Under The Table: An Anthropology of Corruption Podcast

Oct 21 2024 10 ep. 67 mins 2
Under The Table: An Anthropology of Corruption Podcast artwork

We are two cultural anthropologists, Drs. Aaron Ansell and Sylvia Tidey, who write about corruption and the fight against corruption in non-Western cultural settings. Our lighthearted podcast consists of interviews with fellow experts on this topic. We try to keep it jargon-free, but we do geek out every now and then, so fair warning.

  Science  Education  Society & Culture
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Audit Culture and Dirty Elites: A Talk with Cris Shore (9/10/2024)

Oct 21 2024 88 mins  
Sylvia and Aaron chat with Cris Shore (Professor of Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths) about his work on corruption in the European Union. We talk about the EU's "parallel system of administration," methodologies for studying that which should not be seen, the trouble defining corruption, the weaponization of anti-corruption laws, university/academic corruption, the rise of "audit

"Transparency and Anti-Corruption in India, a chat with Anu (Aradhana) Sharma" (1/19/2024)

Feb 21 2024 62 mins  
Sylvia and Aaron chat with Anu Sharma about her work on corruption and good governance in India, including that country's "Right to Know" movement and related Transparency of Information legislation. We discuss the relationship between anti-corruption legislation and women’s development and empowerment in India. We discuss the category of “techno-moral assemblage” key to Anu'

Alan Smart on Corruption and Informality in Hong Kong (11/1/23)

Nov 01 2023 71 mins  
Sylvia and Aaron interview Alan Smart about his research on Chinese practices of gift-mediated friendship (guanxi) and the role of guanxi relations in capitalist ventures. Guanxi is increasingly viewed as a form of corruption but it remains important to the success of new commerce. This leads us to discuss the role of informality in general and specifically in Hong Kong's contested

Ponzi Schemes in Post-Socialist Albania, a chat with Smoki Musaraj (7/23/2023)

Aug 15 2023 62 mins  
Sylvia and Aaron chat with Dr. Smoki Musaraj about her book, Tales from Albarado: Ponzi Logics of Accumulation in Postsocialist Albania (Cornell University Press, 2020). We discuss the forms of corruption (and corruption allegations) that arose during Albania's rapid transition from an insular command economy to a neoliberal capitalist economy. Smoki takes us through her work on po

Bribes, Foxes, and Moral Legitimacy-- a talk with Italo Pardo

May 09 2023 44 mins  
Aaron and Sylvia talk with Italo Pardo about the importance of empirically-grounded anthropological studies of corruption. As one of the earliest anthropologists committed to the explicit study of corruption, Italo draws on his work in both Italy and the UK to illustrate his attention to the interplay between legality, legitimacy, and morality. Of particular interest to Italo are t

The Outrageous Comparisons of Michael Herzfeld

Mar 20 2023 70 mins  
Sylvia and Aaron interview Professor Michael Herzfeld about his latest book, Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022 . We begin with Dr. Herzfeld's penchant for comparing seemingly disparate cultural settings, settings that, as he argues, share parallel histories of "crypto-colonialism." To take his l

Getting Our Goat with Kregg Hetherington (9/16/2022)

Sep 16 2022 76 mins  
Sylvia and Aaron talk to Kregg about soy bean cultivation in Paraguay and the role of corruption and anti-corruption measures in rural land struggles. We discuss the encroachment of mechanized soy production into subsistence farming, the link between soy cultivation, democracy and anti-corruption, and the effects of anti-corruption measures on campesinos (peasants) who pursue land

Ethics or the Right Thing? Aaron Interviews Sylvia Tidey on her new book (08/19/2022)

Aug 19 2022 76 mins  
Sylvia and I discuss her book, Ethics or the Right Thing?: Corruption and Care in the Age of Good Governance University of Chicago Press, 2022 (Distributed for HAU). Sylvia tells us how state officials in one Indonesian province found themselves caught between Western models of governmental impartiality ("the right thing") and familial models of reciprocity and mutual care ("ethics

Nigeria's 419: an Interview with Daniel Jordan Smith (3/18/22)

Mar 18 2022 61 mins  
In the second episode of the podcast series, we interview Dr. Daniel Jordan Smith, Professor of Anthropology at Brown University as well as the Charles C. Tillinghast, Jr. Professor of International Studies. Dan is the author of a landmark ethnography of corruption, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria (2007). We discuss this book as well as

The Left Hand of Sarah Muir: Corruption and Crisis in Argentina (10/14/2021)

Oct 14 2021 59 mins  
In our inaugural episode, we talk with Dr. Sarah Muir of the The City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Sarah is a cultural and linguistic anthropologist specializing in Argentina and a long-time advocate for a systematic, anthropological study of corruption. During the podcast, we discuss Sarah’s recent book Routine Crisis: An