At NIAS excellent researchers find the time and space to freely pursue their curiosity and ask new questions. The NIAS podcast series Room to explore aims to share their insights, demonstrating how direct and wide the relevance and impact of research-based interventions can be.
Podcast 2: security labour
Security claims and thinking are dominant in most all aspects of modern culture, economy and our social and private lives – from airport security, to anti-war protests on campuses, to neighbourhood vigilantes. Not only is the security industry one of the world’s largest employers, the frame of security also contaminates and shapes sectors, experiences, policies and authorities we don’t readily associate with it.
Writer Ed Schwarzschild, anthropologists Tessa Diphoorn and Erella Grassiani, and sociologist Winifred Poster formed the NIAS Theme Group Re-imagining Security Labour to delve into a wide range of aspects of security work, politics and policies. In putting the lived experiences of security workers front and center, they paint a vivid portrait of the global security enterprise and the way it shapes countless lives.
Podcast 1: anti-Semitism and Islamophobia
How can we address the very real rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Europe against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war? How can we avoid entrenched positions that frame the Israel-Hamas war as a war between Jews and Palestinians?
NIAS-fellows Aysenur Korkmaz and Jessica Feldman discuss the dangers of discursively conflating Jews with the state of Israel and Palestinians (and pro-Palestinian voices) with Hamas and consider how to more productively define, recognize, and protect against anti-Semitism (acts or speech against “Jews as Jews”) and Islamophobia in the current climate. This podcast was recorded at the NIAS library on the 22 January 2024.
Research and interview
Room to explore is researched and interviewed by Annick van Rinsum