Shows
Uncommon SenseChildhood, with Brenda HerbertHow do stereotypes of “the child” contribute to injustice? Why must we decolonise childhood? What can it mean to work with love, rather than just study it? And how can we think about children’s agency? Sociologist and counsellor Brenda Herbert, the Sociological Review Fellow for 2024-25, reflects on her in-depth research getting to know children who had experienced domestic abuse and social work intervention in London. Applying a “live methods” approach – working with photography, play, and simply hanging out – she looked beyond the typical trauma and social work gaze to create knowledge with them about what mattered to them in their...2025-07-2547 min
The IntellectualRevolution, with Volodymyr Ishchenko Podcast: Uncommon Sense (LS 30 · TOP 5% what is this?)Episode: Revolution, with Volodymyr IshchenkoPub date: 2025-06-06Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationThe word “revolution” conjures powerful imagery. But what does it mean today? Do revolutions neatly promote the will of the people, forging radical transformation? Or is it more complicated? Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko joins us from Freie Universität Berlin to explain his take on “deficient revolutions” as he reflects on the 2014 Euromaidan uprising and recent events in Ukraine – where, he argues, conflict with roots in...2025-06-3045 min
Uncommon SenseFree Speech, with Aaron WinterHow is the notion of “free speech” abused and misunderstood? What’s wrong with “debate me” culture – and with the value placed on appearing to be “controversial”? And what happens when people who are actually pretty powerful claim they “can’t say anything anymore”? Sociologist Aaron Winter, an expert on racism and the far right, joins Uncommon Sense to discuss all this and more.Showing what sociology has to offer to discussions of “freedom” often found in politics, Aaron describes how “free speech” has been invoked through the decades in North America and Europe, including in the victimisation narratives found...2025-06-2743 min
Uncommon SenseRevolution, with Volodymyr IshchenkoThe word “revolution” conjures powerful imagery. But what does it mean today? Do revolutions neatly promote the will of the people, forging radical transformation? Or is it more complicated? Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko joins us from Freie Universität Berlin to explain his take on “deficient revolutions” as he reflects on the 2014 Euromaidan uprising and recent events in Ukraine – where, he argues, conflict with roots in class has become polarised along “ethnic” lines, with devastating consequences.Ukraine, he shows, is not an anomalous case on the periphery of Europe and the former USSR. Rather, its story is instructive for the study o...2025-06-0645 min
Uncommon SenseFat, with Fady ShanoudaHow do we typically see fat, and how can thinking differently about it have emancipatory outcomes? Fady Shanouda of Carleton University’s Feminist Institute of Social Transformation introduces Fat Studies and their inextricable link to activism. Alert to the connection between living and other things, Fady unpacks his feminist new materialist approach, and explains what it means to say “I’m not fat in my house”, describing how our surroundings can liberate us or show bias. He also considers the harm caused by misconceptions of fat as simply “surplus”, “inanimate” or even “dead” material. How does such valuing get mapped onto whole bo...2025-04-1843 min
Uncommon SenseScars, with Ellen T. MeiserFrom TV’s “The Bear” to the simmering restaurant thriller “Boiling Point” we seem drawn to angry-but-vulnerable chefs in pop culture. But how do such stereotypes shape who works in kitchens and how they treat their colleagues? Is “kitchen culture”, with its macho rough and tumble norms, always so different from the work culture so many of us face – including in academia? Sociologist Ellen T. Meiser joins us from Hawaii to discuss this and more, reflecting on her new book Making It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen. She tells us about her lifelong fascination with kitchens – from teenage shift work in Anchorage...2025-03-2146 min
Uncommon SenseJoy, with Akwugo EmejuluWhat comes to mind when you think about joy? And can there be joy in protest and refusal? Someone who’s been asking and trying to answer questions about this is Akwugo Emejulu. She’s been investigating the relationship between Black feminist joy, ambivalence and futures, asking how Black feminists are remixing political media, meanings and messages to co-create manifestos for change. Akwugo has also been mapping the grassroots organising and activism of women of colour for more than 15 years, and in this episode shares her insights about the role of joy and other emotions in understanding soci...2025-01-2458 min
Uncommon SenseLife Admin, with Oriana BernasconiLife admin often refers to the overwhelming and mundane paperwork that surrounds contemporary living. However, Oriana Bernasconi, a sociology professor at the Alberto Hurtado University in Chile, joins Uncommon Sense to talk about a more serious side of the term – that of paperwork documenting human rights abuse – as well as a living, breathing archive and the analogue spreadsheet.Author of “Resistance to Political Violence in Latin America: Documenting Atrocity”, Oriana talks about her substantial research in human rights archives documenting the atrocities that took place during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. She also talks us through “technologies of memory”...2024-11-2951 min
Uncommon SenseToxic, with Alice MahWhat comes to mind when we think about toxicity in everyday life? It could be toxic relationships or masculinity – through to consumption, waste, governance and environmental harm. Alice Mah joins Uncommon Sense to discuss toxic expertise, waste colonialism and more.The author of “Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation” and “Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It”, Alice reflects on what the petrochemical industry has to do with sociology. From the impact on marginalised communities often having no choice but to live in a toxic environment through to the con...2024-11-011h 02
Uncommon SenseMargins, with Rhoda ReddockWhat gets centred and what gets framed as marginal? Who decides? And what are the consequences? UN expert, feminist scholar and social historian Rhoda Reddock – Professor Emerita at The University of the West Indies – joins us from Trinidad and Tobago to discuss the theme of margins, reflecting on the importance of radical Caribbean thought, the contested meaning of the “global south” and the evolution and significance of Caribbean feminism from the 70s to today.As a member of the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Rhoda shares her reflections of moving between Switzerlan...2024-09-2746 min
Uncommon SenseCommunity, with Kirsteen PatonWhat’s meant – and who’s excluded – when community is invoked? Does membership take more than presence alone? How can seeing local crises through a global lens enrich our understanding? Kirsteen Paton joins Uncommon Sense to discuss community, class, resistance, solidarity and more – including her experience of community in the UK cities of Liverpool and Glasgow.As the author of “Class and Everyday Life”, Kirsteen gives hosts Alexis and Rosie a fascinating potted history of the study of “community” in sociology – moving from the early work of Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies, concerned with industrial capitalism, to recent studies of...2024-07-1945 min
Uncommon SenseMaking, with Kat JungnickelWhat does it mean to make things? Why are some people valorised as “makers”, while others are rendered invisible? And what duty do sociologists have as makers of knowledge and narratives? The “sewing cycling sociologist” Kat Jungnickel joins Uncommon Sense to discuss all this and more; including her years of research celebrating historic female cyclists as radical inventors, makers and hackers, responding to barriers to their freedom of movement and raising crucial questions about power and space.Rosie (no stranger to DIY) and Alexis (a lifelong fan of taking things apart) ask Kat: what exactly is “Science and Techno...2024-05-1740 min
Uncommon SenseBurnout, with Hannah ProctorBurnout has become a byword for workplace exhaustion, but does it have a deeper history? Hannah Proctor joins us to explain how the notion emerged in the USA’s 1960s countercultural free clinics movement, at first relating to the emotional defeat of idealistic activists but came to be seen as simply the result of working too hard. It’s a story that tracks the trajectory of capitalism itself – as Hannah shows referencing thinkers from Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello to filmmaker Adam Curtis.Rosie and Alexis ask Hannah: are there gendered, classed and racialised aspects to how burnou...2024-04-1948 min
Uncommon SensePrivilege, with Shamus KhanWhat does privilege look like today? How do the advantaged perform “ease”? And why do some of us feel at home in elite spaces, while others feel awkward? Princeton sociologist Shamus Khan joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on elites, entitlement and more. Reminding us that “poor people are not why there’s inequality; rich people are why there’s inequality”, he highlights the importance of studying elites for studying inequality, as the gap between the two grows.Being the author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St Paul’s School (2011), Shamus tells Rosie and Alexis about h...2024-03-1548 min
Uncommon SenseRules, with Swethaa BallakrishnenWhat are rules for? What's at stake if we assume that they're neutral? And if we want rules to be progressive, does it matter who makes them? Socio-legal scholar Swethaa Ballakrishnen joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on this and more, highlighting the value of studying law not just in theory but in action, and drawing on a career spanning law and academia in India and the USA.As the author of "Accidental Feminism", which explores unintended parity in the Indian legal profession, Swethaa talks to Rosie and Alexis about intention and whether it is always needed for...2024-01-1945 min
Uncommon SenseSpirituality, with Andrew SingletonWhat exactly is spirituality? How does it relate to religion? Are both misunderstood? And what stands beyond and behind the idea that it has all simply been commodified to be about wellness, big business and celebrity? Andrew Singleton joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on this and more, including his experience researching young people’s spiritual practices in Australia, and time spent in Papua New Guinea.Andrew describes how what has been called the “spiritual turn” emerged through the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s and led to today’s “spiritual marketplace”. We ask whether the young people of today’s G...2023-12-1540 min
Uncommon SenseAnxiety, with Nicky FalkofAnxiety is part of contemporary life, yet rarely seen as anything other than personal and intimately psychological. Cultural Studies scholar Nicky Falkof joins us to discuss her work on fear and anxiety in South Africa, and how such negative emotions are often collective and collectively constructed – and relate deeply to our identities. Indeed, as Nicky tells us, if you ask yourself what or whom you’re scared of, you quickly face the question of who you think you are. Hear about Nicky’s teenage engagement in goth culture as South Africa approached the end of apartheid, and how it...2023-11-1746 min
Uncommon SenseSuccess, with Jo Littler“If you’re talented and work hard, success (whatever that is) will be yours!” – So says the powerful system and ideology known as “meritocracy”. But if only it were so simple! Jo Littler joins Uncommon Sense to reflect on where this idea came from, how it became mainstream, and how it gets used by elites to convince us we live in a system that is open and fair when the reality is anything but that.But Jo also shows things are changing. Since the crash of 2008 it’s been clear we’re living and working on a far from “level”...2023-10-2043 min
Uncommon SensePerformance, with Kareem KhubchandaniFrom Shakespeare to RuPaul, we all love a performance. But what exactly is it? What are its boundaries, its powers, its potential, its stakes? Kareem Khubchandani, who also performs as LaWhore Vagistan – “everyone's favourite desi drag queen aunty” – joins Uncommon Sense to unpack the latest thinking on refusal, repetition and more. And to discuss “Ishtyle”, Kareem’s ethnography of gay Indian nightlife in Chicago and Bangalore, which attends to desire and fun in the lives of global Indian workers too often stereotyped as cogs in the wheels of globalisation.Kareem also reflects on the particular value of queer nightlif...2023-09-1553 min
Uncommon SenseNature, with Catherine OliverIt is increasingly accepted that we cannot take nature for granted. But do we even know what nature is? Catherine Oliver brings her expertise in geography and sociology – plus her love of chickens – to the latest Uncommon Sense to reflect on what’s at stake in how we think of and relate to “nature” – and how we might do better. Along the way, she considers what happens when neoliberalism shapes what “good” nature is – whether in regeneration or meddling with metabolisms.Alexis and Rosie also ask Catherine: how might the chicken be “thriving” yet also “extinct”? What potential is there in spea...2023-07-1443 min
Uncommon SenseEuropeans, with Manuela BoatcăDoes anyone know what European means? Manuela Boatcă thought she did, until a late 1990s move from Romania to Germany unsettled everything she had taken for granted. In this episode, she challenges mainstream ideas of “Europe” to show how its borders extend to the Caribbean (and beyond) – a fact that’s obvious if we acknowledge colonialism’s past and present, but is an inconvenient truth for some in political power.Alexis and Rosie ask Manuela: How has Brexit revealed the contradictions built into so much discourse about “Europe”? How does “Creolizing” theory differ from “Decolonising” it? And what is the legacy of e...2023-06-1649 min
Who do we think we are?[SWAP] Uncommon Sense: Security, with Daria Krivonos Too often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and insecurity. But how do sociologists think about it? And why care? Daria Krivonos – who works on migration, race and class in Central and Eastern Europe – tells Alexis and Rosie why security matters. What’s the impact of calling migration a “security threat”? How does the security of the privileged rely on the insecurity of the precarious? And, as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, what would it mean to truly #StandwithUkraine – from ensuring better job security for its workers...2023-04-2147 minWho do we think we are?[SWAP] Uncommon Sense: Security, with Daria Krivonos Too often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and insecurity. But how do sociologists think about it? And why care? Daria Krivonos – who works on migration, race and class in Central and Eastern Europe – tells Alexis and Rosie why security matters. What’s the impact of calling migration a “security threat”? How does the security of the privileged rely on the insecurity of the precarious? And, as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, what would it mean to truly #StandwithUkraine – from ensuring better job security for its workers...2023-04-2147 min
Uncommon SenseBreakups, with Ilana Gershon“Follow”? “Block”? “Accept”? Anthropologist Ilana Gershon joins us to reflect on breakups in both our intimate and working lives. She tells Alexis and Rosie how hearing her students’ surprising stories of using new media – supposedly a tool for connection – to end romantic entanglements led to her 2010 book “The Breakup 2.0”. She also shares insights from studying hiring in corporate America and describes how, in the febrile “new economy”, the very nature of networking and how we understand our careers have been transformed.Ilana also celebrates Marilyn Strathern’s influential article “Cutting the Network” for challenging our assumptions about endless and easy connection. She...2023-04-1447 min
Uncommon SenseTaste, with Irmak Karademir HazirWhat makes “good” taste? Who decides? And what’s it got to do with inequality? Sociologist Irmak Karademir Hazir grew up watching women in her parents’ clothing boutique. She explains how her fascination for taste emerged from that and why talking about things like fashion, film and music is far from trivial – it’s how we distinguish ourselves from others; how we’re recognised, or dismissed.Irmak tells Rosie and Alexis how sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu have theorised “distinction”, showing how “highbrow” taste is decided by those with money and other kinds of capital. They also discuss the idea of th...2023-03-2448 min
Uncommon SenseListening, with Les BackWhat does it mean to really listen in a society obsessed with spectacle? What’s hidden when powerful people claim to “hear” or “give voice” to others? And what’s at stake if we think that using fancy recording devices helps us to neatly capture “truth”?Les Back – author of “The Art of Listening” – tells Alexis and Rosie why listening to society is crucial, but cautions that there’s nothing inherently superior about the hearing sense. Rather, we must “re-tune our ears to society” and listen responsibly, with care, and in doubt.Plus: why should we think critically before acc...2023-01-2045 minUncommon SenseNatives, with Nandita SharmaIn this supposedly “post-colonial” age, the idea of the native continues to be distorted and deployed, whether in Narendra Modi’s India or calls for “British jobs for British workers”. How and why has this word – so powerful in the age of empire – lived on into the 21st century? Who gains? And how has it gone from being a term applied to those ruled over by colonisers, to a label chosen by people promoting their own interests against others?Nandita Sharma joins Alexis and Rosie to discuss all this and more, including the exclusionary logic at the heart of the p...2022-12-2347 minUncommon SenseEmotion, with Billy HolzbergEmojis! Feminism! Rage! Sociologist Billy Holzberg joins us to talk about emotion. Why is it dismissed as an obstacle to progress and clear thinking – and to whose benefit? How can we let anger into politics without sanctioning far-right violence? And why are some of us freer than others to play with emotional abjection? Billy reflects on all this and more with Alexis and Rosie, celebrating thinkers from Sara Ahmed to Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois to Yasmin Gunaratnam.Billy also reflects on queerness, childhood and shame; the emotional precarity of TV’s Fleabag; the playfulness of e...2022-11-1846 minUncommon SenseCities, with Romit ChowdhuryLonely? Mean? Hostile? Cities get a bad rap. But why? Romit Chowdhury has lived in cities worldwide; from Kolkata to Rotterdam. He tells Alexis and Rosie about the wonder of urban “enchantment” found in a stranger’s smile, our changing ideas of the “urban”, and why anonymity is not always in fact the enemy of civility and friendship in the city.Plus: how did “walking the city” emerge as a revolutionary research method? And why is Romit so fascinated with public transport – from exploring auto-rickshaw drivers’ masculinity in Kolkata, to studying sexual violence on the busy trains of Tokyo.2022-10-2145 minUncommon SenseBodies, with Charlotte BatesWe each have a body, but every body’s story is unique. In this intimate conversation, sociologist Charlotte Bates tells Alexis and Rosie why studying bodies – and how we talk about them – matters in a society where some are privileged over others, and why ableism harms us all.Charlotte talks about her co-authored work on wild swimming, arguing that despite its commodification, it holds subversive power. She also considers how the unwell body collides with the demands of capitalist life – revealing just how absurd it can be. Plus: what “wellness” fails to capture – and why health is not a lifestyl...2022-09-2340 minUncommon SenseSecurity, with Daria KrivonosToo often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and insecurity. But how do sociologists think about it? And why care?Daria Krivonos – who works on migration, race and class in Central and Eastern Europe – tells Alexis and Rosie why security matters. What’s the impact of calling migration a “security threat”? How does the security of the privileged rely on the insecurity of the precarious? And, as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, what would it mean to truly #StandwithUkraine – from ensuring better job security for its worker...2022-07-2242 minUncommon SenseIntimacy, with Katherine TwamleyThink of intimacy and, pretty soon, you’ll probably think about sex. But, as sociologist Katherine Twamley explains, intimacy means much more than that: it’s woven through so many of our relationships – including with people whose names we might not even know. She tells Rosie and Alexis how an accidental trip to India got her thinking about the varied meanings of “love” across cultures and contexts, and reflects on whether, to quote the famous song, love and marriage really do “go together like a horse and carriage”.Plus: what could it mean to decolonise love? Why should we be w...2022-06-2441 minUncommon SenseSchool, with Remi Joseph-SalisburySchool should be about play, fulfilment and learning. But it is also a place of surveillance, discipline and discrimination. Activist scholar Remi Joseph-Salisbury has researched policing, racism and education in the UK. He tells Rosie and Alexis what happens when policing enters the classroom, its impact on students and teachers of colour, and the need for wholesale reform – including a truly anti-racist curriculum.Plus: how can we break the “school-to-prison” pipeline? What is Critical Race Theory and why has it prompted a backlash? What does it mean to really receive “an education”? And what’s the harm in the trope...2022-05-2043 minUncommon SenseHome, with Michaela BensonHome means something to everyone. More than just bricks and mortar, it’s about security and belonging, citizenship and exclusion. Michaela Benson has researched it all: from the UK’s self-build communities, to people seeking a new lifestyle abroad. She tells Alexis and Rosie about this and her own experience of home, including her mother’s relationship to her place of birth: Hong Kong.Plus, Kwame Lowe and Alice Grahame introduce us to the Rural Urban Synthesis Society in London. What does it take to build your own “Grand Design” and why would anyone want to do that? What...2022-04-2240 minUncommon SenseCare, with Bev SkeggsWhat does care really mean? For feminist sociologist Bev Skeggs, it should be at the heart of how we organise our society – from tax to health, to climate action. She talks to Alexis and Rosie about the costs of complacency, her own shocking experience of care (or lack of it) as her own parents faced the end of life, and why we have every right to expect the state to look after us. Care, she shows, is political: there’s no care without society; no society without care.Plus, Bev casts a sideways glance at “self-care” and explains...2022-04-2243 minUncommon SenseIntroducing Uncommon SenseThis is Uncommon Sense, the podcast that sees our world afresh, through the eyes of sociologists. Brought to you by The Sociological Review, it’s a space for questioning taken-for-granted ideas about society – for imagining better ways of living together and confronting our shared crises. Hosted by Rosie Hancock in Sydney and Alexis Hieu Truong in Ottawa, featuring a different guest each month, Uncommon Sense insists that sociology is for everyone.Hosts: Alexis Hieu Truong, Rosie HancockFeatured Guests: Bev Skeggs, Michaela BensonExecutive Producer: Alice BlochSo...2022-03-2401 min