Summariess

Every week, we publish three summaries of longer articles which have caught our eye in media beyond the Anglosphere, selected and summarised by our team, regular contributors, and guest editors – including stories recommended to us by you, our readers.

Find our summary archive below with links to the original pieces; sign up for our free newsletter Overheard to receive new summaries of articles from around the world as they come in each week; and recommend articles that have caught your eye by writing or messaging us direct.

Is another kind of livestock farming possible?

How a Brazilian farm operating on land seized by the Movement of Landless Workers in the 1990s is pointing the way to an alternative to modern industrial-scale livestock farming. When

From behind the digital curtain

In Indonesia’s digital shadows, LGBTQ+ voices are being hacked, harassed and silenced – often with the law’s blessing. In the dark corners of Makassar’s digital sphere, where anonymity should be

Quiet guardians of Venice’s living waters

In this intimate portrait of the sandolo and the boatmen who preserve Venice’s oldest waterborne tradition, Carola Cappellari and Lavinia Nocelli explore its fading yet resilient legacy of craft, rhythm

Provenance unknown

A Dutch journalist investigates the sale of illegally excavated pottery from ancient Greece NRC’s Theo Toebosch grew suspicious recently when he saw an ancient Greek drinking cup – an intricately

Ethiopianism: A political agenda or a four kilo entry ticket?

A critical reflection on the hollowing out of a historic term, and a plea for its renewal In a nation where politics is dominated by questions of identity and social

Seeing red

How the crimson blazer became a status symbol in 1990s Russia What do roosters have to do with fashion? And how did Tolstoy’s perfume smell? Fashion historian Marina Skulskaya traces

Habemus Papam

And just like that, it was all over, with a puff of white smoke. The film Conclave is no longer being as mercilessly advertised online. Fantapapa, the Italian website which

Truth under fire

Investigative journalists in North Africa are being hunted, hacked and harassed, but they haven’t stopped telling the truth A troubling wind is blowing across the world. From Europe to the

Autocrats against the academy

How Brazil’s last military junta set scientific progress back by targeting top scientists and systematically destroying the country’s research ecosystem The last few weeks have seen Donald Trump lambast and

Last exit before autocracy

As Turkey reels from the detention of leading opposition figure Ekrem İmamoğlu, a Turkish political scientist analyses why this is truly the last exit before autocracy Ok. Imagine a game

Between slums and skylines

A Vietnamese city planner reflects on a half a century of urban change from post-war reconstruction to headlong development Since even before the turn of the 21st Century, Southeast Asia

The word that travelled empires

What Trump’s favourite word reveals about centuries of empire, economy, and exchange. Donald Trump has proudly declared “tariff” his fifth favourite word. At this point, many (including him) consider the word

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