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Chasing a life never lived I love podcasts that take you on an historical journey and the BBC is doing a good job with this new series. After Death in the Ice Valley, a co-production with Norway’s NRK last year, No Body Recovered attempts a fresh take on a cold police case. This podcast examines the story of Mary Boyle, who was six years old in 1977 when she went missing in Ireland. Reporters Kevin Connolly and Maria Byrne delve into the archives in pursuit of Mary, whose body was never recovered. In the absence of new clues, they look back at “a life that was never lived” and explore the repercussions on her family, which found itself in the news spotlight at the time of the disappearance. (Irene Caselli, First 1000 Days correspondent) BBC Radio: No Body Recovered (listening time: 29 minutes)
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How your sadness became a private affair, and why that’s dangerous An explosive critique of how capitalism can victimise people with mental illness by British cultural theorist Mark Fisher, who died by suicide after struggling with depression. First, he argues, capitalism makes us ill from the grind of ‘work’. Then, pharmaceutical companies profit from our sickness. Finally, free market ideology persuades us we have everything to fix ourselves at our disposal; and too bad if we can’t. That Fisher died after writing this piece makes every word doubly biting. We urgently need a new politics of mental health, he writes, which recognises the role of the public space in breeding illness. Bravo. (Tanmoy Goswami, Sanity correspondent) Void Network: The Privatisation of Stress (reading time: 17 minutes)
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On navigating stereotypes In my last job at the University of Oxford I filmed a talented young student from Tottenham in north London, who was trying to explain why young people who have been told they would never get into Oxford should try anyway. Speaking on camera, he changed the tone and register of his voice in order to sound more like other people at the institution. Off camera - and perhaps seeing a peer in me - he laughed and said: "People should apply because Oxford is sick!" Coming as I do from a town in England (where growing up, we spoke mostly in slang) I wished I could have recorded his authentic voice and sentiment. Perhaps more people would feel comfortable in places like Oxford if they knew that not everybody there is ‘posh’ and privileged, or looks and sounds the same. This article reports new research on code-switching in the workplace, and even references guidelines for surviving police interrogation. This last topic, incidentally, is addressed in Lena Waithe’s debut film Queen & Slim - in cinemas now. (Nabeelah Shabbir, conversation editor) Harvard Business Review: The costs of code-switching (reading time: 8 minutes)

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