Amber Worlds Podcast (2026)
The Amber Worlds Podcast is a five-episode series produced as part of the Amber Worlds: A Geological Anthropology for the Anthropocene project at the University of Oslo. Each episode explores some of the project’s central themes and main fieldsites: amber and violence in a historical and anthropological perspective, extractivism and ethnic politics in Burma, artisanship and the state in Chiapas, heritage and scientific research in Lebanon, and trade and development in China.
The podcast is hosted and edited by me and with the kind support of the European Research Council and the UiO: Energy and Environment initiative.
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.
(An amber shop in Gdańsk, Poland. Photo by Alessandro Rippa).
Dany Azar is a palaeontologist and amber expert at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palae-ontology (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.
(Unearthing amber during a field excursion in Mount Lebanon. Photo by Leni Charbonneau).
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.
(Miner entering an amber mine in Simojovel, Chiapas, 2024. Photo by Sarah Møller Christensen).
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.
(Polishing amber in Waimaw/Waingmaw, Kachin State. Photo by Alessandro Rippa).
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.
(Processing Fushun amber. Photo by Yayi Zheng).