In this episode, Christoph Brumann speaks with Xenia Cherkaev about her book 'Gleaning for Communism', which Focaal: The Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology has listed among their "One Hundred Indispensable Works for Thinking in Our Times." The book is a historical ethnography of Soviet-era collectivist economies and their lasting legacy. It examines its object through a conceptual lens informed by everyday recollections of pilfering industrial scrap home from the work to make useful things, and by Soviet legal scholars' theories of the state as a "socialist household," characterized by shared resources and communal ethics. Cherkaev and Brumann unpack how these ideas played out in practice—ranging from the Stalin-era personal redistribution around the plan to the tensions between collective interests and personal ownership during Gorbachev’s perestroika. Delving into the ethics of exchange, the concept of gleaning, and the symbolic relationship between socialist ideals and individual responsibility, they discuss the broader implications of these ideas for understanding modern economies and the role of the state in balancing public and private interests.

In this episode, Christoph Brumann talks to Julia Vorhölter about her research on sleep and sleeplessness. Julia's personal struggle with insomnia led her to investigate why sleep, despite being essential, is under-explored in anthropology. They discuss the challenges of studying sleep, a private and indirect experience that is difficult to observe or communicate. Julia's fieldwork in sleep labs examines the relationship between subjective sleep experiences and objective data. She contrasts sleep apnea, which is measurable, with insomnia, which is harder to diagnose and often dismissed by doctors despite its significant impact. Her research also explores sleep's political, economic, and social dimensions.

In this episode, Christoph Brumann talks to Philipp Demgenski about his book "Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City". The conversation centers around Demgenski's fieldwork in the Qingdao neighborhood of Dabaodao, a former German colony, where he explores the transformation from a slum to a heritage site. Demgenski's research aims to answer a crucial question: why do urban redevelopment projects in China often go wrong, stagnate, or fail? His book delves into this issue, focusing on the city's urban redevelopment projects that have stalled due to a preservation mandate imposed by the government. Through ten years of ethnographic fieldwork, Demgenski sheds light on the diverse experiences of residents, migrant workers, preservationists, and government officials, revealing a bureaucracy that is often scattered and ineffective, leading to deadlocks and stalled redevelopment projects.