Common Concerns

In this episode, Xiang Biao talks to Olaf Zenker, a leading anthropologist whose work spans Southern Africa, Germany, and Northern Ireland. Together, they explore one of the most urgent questions of our time: What happens when people lose faith in liberalism — not because they reject its ideals, but because they feel it has failed them?  Zenker highlights the importance of understanding peopl...

In this episode of the “Common Concerns” podcast, Xiang Biao and Ferda Nur Demirci discuss the concept of “moral immunity” in relation to the indebtedness of miners in Soma, Turkey. In her research, Ferda examines how miners use debt to regulate their intimate relationships and to achieve a sense of moral immunity. This concept is characterised by a desire to be immune to the demands and pressures...

In this episode, Biao Xiang interviews two extraordinary thinkers: Don Kalb, whose new book "Value and Worthlessness" has been hailed as a landmark in Marxist anthropology, and Xenia Cherkaev, a scholar whose work bridges Eastern European social history with contemporary existential questions. Together, they reimagine ethnographic research by centering hidden histories, relational use values, and...

In this episode, Xiang Biao and Siqi Tu discuss the Common Concerns approach in the context of a research project on Chinese students who send their children to the US for private high school education. Siqi presents her findings on the complex and often contradictory experiences of these students, who are caught between their desire for a global education and the harsh realities of being a minori...

Xiang Biao and Insa Lee Koch, Professor of British Culture at the Universität St. Gallen (HSG), discuss how people in working-class communities in the United Kingdom tend to perceive corruption as a moral failure of institutions and individuals in positions of power rather than as a technical or bureaucratic problem. Koch argues that this perception stems from mistrust and disillusionment with the...

In this episode, Xiang Biao and two colleagues, Xenia Cherkaev and Drew Haxby, discuss Haxby’s research into the land market in Kathmandu, Nepal. The discussion focuses on the concept of ‘Suspicion’ and its role in the land market. Haxby argues that suspicion is a widespread problem among landowners and brokers, which is fuelled by the complex and often opaque nature of the property market. They a...

In this episode, Xiang Biao sits down with Zhipeng Duan, a design researcher-turned-anthropologist, to dismantle the idea that powerlessness is a lack of power. Isn't it rather a blindness to the world’s hidden possibilities? Duan Zhipeng, discusses how his understanding of change has evolved from a focus on solving problems to a more nuanced understanding of how relationships and perceptions shap...

In this episode of our Common Concerns podcast, Xiang Biao welcomes Dr. Alf Gerlach, senior psychoanalyst and long-time contributor to the dialogue between psychoanalysis and social critique. Drawing on his decades of work in Germany and China, Alf reflects on the intersections of individual psychology and collective social conditions — particularly through the lens of the “social unconscious.” He...

In the first episode of the “Common Concerns” podcast, Siqi Tu and Sohail Jagat speak with Xiang Biao, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Looking back on his experiences and academic career in China and the UK, he traces the origins of his “Common Concerns” approach. The conversation centres on “Common Concerns”, a research approach developed by Xiang Biao. The approa...