Thinking Allowed Folgen

Taste and Lifestyle: Laurie Taylor talks to Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, whose latest study explores the ways in which consumer culture remade the tastes of an emerging middle class – from pine kitchen tables to Mediterranean cuisine. Did this world of symbolic goods create new feelings and attitudes? Also, Michael McMillan, Associate Lecturer for Cultural and Historical Studies at the London College of Fashion, discusses the migrant experience of African-Caribbean families setting up home in the UK in the mid-20th century. How did the artefacts and objects which dressed the West Indian front room provide an outlet for feelings of displacement and alienation in a society where they weren't always made to feel 'at home'?Producer: Jayne Egerton

Dance Culture: Laurie Taylor takes a journey through the dancefloor with the music writer, Emma Warren, whose latest research combines social history and memoir to answer the question 'why do we dance together?' Also, Melin Levent Yuna, a sociologist and anthropologist at Acibaden University, explains why Istanbul has become the Tango capital of the world, after Buenos Aires, in spite of its conservative government. Producer: Jayne Egerton

Democracy: Quinn Slobodian, Professor of the History of Ideas at Wellesley College, takes Laurie Taylor on the journey of radical libertarians who search for the perfect home, free from the burden of democratic oversight, from Hong Kong to Canary Wharf and the Honduras. What accounts for the explosion of new legal entities, including free ports, gated enclaves, city states and special economic zones? They're joined by Mukulika Banerjee, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, whose latest study into the lives of West Bengal villagers finds that they promote democratic values in everyday acts of citizenship at a time when Indian democracy is under threat. How do their creative practices around kinship, farming and religion promote republican virtues of cooperation, civility, solidarity and vigilance? Producer: Jayne Egerton