Aug 27
Kanchana N. Ruwanpura and Wilfried Swenden eds., "Protecting Workers? Crisis, COVID-19 and South Asia" (Helsinki UP, 2026)
In our recent conversation about Protecting Workers? Crisis, COVID-19 and South Asia, the editors Kanchana N. Ruwanpura and Wilfried Swenden reflect on the need to move beyond treating the pandemic as a singular, isolated shock. Our discussion reflected on the deeper mechanics of ... Show More
55m 19s
Apr 2026
Alex Diamond, "Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
The Colombian village of Briceño might, at first glimpse, look like many communities in the rural Global South. Many of the people living there rely on small-scale farming, even as a newly constructed hydroelectric dam threatens traditional livelihoods. Yet after decades where Br ... Show More
1h 4m
Aug 25
Niharika Pandit, "Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Our recent conversation about Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir (Oxford UP, 2026), with author Niharika Pandit, covers the journey of how critical methodology meets the weight of lived experience. This book examines the everyday pol ... Show More
57m 28s
Oct 2024
Sabina Faiz Rashid, "Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows" (Routledge, 2024)
Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows (Routledge, 2024) provides comprehensive ethnographic accounts that depict the daily life experiences and health hardships encountered by young women and their families living in the slums of Dhaka city and ... Show More
53m 18s
Mar 2023
Uddipana Goswami, "Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries: Marginality, Masculinity, and Feminist Agency" (Routledge, 2022)
Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries: Marginality, Masculinity, and Feminist Agency (Routledge, 2022) forward Assam (and Northeast India) as a specific location for studying operations of gendered power in multi-ethnic, conflict-habituated geopolitical peripheries globally.
In ... Show More
56m 43s
Nov 2023
Curtis Smith, "Homelessness and Housing Advocacy: The Role of Red-Tape Warriors" (Routledge, 2022)
Through compelling ethnography, Homelessness and Housing Advocacy: The Role of Red-Tape Warriors (Routledge, 2022) reveals the creative and ambitious methods that social service providers use to house their clients despite the conflictual conditions posed by the policies and inst ... Show More
1h 21m
Nov 2023
Curtis Smith, "Homelessness and Housing Advocacy: The Role of Red-Tape Warriors" (Routledge, 2022)
Through compelling ethnography, Homelessness and Housing Advocacy: The Role of Red-Tape Warriors (Routledge, 2022) reveals the creative and ambitious methods that social service providers use to house their clients despite the conflictual conditions posed by the policies and inst ... Show More
1h 21m
Mar 2025
Hemangini Gupta, "Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India" (U California Press, 2024)
Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India (U California Press, 2024) is an in-depth ethnography of the transformation of Bengaluru/Bangalore from a site of "backend" IT work to an aspirational global city of enterprise and innovation. The book journeys ... Show More
39m 59s
Dec 2023
Sahana Ghosh, "A Thousand Tiny Cuts: Mobility and Security Across the Bangladesh-India Borderlands" (U California Press, 2023)
Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in the borderlands of northern Bangladesh and eastern India, A Thousand Tiny Cuts: Mobility and Security Across the Bangladesh-India Borderlands (U California Press, 2023) chronicles the slow transformation of a connected region into national bord ... Show More
1h 10m
Aug 2024
Arif Hasan, "The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing" (Oxford UP, 2022)
The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing (Oxford UP, 2022) sheds light on the global population living in slums, which has increased from 1 billion in 2014 to 1.6 billion in 2018. The book also looks at the impact of neoliberalism on urban planning, the manner of orga ... Show More
50m 33s
Aug 2023
Romit Chowdhury, "City of Men: Masculinities and Everyday Morality on Public Transport" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
In South Asian urban landscapes, men are everywhere. And yet we do not seem to know very much about precisely what men do in the city as men. How do men experience gender in city spaces? What are the interactional dynamics between different groups of men on city streets? How do m ... Show More
41m 32s
Jan 2024
Adriana Helbig, "ReSounding Poverty: Romani Music and Development Aid" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Adriana Helbig's book ReSounding Poverty: Romani Music and Development Aid (Oxford University Press, 2023) offers a micro ethnography of economic networks that impact the daily lives of Romani musicians on the borders of the former Soviet Union and the European Union. It argues t ... Show More
41m 4s
Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows (Routledge, 2024) provides comprehensive ethnographic accounts that depict the daily life experiences and health hardships encountered by young women and their families living in the slums of Dhaka city and the injustices they face.
The analysis focuses on two specific historical eras: ... Show More
