Thinking Allowed

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Thinking Allowed Podcast

New research on how society works

6 DAYS AGO

Medical Icons

The Stethoscope and the X-ray: Laurie Taylor explores two medical innovations which have achieved iconic status. Nicole Lobdell, Assistant Professor of English at DePauw University, charts the when, where, and how of our use of X-rays, what meanings we give them and what metaphors we make out of them. Is there a paradox to living in an age where we rely on X-rays to expose hidden threats to our health and security but also fear the way they may expose us? Also, Tom Rice, Associate Professor in Anthropology at the University of Exeter investigates a scientific instrument which has become the symbol of medicine itself. What makes the stethoscope such a familiar yet charismatic object? Producer: Jayne Egerton

28 min
10 SEPT

Coffee Culture

Urban baristas in a US city and Chinese managed coffee bars in Italy. Laurie Taylor talks to Geoffrey Moss, Professor of Instruction in the Department of Sociology, Temple University, about the subcultural lives of hipsters who are employed in Philadelphia. Such young people have taken low-wage service sector jobs, despite their middle-class origins and educational background, because they enjoy the city's hipster subculture. Working within cool, noncorporate coffee shops with like minded colleagues blurs lines between work and leisure. For those that are artistic, barista life has provided a flexible work schedule which allows time for creative pursuits. But this new research suggests that these subcultural lives are now greatly diminished by class, race and gentrification. Also, Grazia Ting Deng, Lecturer at Brandeis University's Department of Anthropology, explores the paradox of “Chinese espresso". The coffee bar is a cornerstone of Italian urban life, with city residents sipping espresso at more than 100,000 of these local businesses throughout the country. So why is espresso in Italy increasingly prepared by Chinese baristas in Chinese-managed coffee bars? Deng investigates the rapid spread of Chinese-owned coffee bars since the Great Recession of 2008 and draws on her extensive ethnographic research in Bologna. She finds that longtime residents have come, sometimes resentfully, to regard Chinese expresso as a new normal and immigrants have assumed traditional roles, even as they are regarded as racial others. Producer: Jayne Egerton

28 min
3 SEPT

The British Elite

Do today's power brokers correspond to the familiar caricatures of old? Laurie Taylor talks to Aaron Reeves, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford, who has delved into the profiles and careers of over 125,000 members of the British elite from the late 1890s to today, as well as interviewing over 200 leading figures from diverse backgrounds. Were they born to rule, travelling from Eton to Oxbridge? Do they espouse different values from their earlier variants? And are those born into the top 1% just as likely to get into the elite today as they were 125 years ago? Also, Rachel Louise Stenhouse, Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Education at Manchester Metropolitan University looks at private school entry to Oxbridge. By examining a bespoke intervention in a private school in England, she sheds new light on how students are advantaged when applying to elite universities, finding that applicants need to demonstrate that ‘they can think’ and ‘perform’ under pressure. But is an ease of performance evidence of knowledge and skills or, more often, of educational privilege? Producer: Jayne Egerton

28 min
25 JUN

Shopping

In 1986 in Gateshead the MetroCentre opened on the site of a former power station. Laurie Taylor talks to Emma Casey, Reader in Sociology at the University of York about a new study which charts the history and the impact of this mall which created space for more than 300 shops. They're joined by Katie Appleford, Senior Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour at University for the Creative Arts, London and researcher into UK mothers' shopping habits post-COVID. Has the promise of shopping, as represented by the Metro Centre, faltered in the wake of the pandemic? Producer: Jayne Egerton

29 min
18 JUN

The swimming pool

The swimming pool: Laurie Taylor explores its iconic role in our culture, as well as its unspoken rules, routines and rituals. Piotr Florczyk, forming swimming champion and Assistant Professor of Global Literary Studies at the University of Washington, considers the allure of an azure pool and its place in our cultural imagination, from the Hollywood movie, Sunset Boulevard, to David Hockney's pool paintings. He also asks 'who has access to the pool' and charts North America's shifting attitudes towards race and recreation which turned public bathing into an explosive issue, one leading to violence, segregation and the flight to white suburbia. What is the future of the pool given water shortages and climate change? Also, Susie Scott, Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex analyses the unspoken social norms which govern swimmers behaviour, including a respect for personal space, a shared disapproval for the 'hairy torpedo' and the firm refusal to notice 'the elephant in the room' - the fact that we are nearly naked. Producer: Jayne Egerton

28 min
11 JUN

The politics of the body

The politics of the body: movement and posture. Laurie Taylor talks to Matthew Beaumont, Professor in English Literature at UCL, about how race, class, and politics influence the way we move: You can tell a lot about people by how they walk. Through a series of dialogues with thinkers and walkers, his book explores the relationship between freedom and the human body. Also, Beth Linker, Associate Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania discusses the posture panic which once seized America - a decades-long episode in which it was widely accepted as scientific fact that Americans were suffering from an epidemic of slouching, with potentially catastrophic health consequences. Tracing the rise and fall of this socially manufactured epidemic, she reveals how this period influenced the 20th century eugenics movement and the belief that sitting or standing up straight was a sign of moral rectitude. Producer: Jayne Egerton

29 min
4 JUN

Opioids

Opioids in the US and UK; Laurie Taylor explores the changing nature of opioid use, from street heroin to synthetic prescription drugs. Helena Hansen Professor of Psychiatry and Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, reveals the surprisingly white “new face” of the US opioid crisis. Although Black Americans are no more likely than whites to use illicit drugs, they are much more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses. Meanwhile, a very different system for responding to the drug use of whites has emerged. White opioids – the synthetic opiates such as OxyContin - came to be at heart of epidemic prescription medication abuse among white, suburban and rural Americans. Why was the crisis so white? How did a century of structural racism in drug policy lead, counter intuitively, to mass white overdose deaths? Also, Alex Stevens, Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Kent, provides a UK perspective, charting the rise of synthetic opioids which are much more potent than heroin. Heroin related deaths are concentrated in people over 40, who live in deindustrialised areas and are nine times higher in the most deprived decile of neighbourhoods in England. He argues that their increasing presence in the drug supply could dramatically increases the number of deaths as has been seen in the USA. This episode contains a clip from a TV programme Horizon recorded by Dr Michael Mosley in 2020 exploring painkiller use in Britain. Producer: Jayne Egerton

30 min
28 MAY

Garden Utopias

Garden Utopias: Michael Gilson, Associate Fellow of the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of Sussex, takes Laurie Taylor behind the privet hedge, to explore the suburban garden and the beautification of Britain. How did millions of British people develop an obsession with their own cherished plot of land? Although stereotyped as symbols of dull, middle class conformity, these gardens were once seen as the vanguard of progressive social change, a dream of a world in which beauty would be central to all of our lives. Also, JC Niala, anthropologist, allotment historian and writer, discusses 36 months of fieldwork on allotment sites and guerrilla gardened streets across Oxford and suggests these are places where urban gardeners imagine, invent, and produce a hopeful future within their city. Producer: Jayne Egerton

29 min

New research on how society works

Creator

BBC Radio 4
Years Active

2007 - 2024
Episodes

548
Rating

Clean
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Thinking Allowed