Uncommon Sense

AUDIO CONTENT WARNING: description of extreme racist violence In 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? With reference to the activist writer Ambalavaner Sivanandan, the feminist scholar Audre Lorde, the social geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and more. A collaboration between the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and The Sociological Review. Guests: Suresh Grover, Shabna Begum Host: Karis Campion Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources From Karis, Shabna and Suresh The Stephen Lawrence Research Centre“From Sylhet to Spitalfields”in conversation with Paul GilroyFurther reading Online resources Over-policed and under-protected: the road to Safer SchoolsThe Baroness Casey ReviewThe Black Panther PartyThe Stephen Lawrence InquiryFind out more about Quddus Ali and the cases of Michael Menson, Ricky Reel, Rolan Adams and Rohit Duggal, as well as the activist Claudia Jones. And check out The Monitoring Group and The Runnymede Trust, as well as The Stephen Lawrence Centre Archive.

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: Active listening questions: communitiesFind more about: Elena and Catherine’s articleImagined CommunitiesThe Nation and its FragmentsRunning the family firmThe Global Power of the British MonarchyOur podcast picks for this episode are: “Harry and Meghan”EurovisionPolitical Demography Follow Who do we think we are? on all major podcasting platforms or through their RSS Feed, and follow the podcast on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Get all the latest updates from the MIGZEN research project on Twitter and Instagram.

“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 Gershon Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Ilana, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended as discussed by Bethan Kapur for VICEFrom The Sociological Review “A Sociological Playlist”“The Sociology of Love”“Becoming Ourselves Online: Disabled Transgender Existence In/Through Digital Social Life”“The Politics of Digital Peace, Play, and Privacy during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Between Digital Engagement, Enclaves, and Entitlement”“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 And have a look at the basics of Actor–Network Theory.

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 Hazir Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find 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 Resources Irmak, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended From The Sociological Review By 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”“Exploring patterns of children’s cultural participation: parental cultural capitals and their transmission”Further reading and viewing

What does it mean to really listen in a society obsessed with spectacle? What’s hidden when powerful people claim to “hear” or “give voice” to others? And what’s at stake if we think that using fancy recording devices helps us to neatly capture “truth”? Les Back – author of “The Art of Listening” – tells Alexis and Rosie why listening to society is crucial, but cautions that there’s nothing inherently superior about the hearing sense. Rather, we must “re-tune our ears to society” and listen responsibly, with care, and in doubt. Plus: why should we think critically before accepting invitations to “trust our senses”? And why do so many sociologists also happen to be musicians? Guest: Les Back Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Les, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended “Wobbles on Cobbles”“4′33″”“Walls to Bridges”“White Tears”From The Sociological Review “A Sociological Playlist”“Listening to community: The aural dimensions of neighbouring”“Loudly sing cuckoo: More-than-human seasonalities in Britain”By Les Back “The Art of Listening”“Tape Recorder 1”“Urban multiculture and xenophonophobia in London and Berlin”“Trust Your Senses? War, Memory, and the Racist Nervous System”Further reading and viewing Also, have a look at the scholarly work of Paul Gilroy and Frantz Fanon, and the music of Evelyn Glennie.

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 Sharma Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Nandita, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended From The Sociological Review “Migrant NHS nurses as ‘tolerated’ citizens in post-Brexit Britain”“Securitized Citizens: Islamophobia, Racism and the 7/7 London Bombings”“State containment and closure of gendered possibilities among a millennial generation: On not knowing Muslim young men”Decolonising Methodologies, 20 Years On: The Sociological Review Annual LectureBy 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”Further readings work on how people fought against subordination in the French empirework on Decolonizing Whiteness

Emojis! Feminism! Rage! Sociologist Billy Holzberg joins us to talk about emotion. Why is it dismissed as an obstacle to progress and clear thinking – and to whose benefit? How can we let anger into politics without sanctioning far-right violence? And why are some of us freer than others to play with emotional abjection? Billy reflects on all this and more with Alexis and Rosie, celebrating thinkers from Sara Ahmed to Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois to Yasmin Gunaratnam. Billy also reflects on queerness, childhood and shame; the emotional precarity of TV’s Fleabag; the playfulness of emojis; and the desperate but subversive power of the hunger striker. Plus: a welcome clarification of the slippery line between affect and emotion. Guest: Billy Holzberg Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Billy, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended From The Sociological Review “Everyone shows emotions everywhere but class photos”“‘Serenity Now!’ Emotion management and solidarity in the workplace”“Diane Abbott, misogynoir and the politics of Black British feminism’s anticolonial imperatives: ‘In Britain too, it’s as if we don’t exist’”By Billy Holzberg “The Multiple Lives of Affect: A Case Study of Commercial Surrogacy”“‘Wir schaffen das’: Hope and hospitality beyond the humanitarian border”“The affective life of heterosexuality: heteropessimism and postfeminism in Fleabag”Further readings

Lonely? Mean? Hostile? Cities get a bad rap. But why? Romit Chowdhury has lived in cities worldwide; from Kolkata to Rotterdam. He tells Alexis and Rosie about the wonder of urban “enchantment” found in a stranger’s smile, our changing ideas of the “urban”, and why anonymity is not always in fact the enemy of civility and friendship in the city. Plus: how did “walking the city” emerge as a revolutionary research method? And why is Romit so fascinated with public transport – from exploring auto-rickshaw drivers’ masculinity in Kolkata, to studying sexual violence on the busy trains of Tokyo. Romit, Alexis and Rosie also share their tips for thinking differently about urban life – from Japanese film to novels that explode norms about bodies in the city. Guest: Romit Chowdhury Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Romit, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended From The Sociological Review “Karachi”“Whose City Now?”“Trash Talk: Unpicking the deadlock around urban waste and regeneration”“Rising with the Rooster: How urban chickens are relaxing the pace of life”By Romit Chowdhury “Sexual assault on public transport: Crowds, nation, and violence in the urban commons”“The social life of transport infrastructures: Masculinities and everyday mobilities in Kolkata”“Density as urban affect: The enchantment of Tokyo’s crowds”Further readings Ayona DattaLinda McDowellPatricia NoxoloLinda PeakeTracey SkeltonAndrea RobertsGill Valentine

We each have a body, but every body’s story is unique. In this intimate conversation, sociologist Charlotte Bates tells Alexis and Rosie why studying bodies – and how we talk about them – matters in a society where some are privileged over others, and why ableism harms us all. Charlotte talks about her co-authored work on wild swimming, arguing that despite its commodification, it holds subversive power. She also considers how the unwell body collides with the demands of capitalist life – revealing just how absurd it can be. Plus: what “wellness” fails to capture – and why health is not a lifestyle choice. Guest: Charlotte Bates Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Charlotte, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended From The Sociological Review “Making Visible: Chronic Illness and the Academy”“Race and Disability in the Academy”“Embodying Sociology”By Charlotte Bates “Vital Bodies: Living with Illness”“Conviviality, disability and design in the city”wild swimmingthis articlethis forthcoming publicationFurther readings in this publicationThe Polluted Leisure Project Moving Oceansscholarly workmaternal mortality

EDUCATORS! STUDENTS! LISTENERS! We want to hear from you ... We’re taking a short summer break, and will be back in September ready and refreshed for the new term, and with a new episode for you! So, while Rosie and Alexis have some well-earned time-outs – and catch up on reading for forthcoming shows on things like cities, emotion and noise – we have a request: Could you use just a few of those spare 45 minutes this month to share some of your thoughts with us? To be precise, we'd like to know how we can help you ... Share your thoughts with us by email, by Instagram, and on Twitter. You can also read all about using podcasts in the classroom from The Sociological Review's podcast lead Professor Michaela Benson. And recommend us to friends, family and more. It's easy to subscribe – look us up in whatever app you use and tap "follow"! We'll be back in September – See you soon!

Too often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and insecurity. But how do sociologists think about it? And why care? Daria Krivonos – who works on migration, race and class in Central and Eastern Europe – tells Alexis and Rosie why security matters. What’s the impact of calling migration a “security threat”? How does the security of the privileged rely on the insecurity of the precarious? And, as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, what would it mean to truly #StandwithUkraine – from ensuring better job security for its workers abroad, to cancelling its debt? Plus: pop culture pointers; from Kae Tempest’s “People’s Faces” to the movie “The Mauritanian” – and Alexis’ teenage passion for Rage Against the Machine. Guest: Daria Krivonos Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Daria, Rosie and Alexis recommended From The Sociological Review “Brexit On ‘Plague Island’: Fortifying The UK’s Borders In Times Of Crisis”“Organised State Abandonment: The meaning of Grenfell”“Food Insecurity: Upsetting ‘Apple Carts’ in Abstract and Tangible Markets”By Daria Krivonos “The making of gendered ‘migrant workers’ in youth activation: The case of young Russian-speakers in Finland”“Ukrainian farm workers and Finland’s regular army of labour”“Who stands with Ukraine in the long term?”Further readings “The Death of Asylum”“What was the so-called ‘European Refugee Crisis’?”YemenEthiopia“In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All”“Ukrainian Workers Flee ‘Modern Slavery’ Conditions on UK Farms”“Bordering”sociological work“Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age”

Think of intimacy and, pretty soon, you’ll probably think about sex. But, as sociologist Katherine Twamley explains, intimacy means much more than that: it’s woven through so many of our relationships – including with people whose names we might not even know. She tells Rosie and Alexis how an accidental trip to India got her thinking about the varied meanings of “love” across cultures and contexts, and reflects on whether, to quote the famous song, love and marriage really do “go together like a horse and carriage”. Plus: what could it mean to decolonise love? Why should we be wary of acts performed in the name of love? Will we ever live in a truly “contactless” world, and who wants that? And we get intimate with the artist Sophie Calle. Guest: Katherine Twamley Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Katherine, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended From The Sociological Review “The Sociology of Love”asexual people and intimacythe phenomenon of self-marriageFurther readings “Love, Marriage and Intimacy Among Gujarati Indians”“Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship”“Intimate Labors: Cultures, Technologies, and the Politics of Care”Emotional Labour“Decolonising Families and Relationships”“Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds”“Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and Its Social and Political Consequences”research on South Asian beauty salons in London as diasporic sites of intimacysociological worksociological workTwitter page“Giovanni’s Room”“Normal People”

School should be about play, fulfilment and learning. But it is also a place of surveillance, discipline and discrimination. Activist scholar Remi Joseph-Salisbury has researched policing, racism and education in the UK. He tells Rosie and Alexis what happens when policing enters the classroom, its impact on students and teachers of colour, and the need for wholesale reform – including a truly anti-racist curriculum. Plus: how can we break the “school-to-prison” pipeline? What is Critical Race Theory and why has it prompted a backlash? What does it mean to really receive “an education”? And what’s the harm in the trope of the “inspirational super teacher”, as found in films from Sister Act to Dead Poets Society? This episode was recorded prior to news being made public of the experience of the pupil known as “Child Q”, reported in mid-March 2022. Remi has since written about this. Guest: Remi Joseph-Salisbury Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review. Episode Resources Remi, Rosie and Alexis recommended From The Sociological Review “Prevent”, a counter-extremism policy at UK universities“Social Mixing in Urban Schools”“School-to-Prison Pipeline”By Remi Joseph-Salisbury “Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools”“Afro Hair: How Pupils Are Tackling Discriminatory Uniform Policies”the demonisation of Critical Race TheoryFurther reading “Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy?”“Race, Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail”“Lammy Review”“How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System”The Halo CollectiveNo More Exclusions

Home means something to everyone. More than just bricks and mortar, it’s about security and belonging, citizenship and exclusion. Michaela Benson has researched it all: from the UK’s self-build communities, to people seeking a new lifestyle abroad. She tells Alexis and Rosie about this and her own experience of home, including her mother’s relationship to her place of birth: Hong Kong. Plus, Kwame Lowe and Alice Grahame introduce us to the Rural Urban Synthesis Society in London. What does it take to build your own “Grand Design” and why would anyone want to do that? What happens when areas become known as “problem places” and what’s gentrification got to do with it? And who is to blame for the housing crisis? Guests: Michaela Benson, Kwame Lowe, Alice Grahame Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Special thanks to: Kirsteen Paton, Lisa Dikomitis, RUSS Uncommon Sense sees our world afresh, through the eyes of sociologists. Brought to you by The Sociological Review, it’s a space for questioning taken-for-granted ideas about society – for imagining better ways of living together and confronting our shared crises. Hosted by Rosie Hancock in Sydney and Alexis Hieu Truong in Ottawa, featuring a different guest each month, Uncommon Sense insists that sociology is for everyone. Episode Resources Michaela, Rosie and Alexis recommend: From The Sociological Review: older New Zealanders and the role of home for feeling secure in an uncertain worldcritical review Further readings: being middle-class in contemporary LondonBrexit’s hidden costs for Britons living in the EURural Urban Synthesis Society (RUSS)demolition and regeneration in Glasgow Read our acknowledgement of the indigenous lands that both Rosie and Alexis work upon. Find more at The Sociological Review.

What does care really mean? For feminist sociologist Bev Skeggs, it should be at the heart of how we organise our society – from tax to health, to climate action. She talks to Alexis and Rosie about the costs of complacency, her own shocking experience of care (or lack of it) as her own parents faced the end of life, and why we have every right to expect the state to look after us. Care, she shows, is political: there’s no care without society; no society without care. Plus, Bev casts a sideways glance at “self-care” and explains why browsing a sociology textbook might just be better for you than a trip to a pricey spa. The team also discusses their recommendations for pop culture lessons in care – from Adrienne Rich to Robin Williams. Guest: Bev Skeggs Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker Special thanks to: Kirsteen Paton Uncommon Sense sees our world afresh, through the eyes of sociologists. Brought to you by The Sociological Review, it’s a space for questioning taken-for-granted ideas about society – for imagining better ways of living together and confronting our shared crises. Hosted by Rosie Hancock in Sydney and Alexis Hieu Truong in Ottawa, featuring a different guest each month, Uncommon Sense insists that sociology is for everyone. Episode Resources Bev, Rosie and Alexis recommend: From The Sociological Review: radical carecaring for plantscare, activism and environmental justice in Chilelove labour Further readings: The Women’s Budget GroupSolidarity and Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic Find more at The Sociological Review.

This is Uncommon Sense, the podcast that sees our world afresh, through the eyes of sociologists. Brought to you by The Sociological Review, it’s a space for questioning taken-for-granted ideas about society – for imagining better ways of living together and confronting our shared crises. Hosted by Rosie Hancock in Sydney and Alexis Hieu Truong in Ottawa, featuring a different guest each month, Uncommon Sense insists that sociology is for everyone. Hosts: Alexis Hieu Truong, Rosie Hancock Featured Guests: Bev Skeggs, Michaela Benson Executive Producer: Alice Bloch Sound Engineer: David Crackles Music: Joe Gardner Artwork: Erin Aniker