Society & Cultures

Lives parked on the Valencia F1 circuit

On the grounds of an abandoned racetrack, an organised yet precarious settlement the Spanish city of Valencia would rather not see

Who gets to keep their name?

In Japan, the decades-long debate over allowing married couples to keep separate surnames has become a political stalemate

Journalism in Burkina Faso: “submit or disappear”

What the kidnapping of two leading figures in Burkina Faso's independent press says about media repression

One must cultivate one’s own garden

In a working-class suburb of Paris, a decades-old allotment area is under threat. The fight to save the Jardins ouvriers des Vertus is more than just a tussle between gardeners

When the house always wins

As Thailand makes casinos legal for the first time in decades, Tawan Manakul argues that moral outrage misses the point Gambling has been around as long as people have been

The delirious mythology of Italian brainrot

How AI chimeras, absurd nursery rhymes, and Gen Z humour has birthed a chaotic new online aesthetic Even in a world overrun by online content, the viral surge of so-called

The digital death spiral

What happens when an influencer turns their mental illness and euthanasia plans into viral content? In this unsettling longread, Maud Effting and Haro Kraak investigate the rise of Ghanaian-British influencer

Mbabane: A cow for a king in Eswatini

As the time for the annual emaSwati ritual approaches one resident questions whether this tradition is merely a spectacle or a tool for the political elite

Bamburu Awith (The wasps are here)

The film that still resonates in contemporary Sri Lanka, half a century after it was made

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