Loughborough Institute of Advanced Studies Podcast

Professor Joel Stillerman - Identity Investments: Middle-class Responses to Precarious Privilege in Neoliberal Chile

IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Joel Stillerman delivers a seminar on their research -
This presentation provides an overview of conceptual and empirical arguments from the book, Identity Investments. It uses the concepts of identity investments and precarious privilege to understand Chile’s middle classes in contrast to other studies that emphasize opportunity hoarding and social mobility. Identity investments are deeply held values that motivate middle class market behaviour. The presentation will explore the identity investments of four middle class groups – activists, moderate Catholics, youngsters, and pragmatists, which differ in ideological orientation, age cohort membership, economic position, and residential location. Precarious privilege explains that identity investments reflect Chilean middle class families’ economic vulnerability as neoliberal policies generate job instability. Middle class families’ resources, political and ideological affiliations, age cohort membership, and neighbourhood residence explain variations in their identity investments. The study relies on interviews, participant observation, and photographs of homes in two Santiago, Chile communities and its results offer insights into Chile’s dramatic political changes.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Professor Ana Isabel Zermeño Flores - Rethinking Research Practices: Artificial Intelligence, Epistemic Biases, and Decolonization of Knowledge

IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Ana Isabel Zermeño Flores delivers a seminar on their research -
The Institute for Media and Creative Industries and the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at Loughborough University are delighted to host an IMCI Speaker Series talk by Prof. Ana Isabel Zermeño Flores
This discussion explores the intricacies that arise when individuals interact with artificial intelligence and digital technologies in the process of knowledge generation. Using a recent literature review as a case study, the potential presence of biases that might distort the studied reality and contribute to epistemic inequalities is investigated. Employing a reflexive approach informed by decolonial and feminist perspectives, various epistemic biases are uncovered, such as the invisibility of the knowing subject and biases in knowledge representation. These biases are not isolated incidents but rather part of a broader systemic issue that extends beyond specific scientific and technological practices. Ultimately, the complexity surrounding epistemic biases is highlighted, involving interconnected systems including scientific, technological, and institutional domains.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation - IMCI Speaker Series: Gestation and Storytelling

The Institute for Media and Creative Industries (IMCI) and the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at Loughborough University are pleased to present a Speaker Series on Gestation and Storytelling.
During this great round of conversations, three great women share their experience about how stories about gestation, reproduction, birth, and parenting are transmitted through generations and communities, framing the way people deal with carrying and caring life. They also discuss how mainstream channels (media, health systems, government, NGOs etc) proliferate stories about gestation that help (or not) the situation in the community level.
Our speakers are IAS Visiting Fellows Ms Mpume Gumede from South Africa, Dr Lindsay Barnes from India, and Dr Åsa Virdi Kroik from Sweden.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Justice - Dr Sophie Lewis

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Sophie Lewis delivers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Justice' as a site of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Justice - Dr Burçe Çelik

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', guest speaker Dr Burçe Çelik devliers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Justice' as a site of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Justice - Ms Nompumelelo Gumede

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Ms Nompumelelo Gumede devliers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Justice' as a site of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Justice - Introductory Remarks

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', Theme Co-Lead Dr Pandora Syperek introduces this roundtable session.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Justice' as a site of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Dr Luiza Prado

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Luiza Prado delivers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Dr Lindsay Jane Barnes

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Lindsay Jane Barnes delivers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Dr Åsa Virdi Kroik

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Åsa Virdi Kroik delivers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias