THE PASSPORT: Laurie Taylor explores the cultural history of an indispensable document which has given citizens a license to travel and helped to define the modern world. Patrick Bixby, Professor of English at Arizona State University, delves into the evolution of the passport through the tales of historical figures, celebrities, artists, and writers, from Frederick Douglas to Hannah Arendt. How has the passport become both an instrument of personal freedom as well as a tool of government surveillance? They’re joined by Kristin Surak , Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the LSE and author of a new study which investigates the routes taken by wealthy elites in pursuit of a ‘golden passport’. Through six years of fieldwork on four continents, she discovered how the sale of passports has transformed into a full-blown citizenship industry that thrives on global inequalities.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Global inequality - 'signs of nation'
Heritage and preservation
Sport and Philosophy - Inside an African-Caribbean Football Club
Fashion and class
Doctors at war - Wasting GP's time
Russian prison visitors - prison boundaries
Craft work - 'dirty' work
Insuring against disasters - electronic finance
Drugs in warfare
Elite education
Special programme on winner of Ethnography award
A special programme devoted to the BSA/Thinking Allowed Ethnography Shortlist
Grandfathers - Dementia carers
Teen bedrooms - Skydivers
Money - how to break the power of the banks
Squatting; a cross cultural history. Plus taking ones clothes off in public.
Platform Capitalism
Terrorism: does it work? - The 'Hotline'
Vertical Cities - India's property boom
The brave new world of virtual workers; also globalisation, the old and the new.
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