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
Palaces for the People
Push Buttons
Creativity
Post-Truth
Drifters
Smart Cities
Beauty - Ugliness
Suburbia Revisited
Selfies - disconnection from ICTs
Gangs and spirituality
China today
Light and Dark
Size Discrimination
Business Schools
Law and Order
Marx and Marxism
The Internet and Democracy
Universal Basic Income
Menswear Revolution
Winner of 2018 BSA/Thinking Allowed Ethnography Award
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