Sociological podcasting: radical hope, care and solidarity in a time of crisis

Sociological podcasting is a radical way of communicating scholarship and assisting in the kinds of knowledge production needed in a heightened period of political calamity. It is part of a vast body of scholarship, work and art produced to contest the grand narratives which have come to dominate our understandings of society. It has the potential to make more legible the interconnections that underpin our most pressing issues as a society. This article discusses its role as public sociology, looking at the work of Michael Burawoy as well as some of his critics such as John Holmwood, Avi Goldberg and Axel van den Berg. It also discusses its creativity in taking listeners beyond the (academic) written word, and its potential for resisting and countering 'presentism' (accounts of events that are unhistorical and contextfree). Sociological podcasting has the capacity to generate hope and care, and here the work of Patricia Hill Collins is seen as exemplary, as is the work of Bev Skeggs and the Solidarity and Care collective. The dialogical characteristics of sociological podcasting are strengthened by the possibility it offers of drawing on real life examples of events, people and collectives. The authors - the people who produce the Surviving Society podcast - are resistant to positioning such projects as anything other than a collective endeavour, but are also mindful that, as Black creatives, podcasters and academics, their method and praxis can be overexposed to processes of co-option, plagiarism and erasure.