Culture & Inequality Podcast Culture & Inequality Podcast

In this episode, we host a special guest: Michèle Lamont (professor of Sociology at Harvard). We discuss her new book Seeing Others: How Recognition Works--And How It Can Heal a Divided World, which centers on the role of recognition and dignity in countering inequality after decades of neoliberalism. Based on interviews with cultural change agents in the American cultural industries and Gen Z college students, we unpack how new narratives of hope may lead to a more equal and inclusive future. We also discuss the role of sociology in taking part in a the conversation on inequality, dignity and recognition, nuancing the work of psychologists and economists.

Guest: Michèle Lamont (professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University)
Host: Giselinde Kuipers (professor of Sociology at KU Leuven university)
Editing: Luuc Brans (PhD student at KU Leuven University)

Book links
EU + UK: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/319027/seeing-others-by-lamont-michele/9780241454633
USA: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Seeing-Others/Michele-Lamont/9781982153786

***This is a rerecording, updated, and better version of our very first episode, which we originally recorded in 2020. We hope you will enjoy this new version! ***

In this first pilot episode, we discuss the core themes of the course: how do culture and inequality relate? This meeting will discuss why and how this has become such a central theme in sociology and other disciplines (notably cultural studies, anthropology), how this relation this been theorized in various theoretical traditions (notable Bourdieu's field theory, British cultural studies inspired by Stuart Hall , and American cultural sociology in the vein of Michele Lamont); and how has this been empirically analyzed? Moreover, we will offer a first exploration of the continued relevance of these insights on culture and inequality for contemporary societies, and for the everyday life of (young) people today.

--- This week's readings:
Bourdieu, P. (1994). Social space and symbolic space. In Calhoun, Craig et al. (eds.) Contemporary Sociologi-cal Theory, 345-358.

Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, 241-258. New York: Greenwood.

Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Love, and Paul Willis (eds.), Culture, Media, Language, pp. 128–38. London: Hutchinson. Link: https://we.riseup.net/as-sets/102142/appadurai.pdf#page=202

Lamont, M. (1992). Implications, contributions and unanswered questions. In Money, Morals and Manners, 174-192. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kuipers, G. (2006). Television and taste hierarchy: The case of Dutch television comedy. Media, Culture & Society 28(3): 359-378.

Additional materials

Video: Carle, Pierre (2002). La sociologie est un sport de combat. Pierre Bourdieu. Documentary.

https://vimeo.com/92709274

Video: Hall, Stuart (1997). Representation and media. Open University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGh64E_XiVM

Video: Lamont, Michele (2016). Doing sociology. American Sociological Association. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIR1mYsy510


Presentation: Giselinde Kuipers & Luuc Brans
Audio production edit: Luuc Brans
Theme music by Timothy Dowd
We are grateful for the generous support from European Centre for the Study of Culture and Inequality

This episode is about conspiracy theories and their relation to inequality. We talk about this with Elisa Sobo and Jaron Harambam, two scholars who have studied contemporary conspiracy theories in a range of domains, from vaccines, Covid-19 and Big Pharma, to theories that claim the moon is an abandoned spaceship brought here by reptilians who control our world leaders. Both, moreover, have argued -- somewhat controversially -- that “we need to move beyond the positivistic reflex to debunk conspiracy theories as unfounded and irrational”. The arguments they offer for taking conspiracy theories seriously – though maybe not literally—are strongly connected with inequality: inclusivity, democracy, and social justice. Today, therefore, we ask: how are conspiracy connected with inequalities, and how can – or should -- this connection with inequality inform our stance towards conspiracy theories?

Guests:
- Elisa Sobo, professor and chair of Anthropology, San Diego State University
- Jaron Harambam, assistant professor of participatory AI, VU University Amsterdam

Hosted by Giselinde Kuipers, professor of cultural sociology at KU Leuven

Readings and materials:

1. Grodzicka, Elżbieta Drążkiewicz, and Jaron Harambam. "What should academics do about conspiracy theories? Moving beyond debunking to better deal with conspiratorial movements, misinformation and post-truth." Journal for Cultural Research 25.1 (2021): 1-11.
2. Harambam, Jaron, and Stef Aupers. "Contesting epistemic authority: Conspiracy theories on the boundaries of science." Public understanding of science 24.4 (2015): 466-480.
3. Harambam, Jaron. "Against modernist illusions: why we need more democratic and constructivist alternatives to debunking conspiracy theories." Journal for Cultural Research 25.1 (2021): 104-122.
4. Sobo, Elisa J. "Conspiracy theories in political-economic context: lessons from parents with vaccine and other pharmaceutical concerns." Journal for Cultural Research 25.1 (2021): 51-68.
5. Sobo, Elisa. “What Does the American Dream Have to do With the COVID-19 Vaccine?” Sapiens.org, 25 February 2021. https://www.sapiens.org/culture/covid-19-vaccine-protestors/

Migration has been a characteristic of societies for centuries. Humans have always migrated to either escape harsh lives, search for better ones, or both. Continuing immigration flows and increasing diversity in many societies have led to more complex processes of belonging and integration, as well as the emergence of cross-border engagements of migrants, organizations and institutions. In this episode, we focus on the role played by media and communication in the different aspects of migration, ranging from media representations of migrants to the mediated communication exchanges conducted in digital spaces, from interactions between relevant stakeholders in the different levels of migration governance through the political and economic side of migrants’ lives to the role played by hands-on intercultural mediation and digital solidarity projects. To talk about these topics, Amanda Paz Alencar (Dept of Media and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam) invited Myria Georgiou (Dept of Media and Communications, LSE) and Earvin Cabalquinto (School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University) – experts on the topic of media and migration.

Migration special 2: Football, Race and Racism by Culture & Inequality Podcast

In this first episode of the special Culture & Inequality x IMISCOE The Migration Podcast trilogy, we discuss the linkages between migration and music. For centuries, music has been a powerful source of individual and social well-being, something which studies from psychology to sociology to medicine continue to demonstrate. As people migrated, music migrated with them – causing the rapid and continuing spread of hundreds of music genres in countries across the globe. Since digitalization, music has become more mobile than ever before, as people can connect with their favorite music as long as they have an internet connection. This leads us to ask: How do migrants in the 21st century use music during processes of migration? To talk about this, Julian Schaap (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands) has invited Daniela Jaramillo Dent (Universidad de Huelva, Spain and Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands) and Marco Martiniello (Université de Liège, Belgium).

This a special crossover episode between the Migration Podcast and the Culture and Inequality Podcast. The first in a series of three, this episode investigates how Music and Social Media matter in Migration (and vice-versa). Head over to The Migration Podcast to learn more about migration: https://www.imiscoe.org/news-and-blog/podcast?msclkid=47f01fb5d06a11ec8cee483d0b0b504f