PUAN Podcast
Public Anthropologist podcast (PUAN Pod) features ideas and thoughts about issues that concern the public. Researchers are encouraged to translate complex social idea or theory into intelligible language, which is grounded in empirical research.
The podcast series is hosted by Antonio De Lauri and Saumya Pandey.
PUAN Pod is an opportunity to speak about scholarship for a broader public. While there is no singular way of defining the anthropological public, speakers are encouraged to think about what kind of knowledge they produce, who gets to be part of their knowledge system, and to whom does the discipline owe responsibility.
In the 10th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey speaks with geoscientist Jakob Steiner and historian Lachlan Fleetwood on the 19th century imperialist traditions of remaking the Himalayas as geographical frontiers. We reflect on the genealogy of this Himalayan-frontier science. Jakob and Lachlan discuss the fragile instruments and modes of measurements that reveal the limits of science and imperial projects in …
Continue reading “Episode 10: Fragile Instruments and Frontier-making Science in the Himalayas”
In the 9th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews anthropologist Mark Goodale on the history of human rights. The humaneness of humanity has a history. And Goodale’s work shows that this history is foregrounded in relation to geopolitical and economic history. He asks if a distinction at all can be drawn between politics and economy …
Continue reading “Episode 9: The humanness of humanity has a history “
In the 8th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews anthropologist Jeevan Sharma on how to write a history and ethnography of the speedy transformations in Nepal. Sharma’s work looks beyond disciplinary boundaries to study the political and economic inequities that has historically informed the social life in Nepal. There is no way of …
Continue reading “Episode 8: Writing history beyond disciplinary constraints “
In the 7th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews anthropologist Kamari Maxine Clarke on how emotions—and its expressions —are central to interpreting justice in criminal courts. Clarke’s work on affective justice highlights the larger historical conditions and structural inequities under which justice is realized, the role of time and space in the materialization …
Continue reading “Episode 7: Forging emotions and truth in criminal courts”
In the 6th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews environmental historian and historical geographer, Jason W. Moore. Moore’s work radically upsets the Nature-Society dualism of capitalism both materially and symbolically manifested in the logic of Anthropocene. We discuss the periodization of history, its framing, and the kind of role it played in shaping …
Continue reading “Episode 6: Are we in the age of Anthropocene?”
In the 5th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews Historian Elena Conis on how risky pesticides were culturally accepted and what kind of role did science play in its acceptance. Professor Conis explains how scientific research during war and epidemics prioritized some types of scientific questions over others, and how this approach built …
Continue reading “Episode 5: Science and economy of selling pesticides”
In the 4th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews a professor of English, Candace Fujikane, on how ideas of abundance and scarcity are forged under capitalism. Professor Fujikane’s research uses cartography as a methodology to map Kanaka Maoli’s knowledge and relation of abundance with lands, seas and skies. In doing so, Fujikane’s work …
Continue reading “Podcast Episode 4: Economies of scarcity and abundance”
In the 3rd episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews Anthropologist Angela Garcia on the endless dispossession, inequality, and heroin use etched in the history and memory of northern New Mexico. Professor Garcia’s avant-garde scholarship combines apparently isolated moments of intimacy, addiction, care and abuse to shed light on the impacts of a colonial …
Continue reading “Podcast Episode 3: Colonial dispossession and heroin use in northern New Mexico”
In the 2nd episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews Anthropologist Nikhil Anand on the concept of wet cities. Professor Anand focuses on Mumbai, a city built in and out of the Arabian Sea. He encourages us to think about the long history of engineering cities as dry lands devoid of wetness, and how …
Continue reading “Podcast Episode 2: History and geography of a city soaked in water”
In the 1st episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews Anthropologist Tania Murray Li on the history and future of palm oil plantation in Indonesia and other parts of the world. Professor Li explains what monocrop palm oil plantation may be revealing about economic inequality and why is it so important to pay attention …
Continue reading “Podcast Episode 1: Histories and futures in monocrop palm oil plantation”