The Conversation Documentaries (formerly The Anthill) is podcast from The Conversation. Our documentary series cover everything from science to the environment, politics, culture and economics. We unearth new stories from the world of academia and talk to experts to shed light on some of the big questions of today. The Conversation is a not-for-profit independent media organisation and our journalists work with academics to help share their research knowledge with as many people as possible.
Latest episodes
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25 min
6 | The Making of One Nation: seize the moment?
One Nation didn't emerge in a vacuum, then or now.The global surge in right-wing populism has propelled the party and thirty years on, it’s arguably stronger than ever.But is its p…
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25 min
5 | The Making of One Nation: master the media
The media made Pauline Hanson and One Nation, but now the party holds all the power.It’s a perfect storm for democracy: a shrinking and cowering traditional media, the toxic algori…
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19 min
4 | The Making of One Nation: move the centre
It’s never held government, or even opposition, yet One Nation’s managed to exert an outsized influence on the public policy agenda.From borders to migration, multiculturalism to I…
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20 min
3 | The Making of One Nation: survive a scandal
We’d all like deeply considered policy and informed debate to be at the heart of politics, but unfortunately controversies and scandals tend to steal the show.For most parties, sca…
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20 min
2 | The Making of One Nation: define the enemy
You might remember this line in Pauline Hanson's maiden speech: "I'm afraid we're in danger of being swamped by Asians."It wasn't the first racist comment she'd made in public and…
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25 min
1 | The Making of One Nation: enter the outsider
Listen to the full series by searching and following 'The Making of One Nation'(click here for Spotify or Apple.)Nearly thirty years on, Hanson's infamous maiden speech — warning t…
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2 min
The Making of One Nation: coming soon
Search for "The Making of One Nation" and follow now.From a fish and chip shop in regional Queensland to the heart of Australian politics: this is the unlikely story of the country…
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19 min
The Making of an Autocrat: co-opt the military
In November, six Democratic lawmakers recorded a video directed at members of the US military and intelligence agencies. In it, they issued a blunt reminder:"The laws are clear: [……
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15 min
The Making of an Autocrat: suppress the people
The list of people Donald Trump has punished or threatened to punish since returning to office is long. It includes the likes of James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, as well as…
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17 min
The Making of an Autocrat: beat the courts
In democratic systems, the courts are a vital check on a leader’s power. They have the ability to overturn laws and, in Donald Trump’s case, the executive orders he has relied on t…
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15 min
The Making of an Autocrat: manufacture a crisis
Donald Trump has sounded the alarm, over and over again, that the United States is facing an “invasion” by dangerous gang members. He blames immigrants for the country's economic p…
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16 min
The Making of an Autocrat: recruit an architect
Every autocrat needs a clan of loyalists, strategists, masterminds – these are the figures behind the scenes pulling the strings.They’re unelected and unaccountable, yet they wield…
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17 min
The Making of an Autocrat: hijack a party
We used to have a pretty clear idea of what an autocrat was. History is full of examples: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today. T…
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1 min
The Making of an Autocrat, coming soon
We used to have a pretty clear idea of what an autocrat was. History is full of examples: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today. T…
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45 min
Scam Factories Ep 3: Great Escapes
Every day that he was locked up in a scam compound in Southeast Asia, George thought about how to get out. "We looked for means of escaping, but it was hard," he said. Scam Factori…
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39 min
Scam Factories Ep 2: Inside the operation
A few weeks after Ben Yeo travelled to Cambodia for what he thought was a job in a casino, he found himself locked up in a padded room. “It’s a combination between a prison and a m…
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34 min
Scam Factories Ep 1: No skills required
Scam factories is a special three-part series taking you inside Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds. Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to work in these scam factori…
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32 min
Know Your Place part 5: the real class divide
The neglect of working-class voters in the past few decades has had profound consequences for British political life. Disillusioned with the two main parties, many have turned to N…
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30 min
Know Your Place part 4: a working class parliament?
After the 2024 election, the British parliament looks very different, with a large Labour majority for the first time in more than a decade. Several cabinet ministers come from wor…
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35 min
Know Your place part 3: what class means now
In the third part of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics, we explore how class is defined and measured, and how the UK’s changing class identity interacts w…