Yesterday
AI, Algocracy, and Democracy's Challenging Road Ahead with Andrew Sorota
Like many people, I've been following the developments of AI, testing out new models and following the deluge of news stories about the fight for supremacy. Much has been written about the existential and economic risks posed by AI, but the political implications of superintellig ... Show More
45m 54s
Jun 11
Can I Say That: Your Go-To Guide for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Can I Say That: Your Go-To Guide for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is your safe space to learn more about diversity, equity and inclusion, and how you can be a force for change. Most DEI books focus on gender, race or the intersection of those two dimensions. This book adopts a ... Show More
39m 24s
Jun 8
Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)
In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity (Open Book Publishers, 2026). The book is open access. As universities promote internationalisat ... Show More
1 h
Mar 2023
Adam Michael Auerbach and Tariq Thachil, "Migrants and Machine Politics: How India's Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness" (Princeton UP, 2023)
How poor migrants shape city politics during urbanization As the Global South rapidly urbanizes, millions of people have migrated from the countryside to urban slums, which now house one billion people worldwide. The transformative potential of urbanization hinges on whether and ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 2024
Anne M. Whitesell, "Living Off the Government?: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Welfare" (NYU Press, 2024)
Who deserves public assistance from the government? This age-old question has been revived by policymakers, pundits, and activists following the massive economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anne Whitesell takes up this timely debate, showing us how our welfare system, in its ... Show More
30m 34s
Nov 2024
Anne M. Whitesell, "Living Off the Government?: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Welfare" (NYU Press, 2024)
Who deserves public assistance from the government? This age-old question has been revived by policymakers, pundits, and activists following the massive economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anne Whitesell takes up this timely debate, showing us how our welfare system, in its ... Show More
30m 34s
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
Nov 2024
Samantha A. Vortherms, "Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship: Security, Development, and Local Membership in China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
The redistribution of political and economic rights is inherently unequal in autocratic societies. Autocrats routinely divide their populations into included and excluded groups, creating particularistic citizenship through granting some groups access to rights and redistribution ... Show More
58m 46s
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Jun 2023
César Ernesto Abadía-Barrero, "Health in Ruins: The Capitalist Destruction of Medical Care at a Colombian Maternity Hospital" (Duke UP, 2022)
In Health in Ruins: The Capitalist Destruction of Medical Care at a Colombian Maternity Hospital (Duke UP, 2022), César Ernesto Abadía-Barrero chronicles the story of El Materno—Colombia’s oldest maternity and neonatal health center and teaching hospital—over several decades as i ... Show More
1h 12m
May 2025
#563: The Financialization of the Food System – Prof. Martin Caraher
<p>Global food systems have been increasingly subjected to financial speculation, leading to adverse consequences for growers, consumers, and public health. But what are the systemic vulnerabilities that impact food security, equitable access to nutritious food, and the broader s ... Show More
44m 27s
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
Jun 2023
Daniel E. Agbiboa, "They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Accounts of corruption in Africa and the Global South are generally overly simplistic and macro-oriented, and commonly disconnect everyday (petty) corruption from political (grand) corruption. In contrast to this tendency,
They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Eve ... Show More
33m 56s
On a fragile planet with spreading food insecurity, food waste is a political and ethical problem. Examining the collaborative, sometimes scrappy institutional and community efforts to recuperate and redistribute food waste in Brussels, Belgium, Kelly Alexander reveals it is also an opportunity for new forms of sociality. Her study plays out across a diverse ... Show More
