Going for Broke, edited by Alissa Quart, Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and David Wallis, former Managing Director of EHRP, gives voice to a range of gifted writers for whom "economic precarity" is more than just another assignment. All illustrate what the late Barbara Ehrenreich, who conceived of EHRP, once described as "the ... Show More
Oct 12
Civil Societies, Uncivil States: Government Repression of NGOs with Suparna Chaudhry (Cornell UP, 2026)
Why would a government bother to go after groups that carry no weapons and hold no power? Suparna Chaudhry argues that the answer says a lot about where politics is heading. In Civil Societies and Civil States: Government Repression of NGOs (Cornell University Press, 2026), she s ... Show More
36m 20s
Oct 9
The Technocratic International: Experts and the Making of a World from Nowhere with Jan Eijking (Oxford UP, 2026)
Most international organisations today-from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the World Health Organisation-present themselves as technical institutions separate from political concerns. And yet they are frequently accused, whether by the public or by governments, ... Show More
39m 45s
Oct 8
Immoral Traffic An Ethnography of Law, NGOs, and the Governance of Prostitution in India with Vibhuti Ramachandran (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Immoral Traffic: An Ethnography of Law, NGOs, and the Governance of Prostitution in India (Cambridge UP, 2025) delves into the complex intersection of India's anti-prostitution law and global anti-trafficking campaigns, and how they impact sex workers in both voluntary and involu ... Show More
1h 50m
Sep 2022
'Nickel and Dimed' is a window into the lives of low-wage workers
In Nickel and Dimed, author Barbara Ehrenreich lives the life of a low-wage worker and explores how unsustainable poverty is, as well as how easy it can be for one to get stuck in a vicious cycle. In this conversation with John Ydstie from 2001, Ehrenreich, who died earlier this ... Show More
10 m
Feb 2022
Survival and Hope in New York City, with Andrea Elliott
Andrea Elliott is the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and New York Times investigative reporter who spent nearly a decade following the journey of one family living on the poverty line in Brooklyn. Elliott's book, Invisible Child, tells that story, focusing on Dasani Coates, a chil ... Show More
58m 53s
Oct 2022
Ambition Diaries: The Broken Promise of the American Dream
Over the course of several months, seven reporters from across the country recorded intimate conversations between mothers and daughters about issues like unpaid labor, discrimination, pay gap, career advancement, work life balance, and how the pandemic has changed our relationsh ... Show More
21m 3s
Nov 2023
Bonus: The Real Cost of Care Work
When we think of care workers, we often picture individuals who nurture, assist, and heal other human beings. But behind that picture are the harsh realities of domestic work and the many sacrifices this marginalized group makes to uplift others. In this episode, producer and for ... Show More
42m 16s