Between the Lines

As COVID-19 vaccine rollouts get underway across the world, many are resting their hopes on vaccines as a pathway out of the pandemic. However, an increasing number of people believe vaccines are unsafe or unnecessary. Vaccine hesitancy is nothing new, indeed it is as old as vaccination itself. So, what can we learn from previous vaccine programmes, about what people’s concerns are and how they ca...

We live in a world of technologies that misdirect our attention, poison our political conversations, and jeopardize our democracies. In his book: ‘Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives’ , through analysis of social media and public polling data, in-depth interviews with political consultants, bot writers, and jo...

How do marginalised voters living in conditions of intense socioeconomic inequality, engage in electoral politics and improve their material conditions? Grounding her research in the context of Pakistan, IDS researcher, Shandana Khan Mohmand , probes into this question by using original data collected across different villages and households in rural Pakistan. In this episode of Between the Lines...

How do we determine when our research has impact? If our aim is to produce research that contributes to making a positive difference in the world, how do we measure and track achievements? In this episode of Between the Lines, IDS’ Director of Communications and Impact, James Georgalakis , speaks with James Gow and Henry Redwood from Kings College London, who co-authored the book: Impact in Intern...

Why is uncertainty so important to politics today? From finance and technology to climate change, pandemics, migration and security, what the future holds feels increasingly uncertain and demands alternative approaches. If hopes of much-needed progressive transformations are to be realised, then current blinkered understandings of uncertainty need to be met with renewed democratic struggle. In thi...

Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy , reveals the roots of structural racism that limit social mobility and equality within Britain for Black and ethnicised students and academics in its inherently white Higher Education institutions. It brings together both established and emerging scholars in the fields of Race and Education to explore what instit...

An increasing number of countries around the world have been trialling a ‘basic income’ for their citizens, and the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for governments to reevalutate and strengthen social safety nets. The UN has called for a Temporary Basic Income, to provide a lifeline for the world’s poorest. Could something like a ‘Universal Basic Income’ help in Covid-19 recovery, and i...

In this episode of Between the Lines, IDS Head of Knowledge, Impact and Policy, Kelly Shephard , talks to author and broadcaster, Helen Lewis about her book, Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights . In looking at the history of feminism and stories of rebel women, details are too often whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for feel-good, inspirational heroines. In this book, H...

Uprootedness, exile and forced displacement, be it due to conflict, natural disasters or even so-called 'development', affects the lives of millions of people across the globe. The numbers of people affected are increasing, as shocks and crises force people to flee their homes and find safe places to live. In this episode of Between the Lines IDS researcher, Jaideep Gupte speaks with Lyla Mehta fr...

One of the most-discussed digital financial inclusion projects, M-Pesa facilitates the transfer of money and access to formal financial services via the mobile phone infrastructure and has grown at a phenomenal rate since its launch in 2007. In this episode of Between the Lines. Serena Natile discusses her book, The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion, which critiques mobile money...

At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has raised issues of welfare regimes higher up the global agenda, author Ferdinand Eibl discusses his book, Social Dictatorships: The Political Economy of the Welfare State in the Middle East and North Africa . Using mixed methods of study, the book presents an explanation as to why social spending in authoritarian regimes differ and presents case studies of th...

The global pandemic Covid-19 is impacting people in many and varied ways. The effects on all our lives are immense and diverse, from rural and urban communities, young and old, from different geographic and economic groups. We are each living with different realities of a global crisis. IDS' Melissa Leach , Hayley MacGregor, Annie Wilkinson and Ian Scoones discuss how we can learn from past epidem...

Water is crucial to sustain life, food, ecosystems, human health and wellbeing. Still, millions of poor and marginalised women and men around the world face challenges in accessing water due to a range of ecological, socio-political, institutional and economic reasons.   The focus of this month’s episode of Between the Lines is a new book called ‘Water for Food Security, Nutrition and So...

Domestic violence remains widespread in many countries. Approximately 1/3 of women globally experience some form of violence in their lifetime. In this month’s episode of Between the Lines, IDS researcher, Sohela Nazneen discusses a book that she has co edited entitled,  ‘Negotiating Gender Equity in the Global South: The Politics of Domestic Violence Policy.' The book investigates the condit...

In recent years, climate change and the environment has shot up the agenda in political and public discourse, and a new type of politics has taken shape, with many people calling for urgent, radical change. In this month’s Between the Lines, IDS Director Melissa Leach, Professor Ian Scoones and Professor Peter Newell discuss their co-edited book, The Politics of Green Transformations. Drawing on i...

In this month’s episode of Between the Lines we discuss a new book that helps us to better understand how power works. Power, Empowerment and Social Change uncovers how power operates around the world, and how it can be transformed through collective action and social leadership. Discussing this collaborative work with IDS Research Officer, Katy Oswald are co-editors Rosemary McGee and Jethro Pett...

Despite important strides in the fight against poverty in the last few decades, child poverty remains widespread and persistent, particularly in Africa. Two-thirds of children  in sub-Saharan Africa face all manners of hardship. These include poor living conditions, low educational outcomes, high levels of malnutrition and often high risks of exposure to different forms of violence.  One...

This month we look at Refugee Tales, a series of books that bring together poets and novelists to tell the stories of individuals who have directly experienced Britain’s policy of indefinite immigration detention.   IDS' Kelly Shephard speaks with Emma Parsons who wrote “The Teacher’s Tale”, which is told from her perspective as an English teacher, giving support to a refugee detained under t...

We're celebrating one year of --between the lines-- with a special episode that brings together clips from all the episodes across the series.  This special episode showcases the range of speakers and wealth of ideas from the series, drawing out some of the key elements needed for progressive change.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month Hayley Macgregor speaks with Maya Unnithan, Professor of Social and medical anthropology at the University of Sussex, about her new book, ‘Fertility, Health and Reproductive Politics: Re-imagining Rights in India'. Drawing on ethnographic research over the past eighteen years, Maya brings together the practices, experiences and discourse on fertility and reproduction in Northern In...

Whether you are an activist, campaigner, development practitioner, lobbyist, entrepreneur, individual or an organisation, Duncan Green’s latest book, How Change Happens seeks to understand how power and systems shape change, and how to influence them. In this month’s episode of between the lines , Duncan speaks with IDS researcher Jo Howard , offering the latest thinking on what works to achieve p...

In this episode of between the lines, Nanjala Nyabola, a Kenyan activist, political analyst and author, speaks about her fascinating book ‘Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya’, about how the digital age and social media has impacted Kenyan politics, and the consequences for democracies across Africa, and beyond. While the impact of the Digit...

In this episode of --between the lines-- IDS researcher, Richard Longhurst, speaks to Hilary Cottam about her book: 'Radical Help: how we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionise the welfare state.' Radical Help is about new ways of organising living and growing that have been developed with communities across Britain. Hilary argues that our 20th century system is beyond reform an...

In this episode of –between the lines– IDS researcher Ian Scoones, talks to colleague Marina Apgar about his book, Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Development, part of series of small books for big ideas. The book looks at the role of social institutions and the politics of policy, as well as issues of identity, gender and generation. Ian argues that integrated livelihoods approaches are an esse...

In this International Women’s Day episode of —between the lines— IDS researcher, Mariz Tadros, speaks to Ayesha Khan about her book The Women’s Movement in Pakistan: Activism, Islam and Democracy. The military rule of General Zia ul-Haq, former President of Pakistan, had significant political repercussions for the country. Islamization policies were far more pronounced and control over women becam...