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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future

Animals and humans Anthropology Archaeology Automation and robotics Cities Demography and migration Economic history Economics Education Environmental history Fairness and equality Future of technology Gender Global history History History of technology Human rights and justice Information and communication Making Nations and empires Politics and government Poverty and development Progress and modernity Public health Race and ethnicity Religion The ancient world The environment The future War and peace Work

Dried ground leaves being poured from a scoop into a container indoors.

essay

Addiction

The kratom question

Millions are turning to an unregulated herbal extract to curb their opioid addiction. But do the risks outweigh the benefits?

Xi Chen

Vintage film poster with illustrated women underwater surrounded by bubbles text reads “Primitive and Exciting”.

essay

Public health

A very American fear

Moral panics about erotica have coursed through the country’s history. Why do so many Americans think of porn as harm?

Rebecca L Davis

Aerial photo of a winding river through lush green rainforest with dramatic cloud formations in the sky above.

essay

Public health

Hearts and brains

Humans always end up with clogged arteries, right? That’s not what the lives of the Tsimane in the Amazon basin tell us

Ben Daitz

A weary looking medical staff member in scrubs and face mask sits at a desk in a hospital room surrounded by medical paraphernalia

essay

Public health

It’s dirty work

In caring for and bearing with human suffering, hospital staff perform extreme emotional labour. Is there a better way?

Susanna Crossman

Female healthcare worker examines a tattooed man’s eye in a hallway decorated with colourful artwork.

essay

Economics

Who bears the risk?

Under the guise of empowerment and freedom, politicians and business are offloading lifethreatening risk to individuals

Suzanne Schneider

A colour illustration of a pool of water in which many people are swimming, glimpsed through trees, against a city skyline background

essay

Mental health

The right to bathe

Water is a great healer. Can New York’s public pools and ‘blue spaces’ be engineered for collective hydrotherapy?

Rebecca Hayes Jacobs

A drawing of a hand figure standing on its pointer and middle fingers with a smiley face. Behind is a cave with drawings of human shapes on the walls.

video

Sex and sexuality

For ages, solo sex was hardly taboo. What led to its centuries-long dry spell?

4 minutes

A woman and two children dressed in traditional First Nations clothing stand in front of a teepee structure

essay

Language and linguistics

Language is medicine

For First Nations people, health is not a matter of mechanical fitness of the body, but of language, identity and belonging

Erica X Eisen

Aerial view of a multi-level motorway with older classic cars driving on both upper and lower levels, and infrastructure such as railings and signs visible.

essay

Cities

Sick city

My dad grew up in Robert Moses’s New York City. His story is a testament to how urban planning shapes countless lives

Katie Mulkowsky

A group of people sit in a circle on the floor of a room with a stone wall, engaging in discussion; shoes are placed near the entrance.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Analysis for the people

Group therapy promised to be both democratic and radical, but it failed to take hold. Has its time finally come?

Jess Cotton

An illustration of people outside a building in winter, with snow-covered trees. Some are gathered around a vending machine, others sitting and looking at a diagram.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Tōjisha-kenkyū

This radical movement makes space for people with mental health and other challenges to study (and celebrate) themselves

Satsuki Ayaya & Junko Kitanaka

Art deco-style illustration of a person holding a flaming torch and a sword, with text “DON’T FIGHT CANCER ALONE” above on a blue and white background.

essay

Illness and disease

The war on cancer

Is it time to abandon the century-old idea that cancer is best met with a ‘fight’ from patients and their doctors alike?

Elaine Schattner

Medieval illustration showing a woman in bed, a child in a bassinet, and three adults interacting with children in a room with a patterned wall.

essay

History

Medieval babycare

From mansplaining about breastfeeding to debates on developmental toys, medieval parenting was full of familiar dilemmas

Katherine Harvey

A farmer stands by a rice paddy, surrounded by greenery and houses, under a clear blue sky.

essay

The environment

Our contaminated future

In Fukushima, communities are adapting to life in a time of permanent pollution: a glimpse of what’s to come for us all

Maxime Polleri

A group of people sitting at a wooden table outdoors, with their faces out of frame and a woman’s legs wearing red high heels behind them. A glass of wine, a bowl and a spoon sit on the table, blurred in the foreground.

essay

Addiction

Why we crave

The neuroscientific picture of addiction overlooks the psychological and social factors that make cravings so hard to resist

Zoey Lavallee

A doctor points at an X-ray on a monitor while conducting a video consultation with a patient who has a bandaged arm, shown on a second monitor.

essay

History of technology

Care from afar

For over a century telemedicine has promised healthcare for all. But will it ever replace seeing a human being in person?

Jeremy A Greene

Model of a grey building with a red door, surrounded by grass and small figurines, representing an institution.

video

Human rights and justice

The staggering cruelty of Ireland’s Church-run ‘mother and baby homes’

18 minutes

Vintage photo of an industrial mining site with smelter chimneys, horse-drawn carts, wooden buildings, and piles of materials.

essay

Environmental history

Contaminated kinship

If your hometown were beset with toxic dust, like Australia’s Broken Hill, would you feel any less connected to it?

Lilian Pearce

A person with prosthetic legs and a striped shirt standing by a glass door with a small dog inside a wood-panelled room.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

The humane asylum

As a society we are failing people with severe, persistent mental illness. It’s time to reimagine institutional care

Madeleine Ritts & Daniel Rosenbaum

Black-and-white photo of a teacher pointing to a diagram of the female reproductive system, students watching attentively.

essay

Education

Sex on the curriculum

Sex education is a battlefield over morals and young bodies, and has exposed fractures in American life for over a century

Kristy Slominski

Close-up of a person’s mouth and chin, wearing a headset with a microphone against a dark background.

video

Work

Emergency first responders meet chaos with dissonant calm in this gripping short

9 minutes

Black-and-white photo of a band performing on stage surrounded by a confused chaos of people.

video

Public health

When two punk bands came to a psychiatric hospital, beautiful chaos ensued

27 minutes

Aerial photo of a residential area with numerous houses, winding roads, small lakes and surrounded by green fields.

essay

Anthropology

Safety is fatal

Humans need closeness and belonging but any society that closes its gates is doomed to atrophy. How do we stay open?

David Napier

Black-and-white photo of traditional thatched huts lining a dirt road in a village, with a lone figure walking in the centre.

essay

Anthropology

Longhouse lockdown

On a regular cycle, the Nias islanders of Indonesia would retreat into enforced seclusion. What can we learn from them?

Andrew Beatty