On Sensing - with David Howes

How can humor help us better grasp the world in which we live? In this episode, we explore how humour, comedy, parody and laughter are central to understanding political power today, with Mirco Göpfert, professor of social and cultural anthropology at Goethe University in Frankfurt. Göpfert’s body of work explores humour and satire, attending to the complex dissonances and absurdities of the political sphere. He examines humour and satire not only as epistemic practices but also, quite centrally, in relation to the anthropology of the state, bureaucratic practices, violence and security, crime, power, and resistance. Amongst his numerous articles are “Epistemophilic Obsessions: Espionage, Secrets and the Ethnographer's Will to Know”(2020), “Surveillance in Niger: Gendarmes and the Problem of `Seeing Things`”(2016), “Travelling Police: the Potential for Change in the Wake of Police Reform in West Africa (with Jan Beek)” (2015). This episode features discussions around his more recent work on humour, including articles such as “Dissonance: Cartooning in Iran” (2024), “Humor, and the Study of Things That Don't Match” (2022), “On dictators and clowns” (2020), “An Artistic Reaction to Perceived Injustice: Cartooning, Resistance and Textures of the Political in Iran” (2020). Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel

How can embodiment be a key site from which to tackle the world in which we live? This episode, On Bodies, features Sabine Mohamed, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, who discusses the ways in which historical and social transformations are shaped by corporeal experiences. Sabine's research examines the relationships among bodies, race, infrastructures, and futures in East Africa and other regions. Her scholarship broadly addresses urbanism, infrastructure, borders, migration, ports, and trade, with a key focus on how bodies and race mediate conceptions of the future. Working primarily in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Germany, Mohamed's current book project ethnographically investigates the interconnections between blackness and experiences of urban and national dispossession. Her ongoing research traces the experiences of female laborers as they navigate economic exchange, Chinese investment, and resource extraction within the East African corridor. This work interrogates the complex intersections of labor, race, and gender. In parallel, she is engaged in a long-term project that examines Black feminist movements, sexualities, and practices of belonging in contemporary Germany. Her publications have appeared in a range of international and interdisciplinary journals, including Verge, Modern Africa,Tertium Comparationis, and New Writing, as well as in edited volumes, such as Disembodied Territories (2022) and Counter_Readings of the Body (2021) Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.

How do migrations foster the development of imaginative strategies, and in what ways do the constraints encountered during these transitions prompt innovative approaches to navigating and reshaping our world? In this episode, we examine migration, focusing on the aspirations, economic factors, and intermediaries that have influenced transnational mobility. Our guest, Charles Piot, investigates migration within the context of the post-Cold War political economy of Togo in West Africa. Charles Piot is a professor of cultural anthropology, African and African American studies, and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at Duke University. His research focuses on the political economy of West Africa, addressing themes such as modernity, development, migration, diaspora, and the enduring impacts of colonialism in both rural and urban Togo. His recent ethnographic work examines how neoliberalism shapes emerging imaginaries of the future, particularly regarding aspirations for transnational mobility. He has authored several books, including Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (1999) and Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa after the Cold War (2010). In this episode, we will center our discussion on his book The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles (2019), co-authored with Kodjo Nicolas Batema, which received the 2020 Victor Turner Prize in ethnographic writing. Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.

How can thinking about funerals and life's endings offer new ways to imagine our worlds? In this episode, On Endings, our guest Anne Allison, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University, discusses planning for life endings and how it has shifted in recent decades. Allison's work examines the intersection of political economy and everyday life in the context of late capitalist, post-industrial Japan, and how changing configurations of family care and sociality in Japan sharply transform what is possible when it comes to dying.

How does the act of displaying items allow us to reassess our connection to the past and guide us towards new futures? In this episode, we will explore the concept of display, which includes the showcasing of images, objects, ideas, and bodies in museums and beyond. Our guest is Dr. Friedrich von Bose, Director of the Museum der Kulturen Basel, who merges imaginative approaches with scholarly research and curatorial practice. His academic and curatorial work has primarily focused on the political implications of display concerning colonialism, racism, and the future of anthropology museums. As a cultural anthropologist and former curator at the Humboldt Forum, von Bose has also served as a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology and Empirical Cultural Studies at the University of Zurich, concentrating on the History and Theory of Museum Ethics since 2023. Before this, he oversaw research and exhibitions at the three ethnological museums of the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony (State Art Collections Dresden): the Grassi Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig, the Museum of Ethnology Dresden, and the Ethnology Museum Herrnhut, where he was responsible for the long-term strategic development of research and exhibition programs. von Bose’s publications include: Researching Colonial Provenances. Final Report of the Project “Provenance of Colonial-Era Collections from Togo in the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden and the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig”, (2024) “Concerning curatorial practice in ethnological museums. An epistemology of postcolonial debate” in: Conal McCarthy, Philipp Schorch (Eds.): Curatopia. Museums and the future of curatorship (2019) Das Humboldt-Forum. Eine Ethnografie seiner Planung (2016) “The making of Berlin‘s Humboldt-Forum. Negotiating history and the cultural politics of place” (2013) Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.