Amber Worlds Podcast

The AMBER team during a visit to the Museum of the Earth, in Warsaw. Photo: Alessandro Rippa

In this five-episode podcast series, Sarah Møller Christensen speaks with members of the AMBER team and some of their key interlocutors. Together, they explore some of the project's central themes and main fieldsites: amber and violence in historical and anthropological perspective, extractivism and ethnic politics in Burma, artisanship and the state in Chiapas, heritage and scientific research in Lebanon, trade and development in China.

The podcast series was designed and produced by Sarah Møller Christensen, with the support of the European Research Council and the UiO: Energy and Environment initiative.

Episodes

  • Episode 1: Alessandro Rippa and Rachel King 

    Rachel King is an art historian and curator at the British Museum who has extensive experience working with and writing about amber. Together with Alessandro, they explore what it means to study amber from a variety of perspective, and about what amber can reveal about our world today.

  • Episode 2: Leni Charbonneau, Dany Azar, and Sibelle Maksoud

    Dany Azar is a palaeontologist and amber expert at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGPAS) in China. Sibelle Maksoud is a geologist and micropalaeontologist at the Lebanese University in Beirut. Together, they have found and studied numerous amber outcrops in their native Lebanon, and with Leni they discuss the politics of knowledge production around amber in the Middle Eastern country.

  • Episode 3: Delazkar Rizo Gutierrez and Luis Alonso Mijangos

    Luis Alonso Mijangos is an artisan and director of the Museum of Amber, Lilia Mijangos, in San Cristóbal de las Casas where this episode was recorded. Together with Delázkar and Sarah, they discuss how Chiapas amber moves from mines to markets, how this movement is shaped by questions of class, gender and ethnicity, and how amber has come to be seen as part of the national identity of Mexico.

  • Episode 4: Laur Kiik and Seng Li

    Seng Li is a Kachin researcher and human rights activist, based in Thailand. Together with Laur, they talk about the role of amber in the resource landscape of Kachin State, and within the ongoing military dictatorship and war in Burma more broadly.

  • Episode 5: Yayi Zheng and Shuhui Li

    Shuihui Li is an artist originally from Fushun, in north-east China, who has worked with local amber in her practice. Together with Yayi, they explore the presence and role of amber in Fushun’s post-industrial landscape, and how stories of amber can offer a different perspective to the city's past and present.