TRANSITION Podcast

In our podcast, we dive into ongoing work at the centre through conversations between researchers. 

Each episode takes a concrete point of departure – empirical case material, methodological reflections, theoretical entry points – and uses it to explore how rural-urban transitions take shape in people’s lives. As such, our podcast also offers insights into ideas, concepts, and perspectives that shape how we do research.

The episodes are in Danish.

Episode 1 – Fortællinger fra arkivet: Egodokumenter som historiske kilder

(Stories from the archive: ego-documents as historical sources)

In the first episode, Director of Centre Pia Quist is joined by historian and TRANSITION postdoctoral researcher Kristian Aarup to explore the National Museum’s Ethnological Surveys (NEU) – a unique archive of personal writings from the twentieth century. Reflecting on the potentials and limitations of this unique research data, they discuss how ordinary people experienced mobility, rural-urban encounters, and everyday life during a period when Denmark was shifting from being an agrarian society to an urban one.

Hear the first episode (also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts).

Episode 2 – Sprog som data: hvad dialekter fortæller om sociale forandringer

(Language as Data: What Dialects Tell Us About Social Change)

In the second episode, Pia Quist speaks with sociolinguist and TRANSITION Lead Investigator Malene Monka about how language can be used to study societal change. Taking the Dialect Archive and the LANCHART corpus as points of departure, the conversation explores how dialects and linguistic variation reflect mobility, social transformation, and everyday life in the twentieth century. Pia and Malene also reflect upon how transitions can be traced through the ways people speak – and how linguistic sources make it possible to follow change across time, place and lived experience.

Hear the second episode (also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts).

Episode 3 - Mellem by og land: mobilitet i dansk litteratur

(Between City and Countryside: Mobility in Danish Literature)

In the third episode, Pia Quist and literary scholar and TRANSITION postdoc Christian Steentofte Andersen talk about how literature can help us understand movement between city and countryside. Taking Thomas Boberg’s novel Insula as one point of departure, the conversation explores counter urbanization, rural gentrification, and the hopes and conflicts that can arise when people leave the city to build a life elsewhere. Pia and Christian also reflect on how literature can reveal questions of belonging, power, and local change – and how urban and rural places are connected through people, ideas, capital, and cultural imaginaries.

Listen to the episode below or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.