone, but through communities of resistance, with an eye focussed on capitalism, colonialism and technology. Here, John celebrates and unpacks the ideas within Siva’s 1989 essay ‘New Circuits of Imperialism’, which saw him address racism, capitalism and tech at a global scale, and relate this back to state racism at the national level.Siva, John says, shows us the scope for a truly anti-racist sociology, teaching us that the struggles of “Indian farmers for land rights, those of indigenous Amazonians, and those of Grenfell Tower fire survivors” are ultimately connected – united by “a story of people harmed and marginalised by the market state; and confronting it.”Episode Readings and Resources: https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.lhcx9119Episode CreditsAuthor: John NarayanProducer: Alice BlochSound: Emma HoultonMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Kieran Cairns-LoweProduction Note: This episode was recorded in 2024.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

10/3/25 • 23:23

Made tea for your partner today? Helped a vulnerable neighbour? You may have been performing what Alva Gotby calls “emotional reproduction” – the caring and emotional work we do to create good feeling amid life under capitalism, but that also plays a part in reproducing that very system and its norms. While it may feel like love, such work can be exhausting, unjustly organised and heavily gendered.Inspired by Wages for Housework and sharing common ground with thinkers such as Sophie Lewis, Alva reflects on the often invisible, isolating and unevenly distributed emotional work that we perform to help each other withstand capitalism – and that keeps us attached to the status quo. It’s a discussion that raises crucial questions. We ask: is anything left of love after such an analysis? What does this mean for altruism? And how can we think critically about care while still valuing it? It’s not that we must stop caring, Alva explains; instead, we need wholesale reform of the social relations within which we care. Seeking “equality” within the norms of romantic coupledom and the insular nuclear family will only get us so far.Plus: what about the mobilisation of another emotion – hate – in the so-called manosphere? And is the “trad wife” a response, of sorts, to the same crisis that Alva identifies? A provocative conversation, reflecting on love, private life, emotion, family, care and capitalism.Guest: Alva Gotby; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Alva GotbyThey Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life (Verso, 2023)Feeling at Home: Transforming the Politics of Housing (Verso, 2025)From the Sociological Review FoundationUncommon Sense episodes on: Care, with Bev Skeggs; Emotion, with Billy Holzberg; Burnout, with Hannah Proctor; Joy, with Akwugo EmejuluBook review of “They Call it Love” – Patrycja Sosnowska-Buxton (2023)Contributions, conjunctures and care: Revisiting Formations of Class and Gender – journal article by Helen Wood and Jo Littler (2025)Migrants' Regular Army of Labour – journal article by Sara Farris (2015)Further resources“The Managed Heart” – Arlie Hochschild“Formations of Class and Gender” – Bev Skeggs“The Feminine Mystique” – Betty Friedan“The Promise of Happiness” – Sara Ahmed“Abolish the Family” – Sophie Lewis“Radical Intimacy” – Sophie K Rosa“The Mental Load: A Feminist Comic” – Emma“Wages Against Housework” – Sylvia Federici“I cannot hold appropriate space for these bizarre self-care templates” – Shon Faye (on DAZED)“The Mothers Who Fought To Radically Reimagine Welfare” – Gene Demby (on NRP)“I'm a professional cuddler - let me tell you why a hug feels so good” – Danny Fullbrook (on BBC News)Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

9/19/25 • 44:51

How do stereotypes of “the child” contribute to injustice? Why must we decolonise childhood? What can it mean to work with love, rather than just study it? And how can we think about children’s agency? Sociologist and counsellor Brenda Herbert, the Sociological Review Fellow for 2024-25, reflects on her in-depth research getting to know children who had experienced domestic abuse and social work intervention in London. Applying a “live methods” approach – working with photography, play, and simply hanging out – she looked beyond the typical trauma and social work gaze to create knowledge with them about what mattered to them in their everyday lives.Inspired by Erica Burman’s “Child as Method” and by Franz Fanon, Brenda reflects on how powerful notions of “the child” can serve to prop up the status quo – from the treatment of refugees, to how children’s views are handled in family courts. Meanwhile, children who don’t fit our expectations of what a child should be risk being treated differently and pathologised.A heartfelt and rallying conversation, also describing the distinct joys and the challenges of doing research with children. Reflecting on social work, agency, power, and decolonial and black feminist thought, including Brenda’s “first academic love”: bell hooks.Guest: Brenda Herbert; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Brenda HerbertThe Everyday Lives of Children Who Have Experienced Domestic Abuse: Looking Beyond the Trauma Lens – forthcomingWhat’s love got to do with it? Live methods and researching with children who have experienced domestic abuse and social work intervention – 2025Cupboard love: Is tidiness essential for good parenting? – 2023From the Sociological Review FoundationPalestine: A Sociological IssueLive MethodsJoy, with Akwugo EmejuluThe Sociological Review Fellowship 2024-25: meet our winnerFurther resources“The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis”  – eds. Lynn Chancer, John AndrewsHortense Spillers in conversation with Gail Lewis (ICA, London, 2018)“Child as Method” – Erica Burman“All About Love” – bell hooks“The Selected Works of Audre Lorde” – ed. Roxane Gay“The Creative Spirit and Children’s Literature” – June Jordan, in “Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines” – eds. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, Mai'a WilliamsRead more about Hortense Spillers, Gail Lewis and Franz Fanon. Plus: the concept of epistemic injustice.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

7/25/25 • 47:53

How is the notion of “free speech” abused and misunderstood? What’s wrong with “debate me” culture – and with the value placed on appearing to be “controversial”? And what happens when people who are actually pretty powerful claim they “can’t say anything anymore”? Sociologist Aaron Winter, an expert on racism and the far right, joins Uncommon Sense to discuss all this and more.Showing what sociology has to offer to discussions of “freedom” often found in politics, Aaron describes how “free speech” has been invoked through the decades in North America and Europe, including in the victimisation narratives found in far-right discourse today. Plus, we reflect on the importance of no-platforming, and the need for critical thought when we hear that certain ideas are simply the “voice of the people”.Featuring discussion of Aaron’s work with Aurelien Mondon on “Reactionary Democracy”. Also: celebration of influential American sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of “Racism without Racists”, and the UK band The Specials.Guest: Aaron Winter; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Aaron WinterReactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream – co-authored with Aurelien Mondon, 2020Reading Mein Kampf, Misreading Education: The reactionary backlash goes back to school – co-authored with Aurelien Mondon, 2017Online Hate: From the Far-Right to the ‘Alt-Right’ and from the Margins to the Mainstream – 2019Conflating antisemitism and anti-zionism emboldens the far right – 2023From the Sociological Review FoundationThe Cacophony of Critique – Tom BolandVoice, with Claire Alexander, Dan McCulloch and Belinda ScarlettPalestine: A Sociological IssueFurther resources"On Liberty" – John Stuart Mill"White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-civil Rights Era" – Eduardo Bonilla-Silva"Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America" – Eduardo Bonilla-SilvaThe SpecialsRead more about Jose Medina, Miranda Fricker and the concept of epistemic injustice, as well as Michèle Diotte at The University of Ottawa.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

6/27/25 • 43:55

The word “revolution” conjures powerful imagery. But what does it mean today? Do revolutions neatly promote the will of the people, forging radical transformation? Or is it more complicated? Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko joins us from Freie Universität Berlin to explain his take on “deficient revolutions” as he reflects on the 2014 Euromaidan uprising and recent events in Ukraine – where, he argues, conflict with roots in class has become polarised along “ethnic” lines, with devastating consequences.Ukraine, he shows, is not an anomalous case on the periphery of Europe and the former USSR. Rather, its story is instructive for the study of global processes, including the “crisis of hegemony” – one he describes in terms of the “shellness” of politics, and which is in fact often compounded by contemporary revolutions. “People want their say”, Volodymyr explains. “They can overthrow the governments. But they cannot bring about the change that would represent their interests”.An urgent discussion about decolonisation and discourse, progress, popular mobilisation and imagining alternative futures. With reflection on Soviet-era sci-fi authors, the Strugatsky brothers – and on sociologists’ duty to highlight complex, messy realities.Guest: Volodymyr Ishchenko; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Volodymyr IshchenkoTowards The Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to WarUkrainian Voices?Class or regional cleavage? The Russian invasion and Ukraine’s ‘East/West’ divideInsufficiently diverse: The problem of nonviolent leverage and radicalization of Ukraine’s Maidan uprising, 2013–2014Why is Ukraine struggling to mobilise its citizens to fight?From the Sociological Review FoundationCommunity, with Kirsteen PatonSecurity, with Daria KrivonosGood warning, Vietnam? Comparing the Russian opposition to Putin with the greatest anti-war movement in the US – Arseniy KumankovFurther resourcesThe Snail On The Slope – novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, also reviewed in the TLS by Muireann MaguireUnderstanding Ukraine’s Euromaidan Protests – Open Society Foundations“Ethnic Conflict: A Global Perspective” – Stefan WolffRead more about Antonio Gramsci, William H. Sewell and Dylan John Riley.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

6/6/25 • 45:56

Hi everyone!The next episode of Uncommon Sense is landing here soon, but for now, we want to tell you about our brand new podcast, Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism, a mini-series of audio essays on the work and lasting sociological significance of three important and inspirational figures in the story of UK anti-racism: Ambalavaner Sivanandan, Gerlin Bean and Len Garrison. Listen to our trailer to learn more!Be sure to FOLLOW the podcast on your preferred platform to catch all episodes: https://sideways-sociology.buzzsprout.com/2498143/followEpisodes will also be made available directly on our website: https://thesociologicalreview.org/podcasts/sideways-sociology-uk-anti-racism/Out on May 30th!Thanks for listening.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

5/21/25 • 02:03

How do we typically see fat, and how can thinking differently about it have emancipatory outcomes? Fady Shanouda of Carleton University’s Feminist Institute of Social Transformation introduces Fat Studies and their inextricable link to activism. Alert to the connection between living and other things, Fady unpacks his feminist new materialist approach, and explains what it means to say “I’m not fat in my house”, describing how our surroundings can liberate us or show bias. He also considers the harm caused by misconceptions of fat as simply “surplus”, “inanimate” or even “dead” material. How does such valuing get mapped onto whole bodies and lives? And what happens if, instead, we recognise fat as essential, pushing back against the idea that having a lower amount of body fat means somehow a more valuable life?Plus: how has fat come to be seen as a matter for psychiatry? And what are the manifestations of the “fat tax” in a world where things are made with certain bodies in mind and costs imposed on others?Featuring discussion on autoethnography in North America. Plus: celebration of TV drama “Shrill” and the gripping reality TV survival series “Alone”.Guest: Fady Shanouda; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Fady ShanoudaFat Animacy (forthcoming book chapter)Fat and Mad Bodies: Under, Out of, and Beyond Control (chapter in Fat Studies in Canada)Disability Saves the World (podcast)From the Sociological Review FoundationSugar Rush by Karen Throsby – Lucy AphramorFat Activist PodcastsJust my size? Our bodies, our waistbands, our triggered selves – Nina SökefeldFurther resources“Fat Studies” – an Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society“Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect” – Mel Y. Chen“The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain” – Margaret Price“Narrating the Closet: An Autoethnography of Same-Sex Attraction” – Tony E. AdamsThe “Pool” episode of the TV series “Shrill”The reality TV survival show “Alone”More on the “Obesity Paradox”“The impact of obesity on the short-term and long-term outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention: the obesity paradox?” – Luis Gruberg, et al.“‘Obesity paradox’ misunderstands the biology of optimal weight throughout the life cycle” – J. B. Dixon, et al.Read more about the work of Eli Clare on bodyminds and Hunter Ashleigh Shackleford.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

4/18/25 • 43:10

From TV’s “The Bear” to the simmering restaurant thriller “Boiling Point” we seem drawn to angry-but-vulnerable chefs in pop culture. But how do such stereotypes shape who works in kitchens and how they treat their colleagues? Is “kitchen culture”, with its macho rough and tumble norms, always so different from the work culture so many of us face – including in academia? Sociologist Ellen T. Meiser joins us from Hawaii to discuss this and more, reflecting on her new book Making It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen. She tells us about her lifelong fascination with kitchens – from teenage shift work in Anchorage, Alaska, to studying baking and pastry at the Culinary Institute of America and entering the field of Food Studies.We ask: how do scars serve as a kind of currency in commercial kitchens amid values of stoicism, perseverance and pain? How does the transience of worker populations make kitchens sites of risk and low accountability? And how does “scarring” take place beyond the kitchen, in a traumatogenic society where individuals, but also our planet, face significant harm?With celebration of the late chef and author Anthony Bourdain.Guest: Ellen T. Meiser; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardner; Artwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Ellen T. MeiserMaking It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen“It Was, Ugh, It Was So Gnarly. And I Kept Going”: The Cultural Significance of Scars in the WorkplaceThe Social Breakdown (podcast co-hosted with Penn Pantumsinchai and Omar Bird) – including the episode Culture and Systems: An Intro to Food StudiesFrom the Sociological Review FoundationFood and Work – The Sociological Review Magazine issuesTaste, Performance, Success, Burnout, Toxic – Uncommon Sense episodesFurther resources“Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi“Food and Culture: A Reader” – ed. Carole Counihan, Penny Van Esterik, Alice Julier“Takeaway: Stories From a Childhood Behind the Counter” – Angela Hui“Scar Cultures: Media, Spectacle, Suffering” – Pramod Nayar“‘Yes Chef’: life at the vanguard of culinary excellence” – Robin Burrow, Chef John Smith, Christalla Yakinthou“The Forms of Capital” – Pierre Bourdieu“Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body” – Phillip Vannini“‘I see my section scar like a battle scar’: The ongoing embodied subjectivity of maternity” – Sally JohnsonMore links to resources available at thesociologicalreview.orgSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

3/21/25 • 46:54

What comes to mind when you think about joy? And can there be joy in protest and refusal? Someone who’s been asking and trying to answer questions about this is Akwugo Emejulu. She’s been investigating the relationship between Black feminist joy, ambivalence and futures, asking how Black feminists are remixing political media, meanings and messages to co-create manifestos for change. Akwugo has also been mapping the grassroots organising and activism of women of colour for more than 15 years, and in this episode shares her insights about the role of joy and other emotions in understanding society and social change. Plus: Akwugo introduces us to the work of bell hooks, including her take on Beyoncé’s album “Lemonade”, and gives her pop culture recommendation for some Japanese anime, much to Alexis’ delight!Guest: Akwugo EmejuluHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochGuest Producer: Chris GarringtonSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesRosie, Alexis and Akwugo recommendedThe works of psychologist Rollo May and poet Toi DerricotteThe anime TV series Orb: On the Movements of the Earth and Fullmetal Alchemist: BrotherhoodBy Akwugo EmejuluFugitive FeminismTo Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (co-edited with Francesca Sobande)Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain (co-authored with Leah Bassel)The Black Feminism Remix Lab: on Black feminist joy, ambivalence and futures (co-authored with Francesca Sobande) Refusing politics as usual: mapping women of colour’s radical praxis in London and Amsterdam (co-authored with Inez van der Scheer)The politics of exhaustion (co-authored with Leah Bassel)From The Sociological ReviewThe lonely activist: On being haunted – Akwugo Emejulu, Leah BasselDissonant intimacies: Coloniality and the failures of South–South collaboration – Srila RoyFurther resources“Feminist Theory: From Margin To Center” – bell hooks“Feeling Race: Theorizing the Racial Economy of Emotions” – Eduardo Bonilla-Silva“The (Un)Managed Heart: Racial Contours of Emotion Work in Gendered Occupations” – Adia Harvey Wingfield“Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure” – Arlie Russell HochschildSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

1/24/25 • 58:01

With so many platforms available to share information, there are more means than ever to make a noise. But in the spirit of free speech and academic freedom, those speaking and actually being heard remain grossly unequal. What are the links between voice and power and how can we amplify those voices that we can’t hear?In this special episode recorded at The Sociological Review Undisciplining II conference, Michaela Benson is joined by Claire Alexander (Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of Social Sciences at The University of Manchester), Dan McCulloch (Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy at The Open University) and Belinda Scarlett (Library Manager at the Working Class Movement Library) to talk about empowerment, representation and impact, under a common theme: VOICEGuests: Claire Alexander, Dan McCulloch, Belinda ScarlettHost: Michaela BensonExecutive Producer: Alice BlochGuest Producer: Emma HoultonSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Claire Alexander Our Migration StoryThe Art of Being Black: The Creation of Black British Youth IdentitiesStuart Hall and ‘Race’By Dan McCullochCritical Reflections on Participatory Visual Methods and VoiceWhy Deaf Prisoners Have Been in a State of Lockdown Since Well Before COVID-19Homelessness and Mortality: an Extraordinary or Unextraordinary Phenomenon? (co-authored with Vickie Cooper)By Belinda ScarlettWorking Class Movement LibraryBig Flame ProjectFrom The Sociological ReviewAccent and the Manifestation of Spatialised Class Structure – Michael Donnelly, Sol Gamsu, Alex BarattaYouth Voices in Post-English Riots Tottenham: The Role of Reflexivity in Negotiating Negative Representations – Julius ElsterFurther resources“Sidewalk” – Mitchell DuneierBlack British Voices – report of project led by Kenny MonroseValuing Voices in the Digital Age – Sharath Srinivasan“Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism” – Nick CouldryAt Home and Not at Home: Stuart Hall in conversation with Les Back; also available for listeningSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

12/20/24 • 62:42

Life admin often refers to the overwhelming and mundane paperwork that surrounds contemporary living. However, Oriana Bernasconi, a sociology professor at the Alberto Hurtado University in Chile, joins Uncommon Sense to talk about a more serious side of the term – that of paperwork documenting human rights abuse – as well as a living, breathing archive and the analogue spreadsheet.Author of “Resistance to Political Violence in Latin America: Documenting Atrocity”, Oriana talks about her substantial research in human rights archives documenting the atrocities that took place during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. She also talks us through “technologies of memory” and how archives have allowed the living to connect with the dead.Plus: Oriana introduces us to the works of Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida around performativity and gives her pop culture recommendation for the 16-part TV series “Una historia necesaria”.Guest: Oriana BernasconiHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochGuest Producer: Emma HoultonSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesRosie, Alexis and Oriana recommendedWINHANGANHA – film by Jazz MoneyInside/Out: A Prison Memoir – theatre production by Patrick KeatingUna Historia Necesaria – TV series by Hernán CaffieroBy Oriana BernasconiResistance to Political Violence in Latin America: Documenting AtrocityPolitical Technologies of Memory: Uses and Appropriations of Artefacts that Register and Denounce State Violence (co-authored with Elizabeth Lira and Marcela Ruiz)Archives of Violence: Case studies from South America (co-authored with Vikki Bell, Jaime Hernández-García and Cecilia Sosa)From The Sociological ReviewThe aesthetics of memory: Ruins, visibility and witnessing – Margarita PalaciosThe digital writing of human rights narratives: Failure, recognition, and the unruly inscriptions of database infrastructures – Josh BowsherFurther resourcesthe publications of the Tecnologías Políticas de la Memoria project“Documenting Dictatorship: Writing and Resistance in Chile's Vicaría de la Solidaridad” – Vikki Bell“Documentality: Why it is Necessary to Leave Traces” – Maurizio Ferraris“Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” – Judith ButlerRead more about the concept of Speeach Acts, as well as the work of Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt and Jacques Derrida.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

11/29/24 • 51:09

What comes to mind when we think about toxicity in everyday life? It could be toxic relationships or masculinity – through to consumption, waste, governance and environmental harm. Alice Mah joins Uncommon Sense to discuss toxic expertise, waste colonialism and more.The author of “Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation” and “Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It”, Alice reflects on what the petrochemical industry has to do with sociology. From the impact on marginalised communities often having no choice but to live in a toxic environment through to the concept of “waste colonialism”.She also introduces us to the work of Dr Max Liboiron and their work CLEAR (Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research) – an interdisciplinary plastic pollution laboratory whose methods foreground humility and good land relations. Alice explains how the work of CLEAR has impacted her and made her think a little differently when approaching her own work.Guest: Alice MahHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochGuest Producer: Emma HoultonSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Alice MahPetrochemical PlanetPlastic UnlimitedToxic ExpertiseFrom the Sociological Review FoundationDeep Time, Intergenerational Knowledge, and Socio-Ecological Futures – The Sociological Review Annual Lecture 2024 by Alice MahInto the abyss: Monsters, minerals and deep-sea mining in Norway’s blue economy – Jennifer E. TelescaClimate Justice – magazine issueFurther resources“The Climate of History in a Planetary Age” – Dipesh Chakrabarty“Pollution Is Colonialism” – Max Liboiron“Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution” – Gerald Markowitz, David Rosner“The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World” – Linsey McGoeyCivic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)“The Blue Planet” – documentary TV series presented by David Attenborough“Dark Waters” – film directed by Todd Haynes – based on Nathaniel Rich’s New York Times article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare”Production Note: This episode was recorded in July 2024.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

11/1/24 • 62:56

What gets centred and what gets framed as marginal? Who decides? And what are the consequences? UN expert, feminist scholar and social historian Rhoda Reddock – Professor Emerita at The University of the West Indies – joins us from Trinidad and Tobago to discuss the theme of margins, reflecting on the importance of radical Caribbean thought, the contested meaning of the “global south” and the evolution and significance of Caribbean feminism from the 70s to today.As a member of the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Rhoda shares her reflections of moving between Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago for her work. She also gives advice to scholars striving to make an impact – and to those questioning the necessity of moving to the “global north”. Why, Rhoda asks, does scholarship from the “global south” too often get perceived as regionally specific, while the “north” remains regarded as the centre of sociological thought? And how, Rosie and Alexis ask, has the Caribbean typically been regarded – or indeed, dismissed – by the discipline?Plus: Rhoda also shines a spotlight on Trinidadian-American scholar Oliver C. Cox, author of “Caste, Class and Race”, whose work was a precursor to Wallerstein’s “World Systems Theory” and also to women’s studies today. A fascinating discussion, also featuring celebration of thinkers including CLR James and Walter Rodney, author of “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”.Guest: Rhoda ReddockHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Rhoda ReddockRadical Caribbean Social ThoughtWomen and Slavery in the Caribbean“Conceptualizing ‘Difference’ in Caribbean Feminist Theory” in New Caribbean ThoughtRhoda’s online profileFrom the Sociological Review FoundationEuropeans, with Manuela  Boatcă – Uncommon Sense podcast episodeGlobal Sociology – online magazine essay collectionDecolonising Methodologies, 20 Years On: The Sociological Review Annual Lecture – Linda Tuhiwai SmithFurther resourcesThe UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)“North-South: A Programme for Survival” – Willy Brandt“Southern Theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science” – Raewyn Connell“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” – Walter Rodney“Caste, Class and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics” – Oliver C. CoxSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

9/27/24 • 46:00

What’s meant – and who’s excluded – when community is invoked? Does membership take more than presence alone? How can seeing local crises through a global lens enrich our understanding? Kirsteen Paton joins Uncommon Sense to discuss community, class, resistance, solidarity and more – including her experience of community in the UK cities of Liverpool and Glasgow.As the author of “Class and Everyday Life”, Kirsteen gives hosts Alexis and Rosie a fascinating potted history of the study of “community” in sociology – moving from the early work of Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies, concerned with industrial capitalism, to recent studies of gentrification and the rise of identities beyond those tied to concrete ideas of “place”. They ask: how is sociology developing its thinking about online communities? And if there’s a tendency to idealise and romanticise “community” as typically positive, how should we think about and conceptualise those on the far right?Also: does talking about place-based communities risk missing the fact that communities are also connected across borders and histories, including colonialism? Kirsteen reflects – via Ambalavaner Sivanandan and Doreen Massey – on how what appears to be “local” (whether crises like the housing one or cases of resistance) is often inextricably linked to the global. Plus: a celebration of Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall and more.Guest: Kirsteen PatonHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Kirsteen PatonClass and Everyday LifeGentrification: A Working-Class PerspectiveProbing the symptomatic silences of middle‐class settlement: A case study of gentrification processes in GlasgowFrom the Sociological Review FoundationSolidarity – Uncommon Sense podcast episodeDoing Anti-Racism – The Stigma Conversations podcast episodeWorld City – Spatial Delight podcast episodeFurther reading“Coal is Our Life” – N. Dennis, F. Henriques, C. Slaughter“Family and Kinship in East London” – M. Young, P. Willmott“St Ann's” – K. Coates, R. Silburn“Neither ‘Deepest, Darkest Peckham’ nor ‘Run-of-the-Mill’ East Dulwich: The Middle Classes and their ‘Others’ in an Inner-London Neighbourhood” – E. Jackson, M. Benson“‘I Probably Would Never Move, but Ideally Like I’d Love to Move This Week’: Class and Residential Experience, Beyond Elective Belonging” – B. Jeffery“Communities of Resistance: Writings on Black Struggles for Socialism” – A. Sivanandan“A Global Sense of Place” – D. Massey“New Times: The Changing Face of Politics in the 1990s” – eds. S. Hall, M. Jacques“All That Melts into Air is Solid: The Hokum of New Times” – A. SivanandanSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

7/19/24 • 45:43

Think you know “coffee culture”? Anthropologist Grazia Ting Deng discusses her research into the “paradox of Chinese Espresso” – or why and how coffee bars in Italy, seen as such distinctively “Italian” spaces, became increasingly managed by Chinese baristas since 2008. Grazia tells Rosie and guest host Amit Singh – who highlights the overlap with his own co-authored research into the UK’s desi pubs – about her ethnographic study and how she even trained as a barista to better grasp her subject. Painting a vivid picture of how management by Chinese baristas grew due to economic, social and cultural factors in Bologna, Italy, she describes how and why these baristas have typically preserved rather than altered the culture in place. The coffee bar, she shows, is an everyday site of friction and adaptation where diverse groups come together and interact to construct a convivial space. Crucially, Grazia argues, conviviality is not some lofty goal – as is often thought to be the case – rather, it’s a lived reality, characterised by contingency and compromise.Guest: Grazia Ting DengHosts: Rosie Hancock, Amit SinghExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Grazia Ting DengChinese EspressoHopefully a Good LifeI Cinesi among Others: The Contested Racial Perceptions among Chinese Migrants in ItalyDiscussed by Rosie, Amit and Grazia“Heaven’s Kitchen” – Courtney Bender“In Search of Respect” – Philippe Bourgois“Challenging Codes” – Alberto Melucci“New Ethnicities and Urban Culture” – Les Back“Coffee and Cigarettes” – film, dir. Jim Jarmusch“Shun Li and the Poet” – film, dir. Andrea SegreFrom The Sociological ReviewSocial spaces and non-places: The community role of the traditional British pub – Reid AllenConvivial narratives as agency: Middle-class Muslims evading racialisation in Copenhagen – Amani HassaniValuing the bowling alley: Contestations over the preservation of spaces of everyday urban multiculture in London – Emma JacksonFurther reading“The Great Good Place” – Ray OldenburgA pub for England: Race and class in the time of the nation – Amit Singh, Sivamohan Valluvan, James Kneale“After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture?” – Paul Gilroy“Stories from a migrant city” – Ben Rogaly“Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection” – Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing“The Invention of Tradition” – eds. Eric Hobsbawm, Terence Ranger“Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” – Clifford GeertzRead more about the work of Mary Louise Pratt.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

6/21/24 • 44:50

What does it mean to make things? Why are some people valorised as “makers”, while others are rendered invisible? And what duty do sociologists have as makers of knowledge and narratives? The “sewing cycling sociologist” Kat Jungnickel joins Uncommon Sense to discuss all this and more; including her years of research celebrating historic female cyclists as radical inventors, makers and hackers, responding to barriers to their freedom of movement and raising crucial questions about power and space.Rosie (no stranger to DIY) and Alexis (a lifelong fan of taking things apart) ask Kat: what exactly is “Science and Technology Studies” (STS) and what’s the idea of the “black box” all about? How are the factory workers who make “our” clothes regarded in academia and beyond? Aren’t we all “makers” now, feeding our “smart” devices? And what can we learn from “Do It Together” (DIT) communities, like those Kat studied for her doctoral work in Australia, where she met people building their own wi-fi networks? Are they performing radical resistance to capitalism, or simply dealing with its downsides?Plus: Kat celebrates the work of thinkers who inspire her, including Saidiya Hartman. Hartman’s “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments”, Kat suggests, invites us to interrogate and remake established narratives, and to make space for those previously dismissed and denied a voice. Also discussed: John Urry, John Law, Angela McRobbie, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and more.Production Note: This episode was recorded before Kat Jungnickel's home institution of Goldsmiths, University of London announced organisational restructuring, which includes plans to make more than 50% of academic staff in the Department of Sociology redundant.Guest: Kat JungnickelHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesBy Kat JungnickelBikes and Bloomers and the project’s open-source sewing patternsPolitics of PatentsMaking Things to make Sense of ThingsMaking WiFiKat’s websiteFrom The Sociological ReviewWords failed us: Repairing sociology’s haunted past means finding new language to write about the social world – Gala Rexer“The Promises of Practice” – Christopher Gad, Casper Bruun Jensen“Fixing the future? How architects make time in buildings for later life care” – Siân M. Beynon-Jones, et al.Further reading“Science in Action” – Bruno Latour“Staying with the Trouble” – Donna Haraway“Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” – Saidiya Hartman“A Social History of American Technology” (2nd edition) – Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Matthew H. HerschSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

5/17/24 • 40:12

Burnout has become a byword for workplace exhaustion, but does it have a deeper history? Hannah Proctor joins us to explain how the notion emerged in the USA’s 1960s countercultural free clinics movement, at first relating to the emotional defeat of idealistic activists but came to be seen as simply the result of working too hard. It’s a story that tracks the trajectory of capitalism itself – as Hannah shows referencing thinkers from Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello to filmmaker Adam Curtis.Rosie and Alexis ask Hannah: are there gendered, classed and racialised aspects to how burnout gets discussed? How do structural conditions prevent us from caring for caregivers? And how do the statements of those in power undermine or validate the causes we care about, and thus compound our feelings of defeat and exhaustion?Hannah explains what psychiatrist Frantz Fanon's work teaches us about the challenges and contradictions of striving to make people “well” in a sick society. Plus, she tells us why the Black Panther phrase “survival pending revolution” is a crucial reminder that while small-scale acts of care remain essential, only wholesale reform can ensure a better, less burnout, world for all.Guest: Hannah ProctorHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesRecommended by Hannah“Hyper” – A. IsmaïlFrom The Sociological ReviewThe Stigma Conversations: Apocalypse and Change – I. Tyler, A. KnoxUncommon Sense: Care – B. Skeggs, R. Hancock, A. H. TruongHealing, knowing, enduring: Care and politics in damaged worlds – M. Tironi, I. Rodríguez-GiraltBy Hannah ProctorBurnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat“Sadistic, grinning rifle-women” in Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750–2020university profile and websiteFurther reading“Burn-out: The High Cost of High Achievement” – H. J. Freudenberger, G. Richelson“Staff Burn‐Out” – H. J. Freudenberger“How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation” – A. H. Petersen“Edifice Complex” – B. Ansfield“The making of burnout” – M. J. Hoffarth“Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties” – M. Davis, J. Wiener“The New Spirit of Capitalism” – L. Boltanski, E. Chiapello“The Care Manifesto” – The Care Collective“Revolutionary Suicide” – H. P. Newton“The Case of Blackness” – F. Moten“The Wretched of the Earth” – F. Fanon“Disalienation” – C. RobcisRead about Isabelle Le Pain’s work and watch Adam Curtis's films.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

4/19/24 • 48:57

What does privilege look like today? How do the advantaged perform “ease”? And why do some of us feel at home in elite spaces, while others feel awkward? Princeton sociologist Shamus Khan joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on elites, entitlement and more. Reminding us that “poor people are not why there’s inequality; rich people are why there’s inequality”, he highlights the importance of studying elites for studying inequality, as the gap between the two grows.Being the author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St Paul’s School (2011), Shamus tells Rosie and Alexis about how the way elites justify and see their position has shifted – and how a disability studies perspective helps us to cast a critical eye on the “ease” with which the few seem to nimbly navigate elite institutions. What seems like some of us “have it” and others “just don’t” is, suggests Shamus, socially produced – and what appears to be a “flat” and open world, ripe for the bold to seize, is really far more complex.Plus: why might people who share the same knowledge be valued differently when that knowledge is held in different – racialised, minoritised – bodies? Also: why TV shows and movies about elites don’t stop at Saltburn, Succession and The Kardashians?Guest: Shamus KhanHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon SenseEpisode ResourcesFrom The Sociological ReviewSpatial Delight: Space Invaders – N. Puwar, A. LisiakUncommon Sense: Taste – I. Karademir Hazir, R. Hancock, A. H. Truong‘Talent-spotting’ or ‘social magic’? Inequality, cultural sorting and constructions of the ideal graduate in elite professions – N. Ingram, K. AllenBy Shamus KhanPrivilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's SchoolSaying Meritocracy and Doing Privilege (co-authored with Colin Jerolmack)How Cultural Capital Emerged in Gilded Age America (co-authored with Fabien Accominotti, Adam Storer)Further reading“Flexible Citizenship” – A. Ong“Space Invaders” – N. Puwar“Learning to Labour” – P. Willis“Understanding audience segmentation” – R. Peterson“Reality Television and Class” – B. Skeggs, H. Wood“‘Oh goodness, I am watching reality TV’: How methods make class in audience research” – B. Skeggs, N. Thumim, H. Wood“Capital in the 21st Century” – T. PikettyRead more about  Shey O’Brien, Fabien Acconomoti, Pierre Bourdieu and Frantz Fanon.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

3/15/24 • 48:20

What are rules for? What's at stake if we assume that they're neutral? And if we want rules to be progressive, does it matter who makes them? Socio-legal scholar Swethaa Ballakrishnen joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on this and more, highlighting the value of studying law not just in theory but in action, and drawing on a career spanning law and academia in India and the USA.As the author of "Accidental Feminism", which explores unintended parity in the Indian legal profession, Swethaa talks to Rosie and Alexis about intention and whether it is always needed for positive outcomes. We also ask: in a society characterised as “post-truth”, does anyone even care about rules anymore? Plus, Swethaa dissects the trope of “neutrality” – firmly embedded in legal discourse, from the idea of “blind justice” to the notion of equality before the law. There are dangers, they explain, to assuming that law is neutral, particularly given that it is often those in power who get to make and extend the rules – something critical race scholars have long been aware of.Swethaa also fills us in on their recent interest in the TV show "Ted Lasso" and considers pop culture that speaks to our theme, including the series "Made in Heaven" and "Extraordinary Attorney Woo", plus a short film by Arun Falara.Guest: Swethaa BallakrishnenHosts: 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 ReviewSocio-legal Implications for Digital Environmental Activism – Audrey Verma et al.The Moral Rhetoric of a Civilized Society – Susanna MenisDepoliticisation, hybridisation and dual processes of stigmatisation – Shaoying ZhangBy Swethaa BallakrishnenAccidental FeminismLaw School as Straight SpaceGender Regimes and the Politics of Privacy (co-authored with Kalpana Kannabiran)“At Odds with Everything Around Me” in Out of Place (forthcoming)“Of Queerness, Rights, and Utopic Possibilities” (interview) – part of Queering the (Court)RoomFurther reading, viewing and listening“Lawyers and the Construction of Transnational Justice” – Yves Dezalay, Bryant Garth (eds)“Criminal Behavior as an Expression of Identity and a Form of Resistance” – Kathryne Young“The Language of Law School” – Elizabeth MertzTV series: “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”, “Ted Lasso”, “Made in Heaven”“Sunday” (short film)– Arun FularaUncommon Sense: Performance, with Kareem KhubchandaniSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

1/19/24 • 45:20

What exactly is spirituality? How does it relate to religion? Are both misunderstood? And what stands beyond and behind the idea that it has all simply been commodified to be about wellness, big business and celebrity? Andrew Singleton joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on this and more, including his experience researching young people’s spiritual practices in Australia, and time spent in Papua New Guinea.Andrew describes how what has been called the “spiritual turn” emerged through the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s and led to today’s “spiritual marketplace”. We ask whether the young people of today’s Generation Z are more open-minded than their elders – and whether, across the Global North and Global South, people are meeting a need for betterment in the “here and now” through spirituality, but also religion.Plus: what did Marx really mean when he described religion as the “opium of the people” – and how has that quote taken on a (rather cynical) life of its own? Also, from reactions to the bestselling Eat, Pray, Love to the historical condemnation of female fortune tellers, why do our definitions and dismissals of spirituality seem to be so deeply gendered?Guest: Andrew SingletonHosts: 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 ReviewThe spiritual turn and the disenchantment of the world: Max Weber, Peter Berger and the religion–science conflict – Galen Watts, Dick HoutmanThe “Belief” issue of The Sociological Review Magazine (May 2022)Capitalising on faith? An intergenerational study of social and religious capital among Baby Boomers and Millennials in Britain – Stuart Fox, et al.By Andrew SingletonFreedoms, Faiths and Futures: Teenage Australians on Religion, Sexuality and Diversity (co-authored with M.L. Rasmussen, A. Halafoff, G. Bouma)Religion, Culture and Society: A Global ApproachThe Spirit of Generation Y: Young People’s Spirituality in a Changing Australia (co-authored with M. Mason, R. Webber)Further reading and listening“Selling Yoga” and “Peace Love Yoga” – Andrea Jain“Selling Spirituality” – Jeremy Carrette, Richard King“Selling (Con)spirituality and COVID-19 in Australia” – Anna Halafoff, et al.“Women's Work: The Professionalisation and Policing of Fortune-Telling in Australia” – Alana Piper“Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World” – Alexandra Roginski“The Dream” podcast – Jane MarieRead more on the life and work of Gary Bauma, as well as about Karl Marx and Michel Foucault.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

12/15/23 • 40:13

Anxiety is part of contemporary life, yet rarely seen as anything other than personal and intimately psychological. Cultural Studies scholar Nicky Falkof joins us to discuss her work on fear and anxiety in South Africa, and how such negative emotions are often collective and collectively constructed – and relate deeply to our identities. Indeed, as Nicky tells us, if you ask yourself what or whom you’re scared of, you quickly face the question of who you think you are. Hear about Nicky’s teenage engagement in goth culture as South Africa approached the end of apartheid, and how it led her to think critically about fear and social change. Plus, she explains why that country, and Johannesburg in particular – as explored in her new book “Worrier State” – is seen as such a fascinating site for studying anxiety. With Rosie and Alexis, she also reflects on the architecture of fear – and why some people are unjustly expected to live in fear while others feel entitled to fight it.We also take on the trope of reflexivity, as Nicky considers how being truly reflexive requires not just introspection and soul-searching but meaningful practical action. With reflection on thinkers from Zygmunt Bauman to Jacob Dlamini and from Sara Ahmed to Sigmund Freud. Plus: what can the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles possibly teach us about anxiety?Guest: Nicky FalkofHosts: 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 Review‘Under attack’: Responsibility, crisis and survival anxiety amongst manager-academics in UK universities – Vik LovedayDecolonising and re-theorising the meaning of democracy: A South African perspective – Heidi Brooks, Trevor Ngwane, Carin RuncimanSocial class, symbolic domination, and Angst: The example of the Norwegian social space – Andreas Schmitz, Magne Flemmen, Lennart RosenlundBy Nicky FalkofWorrier State: Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South AfricaThe End of Whiteness: Satanism and family murder in South AfricaFind out more on Nicky’s websiteFurther reading“The Cultural Politics of Emotion” – Sara Ahmed“Gender Trouble” – Judith Butler“Liquid Fear” – Zygmunt Bauman“Female Fear Factory” – Pumla Dineo Gqola“Native Nostalgia” – Jacob DlaminiRead more about Sigmund Freud, and the work of Johnny Steinberg.Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

11/17/23 • 46:05

“If you’re talented and work hard, success (whatever that is) will be yours!” – So says the powerful system and ideology known as “meritocracy”. But if only it were so simple! Jo Littler joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on where this idea came from, how it became mainstream, and how it gets used by elites to convince us we live in a system that is open and fair when the reality is anything but that.But Jo also shows things are changing. Since the crash of 2008 it’s been clear we’re living and working on a far from “level” playing field. Jo describes the recent embrace of non-work and the rise of assertive “left feminisms” as a sign of hope that the tide may be turning against meritocracy and shallow ideas of success, and discusses the work of people leading the way. Plus: we reflect on the trope of escape. Why is it so often that to “succeed” in life, one must leave the place that they’re from and embrace the risky and new? And what’s up with the cliche of the “ladder” as a visual image for success? Jo reflects with reference to everyone from Ayn Rand to Raymond Williams. Also: we consider the 1990s rise of the “Mumpreneur” and the more recent phenomenon of the “Cleanfluencer”.Guest: Jo LittlerHosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu TruongExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSound Engineer: David CracklesMusic: Joe GardnerArtwork: Erin AnikerFind more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.Episode ResourcesJo, Alexis and Rosie recommendC. Carraway’s book “Skint Estate”M. Brown and R. Jones’ book “Paint Your Town Red”D. Aronofsky’s film “Requiem for a Dream”R. Linklater’s film “Slacker”From The Sociological ReviewSociological reflections on ‘doing’ aspiration within the psychic landscape of class – Kim AllenBirds of a Feather – Natalie WreyfordThe price of the ticket revised –  Anthony Miro BornBy Jo LittlerAgainst MeritocracyMrs Hinch, the rise of the cleanfluencer and the neoliberal refashioning of housework (co-authored with Emma Casey)Left Feminisms: Conversations on the Personal and PoliticalFurther reading“The Rise of the Meritocracy” – Michael Young“The Coming of Post-industrial Society” – Daniel Bell“Coloniality and Meritocracy in Unequal EU Migrations” – Simone Varriale“Perceptions of Meritocracy in Singapore” – Terri-Anne Teo“Meritocracy and Elitism in a Global City” – Kenneth Paul Tan“The Tyranny of Merit” – Michael Sandel“Inequality by Design” – Claude Fischer, et al.“Notes on the Perfect”– Angela McRobbie“Culture and Society” – Raymond WilliamsSupport our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

10/20/23 • 43:51

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

9/29/23 • 59:45

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

9/15/23 • 53:35

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

7/14/23 • 43:39