https://allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net/

Music licenced under Creative Commons
Embracing Skies by Morten_Rasz
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/morten_rasz

The Corona Diaries

Allegra Editor Ian sits down with Thread guest editors Viola Castellano  & Olivia Casagrande to discuss 'Encountering precarities: ethnography, spurious solidarity and neoliberal academia.' The thematic thread engages with the multiple and asymmetrical forms of precarisation and vulnerabilisation involving both ethnographers and their interlocutors in and beyond the field.
https://allegralaboratory.net/encountering-precarities-ethnography-spurious-solidarity-and-neoliberal-academia/

Encountering Precarities

An audio essay by Ian M. Cook with anthropologists who have gone beyond critique for critique's sake. Anthropologists who have creatively intervened in the world in ways that blur the scholar/activist categories and centre anthropology's tentative, non-absolutist mode of knowledge creation.  

The essay argues that the attempts at political practice by anthropologists, combined with the work of those who critique the international organisations and social movements that actively seek to intervene in the world, so that their their interventions might be more effective in achieving social justice, can help create and structure the conditions for critical radical optimism to emerge.

Transcript: https://allegralaboratory.net/from-despair-to-where-anthropology-critique-political-practice-and-the-case-for-radical-optimism/

Featuring (in order of a-hear-ance)
Agathe Mora
Julie Billaud
Jane Cowan
Noah Walker-Crawford
Matthew C. Canfield
Lieselotte Viaene
Rafael Carrano Lelis
Samuel Shapiro
Pedro Silva Rocha Lima

From Despair To Where? Anthropology, critique, political practice and the case for radical optimism

Backway to Europe: Talking Borders and Migration with Gambians on the Move by Viola Castellano

Backway to Europe is a podcast series produced in collaboration with Gambian advocates and activists. It centers their analyses of the border regime through their direct experiences of “the backway” — the local term for the illegalized route to Europe. These experiences resonate with many who have attempted to reach Europe across West Africa and beyond.

The first part of the series, composed of seven episodes, features members of Youth Against Irregular Migration (YAIM), an advocacy organization founded by young Gambians who met in a Libyan detention center.

Episode 1 begins where the story itself begins: with the hyper-restrictive European visa system for Gambian nationals that renders the backway the only viable option for many. It explains why obtaining a visa is almost impossible and sets the stage for later episodes, which show how European influence on Gambian national politics operates through global and historically layered inequalities that perpetuate neocolonial dynamics.

Visa: Backway to Europe Episode One

The Displacing University podcast series is a series of long form interviews with people who have set up, run or research education programmes at European universities for people who have experienced displacement, including refugees and asylum seekers. In this episode Ian and Ibrar speak with Judith Beyer and Leila Dedial about The Hilde Domin Training Programme at University of Konstanz, Germany. More info here: https://allegralaboratory.net/category/thematic-threads/displacing-universities/

The Hilde Domin Training Programme at University of Konstanz with Judith Beyer and Leila Dedial

The second episode explores the material and symbolic motivations for Gambian youth choosing the backway to Europe, contrasting the modern, individualized pressure to provide for family through remittances with the more communal and respected social status of "semesters" (emigrants) from previous generations.


Semesters: Backway to Europe Episode Two

The Displacing University podcast series is a series of long form interviews with people who have set up, run or research education programmes at European universities for people who have experienced displacement, including refugees and asylum seekers.  In this episode of Displacing Universities Ian is speaking with Andrew Flaus about Education Pathways at the University of Galway who, along with his colleagues Mary Dempsey and Aidan Harte, has been developing and implementing the university’s pathways programmes.

Education Pathways Ireland at The University of Galway with Andrew Flaus

The Displacing University podcast series is a series of long form interviews with people who have set up, run or research education programmes at European universities for people who have experienced displacement, including refugees and asylum seekers. In this episode of Displacing Universities Ian and Monica are speaking about the various Initiatives for Refugees at University of Cologne with Ariane Elshof. Ariane works in the Department 'International Students & Global Responsibility' where she's the Team Lead for Academic Refugee Support and Coordinates the Study Preparatory Measures for Refugees.

Initiatives for Refugees at University of Cologne with Ariane Elshof

In this episode YAIM members retrace their perilous backway journey towards Europe in 2016/2017, across West African borders into Libya, highlighting the systemic violence, corruption, and gendered abuse inherent in these routes.Trigger warning: the following content contains graphic descriptions of torture, sexual violence, and death. Beyond documenting the brutal conditions of Mitiga Prison and the exploitative "ghetto" system, the episode notes a significant pursuit of justice: two participants have recently provided testimony to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as victims in a case involving crimes against humanity committed at Mitiga.

Journey: Backway to Europe Episode Three

In this episode of Displacing Universities Ian speaks with Paul O’Keefe. Paul worked for many years at in Kakkuma refugee camp in Kenya, including for the University of Geneva’s Inzone project. He also has strong ties with Vijana Twaweza Club, a sustainable agriculture organisation which is based in the camp, a group he keeps in touch with as part of his new job as Head of Education and Research at Airfield Estate in Dublin.

University Education at Kakuma Refugee Camp with Paul O’Keefe

In this episode of Displacing Universities Svitlana and Ian speak with Marie-Christine Ukelo-Mbolo Merga about Perspectives AlterEgauZ* at the University of Fribourg.

Perspectives AlterEgauZ at The University of Fribourg with Marie-Christine Ukelo-Mbolo Merga

In this episode, YAIM members recount their experience of detention in Tariq al Sikka, one of Libya's official detention centers, where they were held for three to four months in early 2017 following the violent raid in Gargaresh. Through their testimonies, we confront the devastating conditions inside - extreme overcrowding, lack of food, sanitation, and medical care, and the constant threat of violence - while interrogating the role of the European Union and the International Organization for Migration in sustaining this system. We examine how the EU-IOM Joint Initiative and the Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding, both launched around the same time YAIM members were detained, may have shaped what happened to them, and why guards in Tariq al Sikka suddenly suspended their usual practice of extortion. Trigger warning: the following content contains references to physical violence, torture, and inhumane conditions of detention which some individuals may find distressing.


Detention: Backway to Europe Episode Four

In this episode, YAIM members describe how they kept their sanity inside Tariq al Sikka through music, shared prayers, and solidarity across nationalities, before recounting what happened once they were repatriated to The Gambia through what IOM calls Assisted Voluntary Return. It traces the gap between what they were promised and what they actually received, and follows their attempts to build a livelihood with a reintegration package of roughly 1,000 euros designed around a neoliberal entrepreneurship model that ignores both the psychological toll of the journey and the collective, family-based economy of Gambian society, and the infrastructural limitations of the country.

Return: Backway to Europe Episode Five

In this episode, the conversation turns to the structural conditions that make the backway feel like the only viable option for so many Gambians. Moving from the individual to the systemic, the episode examines how unemployment, an inherited colonial education system that teaches in English and ignores local knowledge, nepotism in the job market, and the extractive exploitation of Gambian resources - from fishing deals with the EU and China to pharmaceutical dumping - reproduce poverty and dependency across generations. The episode argues that these are not incidental failures but the ongoing effects of colonial and neocolonial dynamics that continue to shape everyday life in The Gambia, and that any honest conversation about the  so-called root causes of migration must start there.


(Neo)colonialism: Backway to Europe Episode Six

In this final episode, the conversation turns to advocacy - what it means to do it from within a country shaped by donor dependency, short-term project cycles, and the structural inequalities discussed in the previous episode. Drawing on seven years of experience, participants reflect critically on why most funding for migration-related civil society work comes from European organizations whose primary interest is keeping people from reaching Europe, and what gets lost when programs arrive already designed, with local actors reduced to implementers. The episode questions whether sensitization campaigns can ever meaningfully address migration as long as the conditions driving it remain untouched, and confronts the mounting human toll of deportations - particularly from Germany -on individuals, families, and communities left with no psychological support and no material safety net. It closes not with easy answers but with a collective demand: for self-determination over aid dependency, for long-term structural investment over project cycles, and for an honest reckoning with who benefits from the current system, and who pays for it.


Advocacy: Backway to Europe Episode Seven

In this episode of Displacing Universities Ian speaks with Elisabeth Boston. Elisabeth is the Refugee policy officer at UCLouvain in Belgium. They speak about Access2University (A2U), a programme that aims to prepare refugees (applicants) with little or no knowledge of French to resume university studies, and Education Pathways, which is an initiative to bring displaced people to Belgium to study.

Access2University and Education Pathways at UCLouvain with Elisabeth Botson

On December 2nd 2015, the Shia community in Myanmar celebrated Arba'een - the fourtieth day after Ashura. The song was recorded around midnight in the former capital Yangon where men and women joined a downtown procession of a tomb replica of Imam Hussain, the grandson of Mohammad. The celebration is one of the largest Muslim celebrations worldwide, attracting around 25 million people in Karbala (Iraq) in 2015 alone.

Shia Martyr Song

Corona Diaries 3 March 27 Priyanka Krishna in Mysuru

allegralaboratory.net

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net

Embracing Skies

The Corona Diaries 3: March 27 Priyanka Krishna in Mysuru

Corona Diaries 8: April 1 Mohira Suyarkulova in Bishkek

allegralaboratory.net/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net/

Corona Diaries 8: April 1 Mohira in Bishkek

The Corona Diaries 10: April 3 Priyanka Krishna in Mysuru

allegralaboratory.net

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net

The Corona Diaries 10: April 3 Priyanka In Mysuru

Corona Diaries 11: April 4 Panagiota Kotsila in Barcelona
allegralaboratory.net/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net

Corona Diaries 11: April 4 Panagiota in Barcelona

The Corona Diaries 21: April 14 Susanne Ådahl In Helsinki

https://allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

https://allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

The Corona Diaries 21: April 14 Susanne In Helsinki

The Corona Diaries 23 April 16 Justin Spike in Budapest

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

The Corona Diaries 23: April 16 Justin in Budapest

The Corona Diaries 25: April 18 Panagiota Kotsila in Barcelona

llegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

The Corona Diaries 25: April 18 Panagiota in Barcelona

The Corona Diaries 28: April 21 Susanne In Helsinki

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

The Corona Diaries 28: April 21 Susanne In Helsinki

The Corona Diaries 31: April 24 Priyanka In Mysuru

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

The Corona Diaries 31: April 24 Priyanka In Mysuru

The Corona Diaries 32: April 25 Panagiota In Barcelona

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

The Corona Diaries 32: April 25 Panagiota In Barcelona

The Corona Diaries 33: April 26 Tamara In Zagreb

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

The Corona Diaries 33: April 26 Tamara In Zagreb

The Corona Diaries 34: April 27 Aditya In Bengaluru

allegralaboratory.net/the-corona-diaries/

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offer us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected.

The Corona Diaries 34: April 27 Aditya In Bengaluru

How do we socially and culturally adapt to isolation? How do we experience empty spaces? Are new forms of solidarity emerging? How does it feel to have to work in hospitals, assembly lines or shops when others stay at home? What new questions are we asking ourselves about our parenting and being a child? What new forms of exploitation emerge from the increased digitalisation of work? What new spaces of freedom have emerged? How can we understand social media’s role in the pandemic? How are our modes of communication changing in general? What role does humour play in our new shared experience of an absurd situation without precedent?

Seven willing diarists offered us a short audio diary once a week throughout the month of April, reflecting, describing, venting - all is permissible, all has to be expected. In this final episode, they offer us their final reflections and bid  goodbye to those who followed their journeys.

Mohira: 00:00:17
Panagiota: 00:02:48
Susanne: 00:04:41
Justin: 00:08:03
Tamara: 00:11:37
Priyanka: 00:16:44
Arun: 00:19:09

The Corona Diaries 35: Goodbyes

Anand Pandian speaks to Allegra editor Ian M. Cook about his latest book A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times (Duke, 2019).  Special guests Penelope Papailias and Laura Kunreuther send in their questions, generated from an 'experimental humanities' reading group they were both part of this last summer.  

Music credit: The Barren Sea
Audio co-editing: Laura Isabel de los Reyes Walker-Beaven  

Anand Pandian's university home page: https://anthropology.jhu.edu/directory/anand-pandian/
A Possible Anthropology: https://www.dukeupress.edu/a-possible-anthropology
Listen to Anand speak to Ian about Reel World here:
https://allegralaboratory.net/podcast-interview-round-up-may-august-new-books-in-anthropology/
Penelope Papailias: http://ha.uth.gr/index.php?page=faculty.display&a=papailia
Laura Kunreuther: https://www.bard.edu/faculty/details/?id=504

Bandwagon

A Possible Anthropology with Anand Pandian

Allegra Lab is a collective of academics and an online experiment founded in 2013.

Allegra Lab aims to enliven the “dead space” between standard academic publication and fast moving public debates. It addresses sociopolitical issues informed by the beauty of ethnography and the critical potential of anthropology.

Allegra Lab

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks