The Outside: Migration as Life in Morocco (Indiana UP, 2021) traces how migration has come to occupy a striking place in the lives of many Moroccans. A full 10 percent of the population now lives outside the country, affecting individual and collective life in countless unanticipated ways.
In this intimate ethnography of rural Morocco, Alice Elliot considers ... Show More
Nov 1
Mediating God: Muhammad Al-Ghazali and the Politics of Divine Presence in Twentieth-Century Egypt with Arthur Shiwa Zárate (Oxford UP, 2025)
Mediating God: Muhammad Ghazali and the Politics of Divine Presence in 20th century Egypt (Oxford UP, 2025) is a fascinating and compelling intellectual biography of the Egyptian Muslim theologian, scholar, and activist, Muhammad al-Ghazali (1917–1996). Al-Ghazali shaped the view ... Show More
58m 24s
Oct 28
Uganda During and After Museveni: Can The System Survive Its Creator?
How has Yoweri Museveni remained in power for four decades – and what happens when he is gone? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Mesrob Vartavarian about three important books on Uganda and his argument that the country has become a "m ... Show More
34m 43s
Oct 27
American Amazigh: Remaking North African Indigeneity and Belonging in the Diaspora with Heide Castañeda (NYU Press, 2026)
American Amazigh: Remaking North African Indigeneity and Belonging in the Diaspora (NYU Press, 2026) by Dr. Heide Castañeda examines the complex identity negotiations of Amazigh people—also known as Berbers—as they build community and claim visibility in the American landscape. T ... Show More
43m 17s
Aug 2024
Elena Borisova, "Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan: Locating the Good Life" (UCL Press, 2024)
Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan: Locating the Good Life (UCL Press, 2024) by Dr. Elena Borisova is the first ethnographic monograph on migration in Tajikistan, one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world. Moving beyond economistic push-pull narratives about p ... Show More
55m 11s
Jul 2022
Ghassan Hage, "The Diasporic Condition: Ethnographic Explorations of the Lebanese in the World" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
Bridging the gap between migration studies and the anthropological tradition, Ghassan Hage illustrates that transnationality and its attendant cultural consequences are not necessarily at odds with classic theory. In The Diasporic Condition, Ghassan Hage engages with the diaspori ... Show More
49m 12s
Jun 2023
Osman Balkan, "Dying Abroad: The Political Afterlives of Migration in Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
On any given day, the remains of countless deceased migrants are shipped around the world to be buried in ancestral soils. Others are laid to rest in countries of settlement, sometimes in cemeteries established for religious and ethnic minorities, where available. For immigrants ... Show More
1h 5m
Nov 2022
Reflections on Living Abroad
What do we gain—and leave behind—when we move abroad? Lale chats with Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem Beck, whose third poetry collection, 'O,' was released this summer, about moving away from her beloved Beirut and hopping between countries until arriving in her current home of Calif ... Show More
32m 2s
Nov 2024
Alice Rudge, "Sensing Others: Voicing Batek Ethical Lives at the Edge of a Malaysian Rain Forest" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)
How do we confront difference and change in a rapidly shifting environment? Many indigenous peoples are facing this question in their daily lives. Sensing Others: Voicing Batek Ethical Lives at the Edge of a Malaysian Rain Forest (U Nebraska Press, 2024) explores the lives of Bat ... Show More
1h 11m
Jun 2020
Introducing Living Abroad
Better education, better economic opportunities, better environment. Better life. We all chase it one way or another. For years people have been on the move in an endless search for happiness and a place to call their own. In this series, recorded completely remotely in a time wh ... Show More
2 m