Latest news with #TheConversationWeekly
Daily Maverick
23-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Birkin v Wirkin: the backlash against the global elite and their luxury bags
The Birkin bag made by luxury retailer Hermès is a must-have for the global elite. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast to hear two sociologist discuss what it symbolises. The Birkin bag made by French luxury retailer Hermès has become a status symbol for some of the global elite. Notoriously difficult to obtain, a select few obsess over how to get their hands on one. But when US retailer Walmart recently launched a much cheaper bag that looked very similar to the Birkin, nicknamed a 'Wirkin' by others, it sparked discussions about wealth disparity and the ethics of conspicuous consumption. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to two sociologists about the Birkin and what it symbolises. For the rich housewives of Delhi, the Birkin bag is a must-have, says Parul Bhandari. A sociologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, she's spent time interviewing wealthy Indian women about their lives and preoccupations. She told us: A bag that is carried by rich women of New York, of London, of Paris, is something that you desire as well, so it's a ticket of entry into the global elite. Birkins are also used by some of these rich women as a way to show off their husbands' affection, Bhandari says: ' Not only from the point of view of money, because obviously this bag is extremely expensive, but also because it is difficult to procure.' The harder your husband tries to help you get the bag, the more getting one is a testimony of conjugal love. Manufactured scarcity Named after the British actress Jane Birkin, Hermès's signature bag can cost tens of thousands of dollars, or more on the resale market for those made in rare colours or out of rare leathers. But you can't just walk into any Hermès store to buy one, as Aarushi Bhandari, a sociologist at Davidson College in the US, who studies the internet – and is no relation to Parul – explains. You need to have a record of spending tens of thousands of dollars even before you're offered to buy one. But spending that money doesn't automatically mean you get a bag. You have to develop a relationship with a sales associate at a particular Hermès store, and the sales associate really gets to decide, if there's availability, whether or not you get offered a bag. Bhandari became intrigued by online communities where people discuss the best strategies for obtaining a Hermès. So when US retailer Walmart launched a bag in late 2024 that looked very similar to a Birkin, and the internet went wild, Bhandari was fascinated. She began to see posts on TikTok discussing the bag. First, it was fashion accounts talking it up, but then a backlash began, with some users criticising those who would spend thousands on a real Birkin and praising the 'Wirkin' as a way to make an iconic design accessible to regular people. Bhandari sees this as an example of an accelerating form of anti-elitism taking hold within parts of online culture. @chronicallychaotic_ Why aren't people ashamed and embarrassed to flaunt wealth? ♬ original sound – Chronically Chaotic In February, the chief executive of Hermès, Axel Dumas, admitted that he was 'irritated' by the Walmart bag and that the company took counterfeiting 'very seriously'. The Walmart bag quickly sold out, and no more were put on sale. It has since entered into a partnership with a secondhand luxury resale platform called Rebag, meaning customers can buy real Birkins secondhand through Walmart's online marketplace. The Conversation approached Hermès for comment on the Walmart bag, and to confirm how the company decides who is eligible to buy a Birkin. Hermès did not respond. DM This story first appeared in The Conversation. Gemma Ware is the Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation. Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast to hear our conversation with Parul Bhandari and Aarushi Bhandari, plus an introduction from Nick Lehr, arts and culture editor at The Conversation in the US. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How trafficked American guns fuel Mexico's cartel violence
More than two thirds of guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes originate in the U.S. For decades, Mexico has struggled with staggering levels of gun violence fueled in large part by weapons trafficked across its northern border. Now an investigation published by The Conversation has arrived at a new estimate of the scale of this illicit gun trade between the U.S. and Mexico in 2022: 135,000 guns. Investigative journalist Sean Campbell and Topher McDougal, a professor of economic development at the University of San Diego, spent a year combing through multiple databases and court documents and conducting interviews to understand how the flow of guns works. Their investigation reveals where in the U.S. the guns are coming from, what impact these American guns are having in Mexico, and how difficult it is for American law enforcement agencies to prosecute those trafficking guns across the border. Listen to Campbell and McDougal talk about their investigation on The Conversation Weekly podcast. You can read the full investigation here. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Newsclips in this episode from PBS News, CGTN, France24, ABC 7 and NewsNation. Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Gemma Ware, The Conversation Read more: Guns in America: A liberal gun-owning sociologist offers 5 observations to understand America's culture of firearms Guns bought in the US and trafficked to Mexican drug cartels fuel violence in Mexico and the migration crisis Gun trafficking from the US to Mexico: The drug connection Sean Campbell and Topher McDougal do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A Michigan research professor explains how NIH funding works − and what it means to suddenly lose a grant
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has terminated more than US$2 billion in federal grants, according to a public source database compiled by the scientific community, and it is proposing additional cuts that would reduce the $47 billion budget of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, also known as the NIH, by nearly half. The effects of these cuts are being felt at top-tier public research institutions such as the University of Michigan. In fiscal year 2024, of the $2 billion in total research expenditures at the university, $1.2 billion came in through federal research grants, with $762 million from NIH alone. Brady West is a research professor at the University of Michigan who has been writing federal grant proposals for more than two decades. The Conversation U.S. spoke with him about what these cuts could mean for the university and scientific research in the U.S. going forward. This article is adapted from an interview Brady gave for the May 1 episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast. The University of Michigan's research arm includes 'soft money' institutes. What does that mean? Brady West: A soft money institute is one where the salaries are entirely funded by the research grants and contracts that they're able to obtain. This is the case for most of the research arm of the University of Michigan, which includes the Institute for Social Research where I work. The university sets the salary amounts for these positions, and the people filling them − whether faculty, staff or graduate students − have to raise the money to fund their salary. Teaching faculty, on the other hand, usually are paid from general university funds, which might come in from sources such as tuition, rather than grant funding. What is involved in applying for a grant from a federal institution like NIH? West: In my experience, it's an extremely competitive and stressful process. On average, I would estimate that it takes about a year to craft a research proposal from scratch. Applicants do background research, look at all the relevant work that has already been done in the field, summarize the articles that they've written, and sometimes do initial preliminary studies. They have to sell their research as connected to past work but still innovative, something that will move the science forward. Meanwhile, they're working with a team of research administrators, whose jobs at the university are funded by soft money, on things like creating a budget and determining what sort of supplies, equipment and additional personnel will be required for the research project. These administrators also help the applicant format and submit the proposal. How does NIH determine what proposals receive funding? West: Every proposal submitted to NIH gets reviewed by a panel of experts in that particular field, so your peers are the ones reviewing your proposal and deciding whether it should be considered for funding. Each panel is tasked with reviewing and scoring multiple proposals. About half of the proposals receive scores that do not warrant additional discussion for funding. The rest are scrutinized line by line. Those with the best scores, based on their merits as well as agency budgets and priorities, are ultimately awarded grants. All applicants are sent the reviewers' comments, and those not receiving funding may revise their proposal and resubmit. In my experience, few applications get funded the first time they are submitted, and most go through at least one round of revisions. I've found it generally takes about two years from the time you start writing a proposal to the time that you get funded. When did you learn that NIH and other federal grants were being rescinded at the University of Michigan? West: The first notice I received was in mid-February of 2025. I was wrapping up a federally funded study where we were looking at different ways of measuring sexual identity in surveys. That study was funded by a $160,000 grant from NIH. I received a notice from administrators for the National Center for Health Statistics – part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – that maintains the data I was working with. The email said my work was being reviewed for compliance with the president's executive orders and would be paused. I was lucky, because that particular grant was set to end at the end of February, so the project was nearly finished, and the paper was already written. And then over the following weeks, it was like a waterfall. I started hearing from colleagues who were working on grants related to climate change, vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, sexual identity, gender identity, DEI – all of the work related to that, I just heard story after story of these grants being ended on the spot. What does this mean for the researchers who lost their funding? What will they do now? West: These terminations put jobs at risk – not only the research faculty, but also the teams who were working on these projects and the administrators who helped format and submit the grants. One of my Ph.D. students received an email from NIH that simply said his grant has been terminated. So his source of support as a graduate student at the University of Michigan was gone in an instant. The University of Michigan has developed a new research funding program where you can apply for support if you've had your grant terminated, and your local department can help share the costs. My student is waiting to hear if he will receive some of that funding. This is a welcome development, but only a short-term solution to this problem. So right now, everybody's pivoting. Your first thought is, how can I write a proposal that's not going to have certain keywords in it? And that's just not a good way to do science. The University of Michigan is committed to doing the best possible science, but it's going to require some adaptation in terms of how to think about the proposal process. And, honestly, for the immediate future, part of being a scientist in the U.S. is getting a firm understanding of what the current administration wants to fund. Are you or your colleagues considering leaving the university? West: That's the million-dollar question. Do you decide to pack up your family and move to a different country? Do you shift to private industry? Do you wait it out for the next administration and hope that things swing back in a direction that's going to support the kind of work that you're doing? Those are the kinds of career decisions that people have to think about. Is the U.S. going to lose a lot of top-tier faculty at top-tier universities like the University of Michigan because of what's going on? That's a significant concern. Read more of our stories about Michigan. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Brady Thomas West, University of Michigan Read more: US colleges and universities have billions stashed away in endowments − a higher ed finance expert explains what they are Endowments aren't blank checks – but universities can rely on them more heavily in turbulent times Reducing diversity, equity and inclusion to a catchphrase undermines its true purpose Brady Thomas West has received funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Science Foundation.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Scam Factories: the inside story of Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds
Scam Factories is a special multimedia and podcast series by The Conversation that explores the inner workings of Southeast Asia's brutal scam compounds. The Conversation's digital storytelling and podcast teams collaborated with three researchers: Ivan Franceschini, a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne; Ling Li, a PhD candidate at Ca' Foscari University of Venice; and Mark Bo, an independent researcher. The researchers have spent the past few years interviewing nearly 100 survivors of these compounds and documenting the rise of the industry in Southeast Asia for a forthcoming book. Scam Factories will unfold across three multimedia articles and three podcast episodes this week. We'll update this page as more is published. Our first article explores how people are lured into the industry and what life is like inside the compounds, where scammers are forced to work long hours and are often subjected to violence. And in our first podcast episode, No skills required, our researchers travel to a village in Cambodia called Chrey Thom to see what these compounds look like. And we hear from two survivors, a Ugandan man we're calling George and a Malaysian woman we're calling Lee, about how they were recruited into compounds in Laos and Myanmar. Listen on The Conversation Weekly podcast. The Conversation contacted all the companies mentioned in this series for a comment, except Jinshui, which we couldn't contact. We did not receive a response from any of them. The podcast series was written and produced by Gemma Ware with production assistance from Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Sound design by Michelle Macklem. Leila Goldstein was our producer in Cambodia and Halima Athumani recorded for us in Uganda. Hui Lin helped us with Chinese translation. Photos by Roun Ry, KDA, Halima Athumani and Ivan Franceschini. Justin Bergman at The Conversation in Australia edited the articles in the series and Matt Garrow worked on the graphical elements of the stories. Series oversight and editing help from Ashlynne McGhee. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Where support for Germany's far-right AFD is growing and why
Germany is holding an election on February 23 and the contest is attracting an unusual amount of attention. That's because the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) is polling in second place on 20% of the national vote. Should the party end up with a vote share on this scale, it would be its best ever result in a national election. It would change the face of the German parliament and force mainstream parties into difficult questions about their longstanding refusal to work with extreme parties. The AFD's roots are in nationalistic and racist movements. It continues to take an ultra anti-immigration stance and, in this election, is calling for 'demigration' – effectively the deportation of migrants. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Rolf Frankenberger, an expert on right-wing extremism at the University of Tübingen in Germany, explains where the AFD draws its support from and what type of Germany it wants to return to. Frankenburger has found two clear trends in the geographical distribution of AfD voting. The first is common among far-right parties around the world: ' There are always exceptions, of course, but the main pattern is that around the big cities like Berlin, like Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Münster, Stuttgart, Munich, Frankfurt in these cities and their direct environment and suburbs, the AFD is less important. Whereas in the specific rural areas, like in Saxonia, in the Erzgebirge, in Baden-Württemberg, in the Black Forest, in Rhineland Palatinate, in the more rural areas, they have their strongholds.' The second, however, is unique to Germany. Support for the AFD is far more concentrated in the east of Germany. This region was the part of the country that made up the communist German Democratic Republic between 1949 and 1990, before German reunification. 'Reunification in Germany produced winners and losers. And in the view of many East German people – and much of it is true – there are inequalities that were produced by reunification.' These divisions are being exploited to push what Frankenburger terms a form of white supremacist, traditionalist 'Völkisch nationalism' – not a term that is well understood outside of Germany but which resonates heavily in domestic politics. 'And so the AFD comes in and says 'hey, there's something wrong with the state, there's something wrong with democracy, and there's something wrong with our heritage. So we have a strong German heritage. We have an identity, we have an idea and all the others are trying to destroy it'. So it's a kind of protest.' To find out more about narratives pushed by the AFD, listen to the interview with Rolf Frankenberger on The Conversation Weekly podcast. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Sound design was by Michelle Macklem, and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Clips in this episode from AFP News, AfD in English, DW News and Al Jazeera English. Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Rolf Frankenberger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
