Thinking Allowed4 Helmi 2025

Touch

When, where, and who gets to touch and be touched, and who decides? How does touch bring us closer together or push us apart? These are urgent contemporary questions, but they have their origins in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain. Laurie Taylor talks to Simeon Koole, Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and History at the University of Bristol about his new study of the way in which the crowded city compelled new discussions about touch, as people crammed into subway cars, skirted criminals in London's dense fogs and visited tea shops, all the while negotiating the boundaries of personal space. How did these historical encounters shape and transform our understanding of physical contact into the present day?

Also, digital touch. Carey Jewitt Professor of Technology at the Institute of Education, London, explores the way technology is transforming our experience of touch. Touch matters. It is fundamental to how we know ourselves and each other, and it is central to how we communicate. So how will the the digital touch embedded in many technologies, from wearable devices and gaming hardware to tactile robots and future technologies, change our sense of connection with each other. What would it be like if we could hug or touch digitally across distance? How might we establish trust or protect our privacy and safety? How might radically different forms of touch impact our relationships and the future?

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(586)

Ageing and Society

What does it mean to grow older in Britain today? Laurie Taylor explores the changing realities of later life, from health and independence to inequality and support.Professor Judith Phillips OBE, Pro...

7 Heinä 27min

Charity Shops and Pocket Money

What does it really mean to give something away - or to buy something second-hand? And what, in the process, are we choosing not to see? Laurie Taylor talks to Gaby Harris, Sociologist and Lecturer in...

30 Kesä 27min

Strikes, Solidarity and South Asian Britain

How have South Asian communities in Britain fought for rights, dignity and belonging - and what can that history teach us today?Laurie Taylor explores the overlooked histories of labour struggle, resi...

23 Kesä 28min

Rethinking Sociology: Empire, Knowledge and Connection

What happens when we tell the story of modern Britain as part of a much bigger, global history? Professor Kate Pickett OBE has recently been appointed as the UK's first-ever Professor for the Public ...

16 Kesä 28min

Football and gambling

As a new World Cup approaches, what does it mean that gambling now sits so close to the heart of football - and how far has the game travelled from its local roots?Laurie Taylor explores two distinct ...

9 Kesä 27min

Ethics in sociological research

What does it mean to undertake "ethical" research in complex and changing social settings?Marion Vannier, from the University of Manchester, uses diaries and letters written by prisoners in her resear...

2 Kesä 28min

Suicide, Society and Liveability

What does Émile Durkheim’s 1897 study of suicide tell us about the social conditions that shape whether life feels worth living and how does a current project add to our understanding?Laurie Taylor is...

26 Touko 27min

Debt and Wealth Inequality

What does an 18-month study of residents on a housing estate in southern England tell us about living with debt? Laurie Taylor talks to Ryan Davey from Cardiff University about his new book The Person...

10 Maalis 28min