De Dépendance Podcast

Ruha Benjamin on Imagination

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 08:39:30 +0000

In this episode, acclaimed sociologist and Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin joins De Dépendance Podcast for a compelling conversation on the occasion of her new book, Imagination: A Manifesto. Interviewed by historian Marianne Klerk, Benjamin explores how emerging technologies—especially algorithms and AI—shape inequality, and why we must treat imagination as a powerful site of struggle and possibility. If we hope to dismantle systems shaped by white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism, she argues, we must first learn to imagine the world anew.

Benjamin lays out a poetic yet pragmatic vision for worldbuilding—one that invites listeners to reflect on how their everyday choices help maintain or transform the status quo. She is joined by Sennay Ghebreab, Professor of Socially Intelligent AI at the University of Amsterdam and director of the Civic AI Lab, whose work investigates how artificial intelligence can be designed in service of equity and social justice.

Together, they delve into the politics of technology, the urgency of critical imagination, and the practical steps toward building fairer futures.

Lea Ypi on Indignity and the Fragility of Truth

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:21:40 +0000

In this episode, political scientist and philosopher Lea Ypi joins us to discuss the ideas behind her new book Indignity: A Life Reimagined. Named one of the world’s top ten thinkers by Prospect magazine, Ypi draws on her upbringing in communist Albania to examine the intertwined questions of freedom, democracy, memory, and political change. Building on the success of her memoir Free, Indignity blends philosophy and personal history to reimagine Europe’s past—from Ottoman aristocracy to the rise of modern Albania and Greece, and from war and communism to the global financial crisis.

In conversation with De Dépendance-editor Nuria Ribas Costa, Ypi reflects on what it means to survive in an age of extremes, exploring the fragile boundary between truth and narrative, fact and fiction. Together, they confront difficult questions about moral judgment, inherited histories, and what the crises of liberal democracy might teach us about our present moment.

Grace Blakeley on Vulture Capitalism

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 10:56:29 +0000

In this episode, De Dépendance editor Hani Salih sits down with political commentator, economist, and author Grace Blakeley to delve into the ideas behind her new book Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom. Blakeley argues that today’s economic, social, and democratic crises aren’t signs of a system in collapse, but the intended outcomes of a capitalist model functioning exactly as designed. From JPMorgan to Boeing, and from Henry Ford to Richard Nixon, she traces how free-market ideology has empowered corporations and undermined democracy. Together, they explore what it would take to turn the tide and reclaim control over our collective future.

Nikole Hannah-Jones on Democracy, Resistance and the Politics of Memory

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 08:21:38 +0000

In this episode, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and creator of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, joins us for a powerful conversation on the state of American democracy. At a moment when history itself is being rewritten for political ends, Hannah-Jones reflects on how the stories a nation tells — and those it chooses to forget — shape its democratic foundations. Together with moderator Hani Salih, she unpacks the struggle over narrative, the power of memory, and what it takes to defend democracy when its core ideals are under siege.

Meredith Whittaker on Signal, Surveillance & AI

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:17:02 +0000

In this episode, we welcome Meredith Whittaker, President of the Signal Foundation and one of the world’s leading tech critics, for a powerful conversation on privacy, surveillance, and the future of technology. Whittaker, who also co-founded the AI Now Institute, shares her insights on how surveillance and AI are deeply intertwined, and how tech giants profit from large-scale data extraction. She highlights Signal as a radical alternative—a privacy-focused, non-profit messaging app that challenges the dominance of surveillance capitalism. Joined by Evelyn Austin of Bits of Freedom, Whittaker discusses how current tech infrastructures shape our lives, the urgent need for oversight in AI deployment, and what it takes to build digital tools that truly serve the public good.

LIVE: The Big Con w/ Rosie Collington

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 13:04:02 +0000

In this episode, we dive into The Big Con, the provocative book by economists Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington, which exposes the deep entanglement between the consulting industry and the modern management of business and government. From McKinsey to PwC, the authors argue that these firms don’t just advise—they shape policy, stifle innovation, and erode accountability. In this lecture by Rosie Colington, followed by a discussion with professor of public administration Martijn van der Steen, we unpack how decades of privatization, financialization, and risk aversion have empowered consultancies to act as unchallenged arbiters of expertise, often to the detriment of the public good. Collington calls for a bold reimagining of how we build capacity within our institutions, shifting from outsourced dependency to collective intelligence—reclaiming the promise of both democracy and innovation.

LIVE: The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule w/ Angela Saini

Wed, 28 May 2025 08:10:00 +0000

In this episode, we’re joined by award-winning science journalist Angela Saini to discuss her bold and timely book: The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule. In this interview with historian Marianne Klerk, Saini traces the deep and complex roots of patriarchy — from the world’s earliest known human settlements to modern-day societies. Drawing on cutting-edge research in archaeology, history, and science, she challenges the myth that male dominance is natural or inevitable, revealing it instead as a fragile construct that has been built, contested, and reshaped throughout history. Together, we explore how gendered inequality became entrenched across cultures, how it continues to shape our present, and why rethinking old narratives is crucial to imagining a more equal future.

LIVE: The Suspicion Machine w/ Gabriel Geiger, Miriyam Aouragh & Sofia Ranchordas

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:30:00 +0000

Across the world, experimental predictive algorithms are being deployed that promise to prevent welfare fraud. Now for the first time, an international team of journalists gained unprecedented access to one of these "suspicion machines" in the city of Rotterdam. An investigation by Lighthouse Reports, WIRED and Vers Beton demonstrates how governments all over Europe - and municipalities like Rotterdam - are deploying AI risk scoring systems in welfare fraud detection, revealing discrimination, wide-scale surveillance, and a trail of lives ruined. In this podcast investigative journalist Gabriel Geiger (Lighthouse Reports) shares what they uncovered and discusses it with media anthropologist Miriyam Aouragh (Westminster University London) and law Professor Sofia Ranchordas (Tilburg University). Examining Rotterdam’s welfare fraud algorithm they look at the serious flaws and biases it contains, the human impact caused by its decisions, and what it reveals about the future of AI.

LIVE: The 1619 Project w/ Nikole Hannah-Jones

Wed, 01 May 2024 09:23:38 +0000

In this episode we talk to Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones on her groundbreaking 1619 Project. The 1619 Project is The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning reframing of American history that places slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of the countries’ national narrative. It offers a revealing new origin story for the United States, one that helps explain not only the persistence of anti-Black racism and inequality in American life today, but also the roots of so much of what makes the country unique. The 1619 Project speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste that still define so much of American life today. It reveals the hidden truths around America’s founding and construction—and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life. And it provides important lessons and insights in relation to our own Dutch colonial past.

LIVE: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities w/ Davarian Baldwin

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode we listen to a lecture by and interview with urbanist and historian Davarian L. Baldwin on the occasion of his highly acclaimed book In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities. Urban universities play an important and outsized role in cities. They bring diverse ideas and people together and they generate new innovations. But they also gentrify neighbourhoods and exacerbate housing inequality in an effort to enrich campuses and attract students. They often become the main employers, dictating labour practices and suppressing wages. And they increasingly occupy real estate positions in vulnerable communities. Together with Davarian Baldwin and De Dépendance editor Farid Tabarki we will discuss the relationship between universities and our cities. What is the role of higher education in shaping our urban environment? And how do we ensure that they actually contribute to a just and vibrant city?

LIVE: How Food Can Save the World w/ Carolyn Steel

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 11:26:29 +0000

In this podcast we will listen to a lecture by Carolyn Steel, architect and author of the award-winning Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives and Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World. From our foraging hunter-gatherer ancestors to the enormous appetites of modern cities, food has shaped our bodies and homes, our politics and trade, and our climate. Whether it’s the daily decision of what to eat, or the monopoly of industrial food production, food touches every part of our world. But by forgetting its value, we have drifted into a way of life that threatens our planet and ourselves. Yet food remains central to addressing the predicaments and opportunities of our urban, digital age.

Drawing on insights from philosophy, history, architecture, literature, politics and science, as well as stories of the farmers, designers and economists who are remaking our relationship with food, architect and writer Carolyn Steel offers a provocative and exhilarating vision for change, and how to thrive on our crowded, overheating planet.

LIVE: Climate Politics w/ Heleen de Coninck

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 07:30:00 +0000

Twelve months. That is the time the world now has for global greenhouse gas emissions to start to fall. If not, we will miss the chance to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. According to the 2022 report on mitigation by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the world can still hope to stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown, but only through a “now or never” dash to a low-carbon economy and society. Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025, and should be nearly halved this decade, to give the world a chance of limiting future heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. It is in effect a final warning for governments on the climate. So now what? Together with IPCC Lead Author and Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation and Climate Change Heleen de Coninck we will navigate through the latest climate science and what it should mean for our climate policies. What agency do we still have to turn things around? Could cities be the forerunners in the transformations we need? And as our planet is heating up: why are climate politics still frozen?

LIVE: Invisible Child w/ Andrea Elliott, Bowen Paulle & Cody Hochstenbach

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this live episode we talk to Andrea Elliott on the occasion of her Pulitzer Prize winning book 'Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City'. Elliott is an investigative journalist for The New York Times whose work documents the lives of people on the margins of power. Based on nearly a decade of reporting, Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, whose story has become emblematic of America’s most wicked and growing urban problems: segregation, poverty and systemic inequality. It reveals the reality of child homelesness in New York City, and lays bare a strata of society far too often ignored. So what can we learn from Elliott’s vivid and powerfull narrative? Joined on stage by sociologist Bowen Paulle and urban geographer Cody Hochstenbach we analyse and unpack the power structures and unequal systems within which people become trapped, and its impact upon households and communities. And we look into concrete solutions and policies to tackle the divide.

LIVE: The Precariat w/ Guy Standing

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

In this live edition of De Dépendance Podcast labour economist Guy Standing gives a short lecture on his book ‘The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class’. In it he provides a detailed understanding of how the situation of precarious employment affects the lives of the “Precariat”: the rapidly growing number of people facing lives of insecurity, on zero-hour contracts, moving in and out of jobs that give little meaning to their lives. Standing investigates this growing group, finding a frustrated and angry new underclass who are often ignored by politicians and economists. We have started to work more and more, and get less and less in return. But how did we end up here? And is there a way out?

LIVE: Work Won't Love You Back w/ Sarah Jaffe

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

In this live edition of De Dépendance Podcast we listen to a short lecture by journalist Sarah Jaffe on her book Work Won’t Love You Back – How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone. The last decade has seen a seismic shift in attitudes towards work and the idea of labour. Whether it is through the rise of the gig economy, the rapid proliferation of the new creator economy, or the pandemic-induced break from traditional office culture: work has seeped into our private lives, literally invading our homes. Meanwhile, more and more of us are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do work we enjoy. It has led to the idea that certain work is not really work, and should be done for the sake of passion rather than pay. So what is wrong with this ‘labour of love’ myth? And how can we fundamentally transform our perceptions of work?

LIVE: Educational Inequality w/ Bowen Paulle

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 07:00:00 +0000

In this special live edition of De Dépendance Podcast we listen to a short lecture by sociologist Bowen Paulle on one of the most pressing social issues of our time: educational inequality. In the past education has long served the function of being the 'great equaliser': not your origin or social class, but your talent and effort would determine your level of schooling and future prospects in society. But this engine of emancipation is grinding to a halt. Where you are born and the educational level of your parents increasingly determines the opportunities you get in life. And this growing inequality of opportunity tends to perpetuate or even reinforce itself: it stops intergenerational mobility. So what to do? What are the best practices, scalable solutions and concrete policies to tackle the current divide? And who should take the lead?

Big Ship Capitalism w/ Laleh Khalili

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode we talk to Professor of International Politics Laleh Khalili on the occasion of her latest book Sinews of War and Trade, Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula. Khalili travelled the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean aboard gigantic container ships to investigate the secretive and sometimes dangerous world of maritime trade. What she discovered was strangely disturbing: brutally exploited seafarers, heavily securitized cargo ports, and often unseen environmental catastrophes. From her research riding the sea lanes, Khalili exposes the frayed and tense sinews of modern capital, and shows that maritime transportation is not simply an enabling adjunct of trade, but a central node within our economic system.

The Housing Crisis w/ Leilani Farha

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 13:00:00 +0000

In this episode we will talk about one of the most pressing urban issues of our time: the housing crisis. Our guest is Leilani Farha, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing and director of The Shift, a global movement to secure the human right to housing. Farha is also the central character in the acclaimed documentary PUSH regarding the financialization of housing. We will discuss why this housing crisis is predominantly a human rights crisis, what the systemic causes behind the growing shortages of affordable residential real estate are, and what we can do to turn the tide.

Automation and the Future of Work w/ Aaron Benanav

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000

In this episode we talk to economic historian Aaron Benanav, researcher at Humboldt University Berlin, where he studies the history of unemployment and global labour markets. We will discuss his latest book, Automation and the Future of Work, which is a consensus-shattering account of automation technologies and the falling demand for labour. Benanav argues that Silicon Valley titans, techno-futurists, and politicians from all sides of the political spectrum are wrong when claiming that we are on the cusp of an era of runaway technological change, heralding the end of work as we know it. We will examine why they are wrong, how this dominant belief system came about, and what the real-world, problematic implications of this rhetoric are. And if not technology is destroying our jobs, what is?

Building for Hope w/ Marwa al-Sabouni

Fri, 10 Sep 2021 09:30:00 +0000

In this episode we talk to Syrian architect and urban thinker Marwa-al-Sabouni. When war enveloped her city, Homs, she refused to leave and remained a virtual prisoner in her home for two years. In her autobiography, The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria, al-Sabouni analyses how architecture and city planning have played a role in fueling violence and civil conflict by distorting community relationships and fragmenting societies. In her most recent book, Building for Hope: Towards an Architecture of Belonging, she explores how cities and buildings might and should be rebuilt in the aftermath of war, and what tangible lessons we can draw from the history, culture, and architecture of Syria. We will discuss how the built environment was a factor leading to war and which urban reconstruction strategies will benefit the city the most. And we will talk about life in contemporary Syria.

Islands of Abandonment w/ Cal Flyn

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode we talk to journalist and author Cal Flyn on the occasion of her book Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape. In the book Flyn travels to the most desolate places on earth: ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and post-industrial hinterlands – and describes what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its space. She offers profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, how should we relate to nature, and how far can our damage to the environment be undone?

The Innovation Complex w/ Sharon Zukin

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 06:00:00 +0000

In this episode we talk to sociologist Sharon Zukin about an intrinsically urban phenomenon we have been witnessing all around us over the past decade: The rise of start-up ecosystems, tech hubs, accelerators, and venture capital investors which have transformed the city into what Zukin calls an ‘Innovation Complex’, which is also the title of her latest book. We will be talking about its origins, the main species inhabiting this new ecosystem, and the often negative effects on the livability of our cities. And we will talk about the belief system that underpins it. How did it become such a powerful narrative for city governments to follow?

The Good Ancestor w/ Roman Krznaric

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 06:00:00 +0000

In this episode we talk to philosopher Roman Krznaric on the occasion of his latest book The Good Ancestor – How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World. In the book he argues that we live in an age dominated by the tyranny of short-term thinking. We have unlearned how to empathize with future generations and suffer from political presentism: a bias towards prioritizing short-term political interests and decisions. How did we end up here? What can we do to become good ancestors? And how do we translate long term-planning and inter-generational thinking into significant political practice?

The Feminist City w/ Leslie Kern

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 06:00:00 +0000

In this episode we will be talking to Leslie Kern, associate Professor of Geography and Environment at Mount Allison University, on her latest book Feminist City, Claiming Space in a Man-made World. In the book Kern offers a way of understanding how gender bias and sexism functions in the built environment, and how this environment has been set up to support and facilitate traditional gender roles, and with men’s experiences as the norm. In this interview we will explore how this manifests itself on our streets, in our public spaces , and in our transit systems. And we will talk about the urban strategies we have to transform this city. From a city of men, into a city for everyone.

The Future We Choose w/ Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac

Wed, 26 May 2021 06:00:00 +0000

In this episode we talk to Christiana Figueres and Tom-Rivett-Carnac. Christiana Figueres is the former UN climate chief and the architect and public face of the most pivotal climate agreement in history, the Paris Agreement. Tom Rivett-Carnac was Chief Political Strategist for this same agreement. Together they wrote a book – The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis – on what can still be done stave off the worst and manage the long-term effects of climate change. They show us that amidst the doomsday reports there are reasons to be hopeful, that some sectors - like power generation and light transport - are transforming quickly, that global mindsets are shifting, and that cities could be the forerunners in the transformation we need. They provide a cautionary but also an empowering account on the agency that we still have to turn things around.

Rentier Capitalism w/ Brett Christophers

Wed, 12 May 2021 07:29:00 +0000

In this first episode we talk to Brett Christophers, Professor of Social and Economic Geography at Uppsala University, on his latest book Rentier Capitalism. The book is a sweeping critique of early twenty-first-century capitalism in which ownership of key types of scarce assets - such as land, intellectual property, natural resources, or digital platforms - is dominated by a few unfathomably wealthy companies and individuals: rentiers. We talk about what such an economy entails and how an explosion of rent-seeking businesses has led to growing wealth and income inequality, declining productivity and innovation, and falling rates of investment. And we look for answers on what can be done to overcome it, and the ways in which cities could play a role in this.