March 6, 2023 • 33 mins
Why is it challenging to tell our stories, even when we are deeply passionate about the subject matter? On today’s episode of The Ampersand, Sarah Sohkey, an associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado Boulder, reflects on her fascination with Russia, policy reversals and territories within the former Soviet Union and the strategies she has tried to convey her research to students, colleagues and the public. She also describes her efforts to transform undergraduate research, wishing she grew up in the 1980s, effective lying and more.
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For more information about Sohkey’s research on Russia and policy reversals, visit Sohkey’s faculty bio or Sohkey’s research page.
Learn about CU Boulder’s undergraduate STUDIO Lab.
Music by Nelson Walker.
Written and produced by Erika Randall and Tim Grassley.
Episodes recorded at Interplay Recording in Boulder, CO.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(crowd murmurs)
(bells toll)
- I imagine Sarah Sokheyin the fifth grade
hearing about the dissolutionof the Soviet Union
in the newspaper, her 10year old self enraptured
by a map that seemed to burstwith brand new countries.
As she traces the borders, hersense of the world explodes
beyond the boundaries ofwhere she grew up in Virginia.
(00:23):
From this moment, she commits to a career
understanding Russia and its politics.
I see her carving academic pathways
that flip the way highereducation goes about research,
so it's more equitable.
Sarah's commitment todiversity and inclusion
feels so natural and unassuming
it invites all of us to join in.
(bell tolling)
(00:43):
(marching footsteps begin)
I can't imagine someone sokind and curious as Sarah,
who was jealous of people who grew up
during the '80s and the Cold War.
She's an academic who thinksendlessly about Putin,
policy reversals, andplausible deniability.
And yet, despite exploring cynical moments
(01:04):
of human behavior, like reducing pensions
during a World Cup, she remains fascinated
by others' stories, andcommitted to equity.
As you'll discover in our conversation,
what intrigues me the most about Sarah
is that she doesn't color theheavy topics she discusses
with her own opinions,
she guides us to our own.
(gentle music begins)
(01:27):
On "The Ampersand," we call this
"Bringing Together the Impossible: The Alchemy of Anding." (01:28):
undefined
Together we'll hear stories of humans
who imagine and create bycolliding their interests.
Rather than thinking of an"and" as a simple conjunction,
in that conjunction junction kinda way,
we will hear stories of peoplewho see "and" as a verb,
a way to speak the beautiful
when you intentionally letthe soft animal of your body
(01:50):
love what it loves.
As St. Mary Oliver asks,"What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating, and collaborating,
it reminds me to replace a singular idea
of what I think I should become
with a full sensoryverb about experiencing.
I'm Erica Randall.
(02:12):
- And this is Sarah Sokhey.
- On "The Ampersand."
(gentle music fades)
- It's interesting because I was teaching
a big introductorycomparative politics class,
was like politics around the world,
class this past spring whenRussia invaded Ukraine.
(02:33):
And so, we weren't directlytalking about Ukrainian politics
or Russian politics, but Ibrought it into the class,
because how could I not,for a variety of reasons,
and was just very honestthat I found it devastating.
And in that case, we weren't always
talking about what was happening there,
that wasn't the topic of the class,
(02:54):
and that that wouldn't have made sense.
But, in that case, I think, too,
acknowledging that these are awful things
and we care about them, notfor abstract academic reasons,
but because people are dying,
and they're going to die because of this.
And I try to never lose sight of that,
because it's easy when you're an academic
and you're obsessed, onyour own, with a topic,
and you're just interested in it,
(03:15):
to forget that there's a real world,
and this impacts real people every day.
- And not just selling the material,
but do you ever feel likeyou have to sell yourself,
like show up as a humanmore in your research,
and with students, and how do you do that?
What does it look like tomeet the Sarah who knows,
"Whew, I'm gonna delivera hard lecture today.
I'm gonna share somereal world data on things
that are gonna impact all ofus in some way or another."
(03:37):
How do you show up as Sarah and how does,
I wanna know how you see yourself
separate from the academic.
Talk to me.
- Oh, that's such a good question.
I don't know if I have agood answer for it, though.
I think it's taken a long time
for me to get comfortable withme as myself in this role.
And sort of not like I'mjust going in and like,
(03:58):
"I'm gonna pretend to be a professor now."
I actually am a professor.
Or, I'm going to play this role
where I'm going to be very professional,
I'm not going to talk muchabout my personal life
or personal experiences.
But, at some point relativelyearly on when I was teaching,
I was talking to my partner and saying,
"I don't know how to getthem engaged in this.
I'm not sure how to get them interested."
And he said, "You goto Russia all the time,
(04:19):
you love Russia, tellthem about going to Russia
and tell them why you care about this."
- So what was the firststory you told about Russia?
- Oh gosh, I don't know whatthe first story I told was.
I mean, I told stories aboutmy experiences traveling there,
and mishaps with thehealthcare system there,
'cause I taught about theRussian healthcare system.
And I have very limitedexperience, personally,
with the Russian healthcaresystem, but a bit.
(04:40):
And so I told some of those stories,
or stories about peoplethere, things like that.
And I started, it took me a long time
to get comfortable,though, with figuring out
where my personal stories might fit in,
or where talking about myselfas a person might fit in.
But when I started to learn to do that,
I realized that I connecteda lot better with students,
but with other people in general.
(05:01):
And so that's been an evolving thing,
but it's not my natural go-to
to talk about my personal experiences,
or sort of the original,"Why I do what I do,"
or why I picked Russia.
And I have to very consciously,when I teach, think about,
"Oh, I should tell themhow I got into this."
- Well, I wanna know too.
I'm trying to imagine, was it,
(05:22):
I see you like in fifth grade,
and you're at your little desk,
and all of a sudden the Kremlin comes up,
and there's big eyed Sarah,like kind of red curly hair.
It's like, this is my life's work.
Like truly, when did this come to you?
Was it the onion tops of buildings?
Was it the farmland?
Was it the language?
Was it the literature?
- You know, it really sounds strange,
but honestly it was the politics.
(05:43):
And that sounds.
- Really, from fifth grade?
- About that age, yeah,that's about right.
But the first big political memory I had,
the first big event thatI really paid attention to
was the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
and it was because my family
hardly ever talked aboutworld events, or politics,
or anything like that.
And when this happened,they talked about it.
And I remember hearing, andthis wasn't quite right,
(06:05):
but I didn't understand,
that there were these brandnew countries on the map,
and they weren't from nowhere,they weren't brand new.
But to me there were thesebrand new countries on the map,
and this was going to changeworld politics forever.
And I saved, from my localpaper as a 10 year old,
the map of the new countries.
And I was really intrigued-
- This is just how I saw it in my mind.
(06:25):
This is exactly it.
Incredible, okay, keep going.
- And, so that's how Iinitially got interested in it.
And I have two older brothers,
and one of them happenedto take Russian language
at our public high school.
There just happened to besomeone who taught Russian
when he was there, and I just.
- Where was this?
- This was in Virginia.
There just happened to besomeone at our public high school
in Virginia Beach that taught Russian.
(06:45):
And I just thought thatwas the coolest thing.
I wasn't able to takeRussian in high school
by the time I got there,but my brother did that.
And then I'd had, this was myfirst big political memory,
and I was on my high school debate team.
And one of the topics for a whole year
was foreign policy with Russia.
And that just sealed the deal.
- Done, done.- It was done, it was done.
I was obsessed with this, andit really was the politics.
(07:07):
And then later I started toget into more of the culture,
but I really didn't knowwhat I was getting into,
because I was a kid and Iwas just learning about this
for the first time.
- What was it like,
that first time getting ona plane to go to Russia?
This thing, this like mysterious,impossible, mythical land?
- Oh, it was amazing.
I really had to talkmyself into it, though.
(07:27):
I had never been to a foreign country
before I went to Russia.
People in my familydidn't really travel much.
My parents don't have passports,they still don't today.
I had a brother that had gone
on some mission trips with the church,
and that was the only person I knew
who had gone to another country.
And so I had never been to Canada.
And so I really went all outfor that first foreign trip.
- You did.
(07:48):
- And in fact, I had aprofessor at the time who said,
"Well, you've never beento a foreign country.
Maybe you wanna do a summer program
that's not as long, maybe."
And I thought, "No, no, Iwanna go the whole semester.
I wanna do study abroad,this is what I wanna do.
- I wanna be there when it snows.
Not in the summer.
I wanna be there in a heavy coat coat.
- But I knew I didn't wannago for like a week or so.
I really wanted to go and do this,
but I really had to talk myself into it.
(08:11):
On the way there I wasso nervous about it,
but it was just amazing, I just loved it.
I had worked so hard to get there
and figure out how to do it.
I had to, the collegethat I went to didn't have
a study abroad program in Russia,
so officially I had totake a leave of absence.
I didn't get any credit for it.
- That's unreal.
- I paid for it myself.
(08:31):
- Oh my gosh.
- My parents weren't gonnapay for study abroad.
- And you knew this?
- And I knew, and so I hadworked at these odd jobs,
and saved up, and founda program I could afford,
which was relatively on the cheap.
- Were you staying with a family or?
- I stayed in a dorm forthe first week or so,
and then I had a hostfamily that I stayed with,
that I've known since then, since 2002.
(08:52):
- And did they cook for youand did you start to get,
so you said you knew the politics well,
and then the geography,and then came the culture.
- Yes.
- And with the culture comes food.
- Yes.
- So do you talk to yourstudents about the food?
And talk to me about it.
- You know, I don't, itjust doesn't occur to me to.
It honestly doesn't occur to me
to talk to them about the food.
- Okay, so I have a collaboratorI work with who's Russian,
(09:14):
and she speaks a lotin Russian in our work,
and I speak in English,
and we talk about Catholicguilt, and Jewish guilt,
and the two guilts.
And she talks about making Russian food
with her grandmother andher mother in the kitchen,
and what a sacred andterrible time that it is.
Do you have stories ofbeing in the kitchen
for the first time in Russia,
(09:35):
and what you ate, or whatyou smelled, or how they ate?
- Oh, I do.
It never occurred to me to dwell on it,
but absolutely I do, becausethere's certain things,
like dill goes on everythingin Russia, and I love dill.
Whenever I see dill or I smell it,
I just love it becauseit reminds me of that.
- So you should bringdill to your classroom.
Did you like dill before?
- I don't know, I honestly, I didn't,
(09:55):
I was not a foodie kind of person.
I didn't think about food a whole lot.
At the time that I first went to Russia,
I was also a vegetarian.
- Oh gosh.
- I know, and so they asked,
this host family didn't ask me,
but the person organizing it,
they were really concerned about this.
And they said, but what does she eat?
What can we give her that would be?
- Sarah leans in, but what does she eat?
(10:16):
- But what does she eat?
And it was really, it's funny to say now,
because it's not thatodd to be a vegetarian,
but it was, they weren'tsure how to broach it.
- So it wasn't that you were American,
it was that you were vegetarian.
- They had had lots ofstudy abroad students,
so the hosting a studentwas not new to them at all,
but the vegetarian part was a little,
and they were so nice about it.
It was, Larissa was my hostmom, was so nice about it.
(10:38):
And so lots of soups thatprobably had a meat base,
but I kinda looked the other way.
And I ate fish while I was there
was kind of my compromise as well.
But the Russian food thatI love and that I've eaten
is not fancy, highbrow,foodie, gourmet style food.
It's like, what I tell people,
(10:58):
which I think Russians find is very odd.
What makes me nostalgicare like the soups,
and the meat and potatothings, and the salads.
They make these little saladswhere everything's chopped up.
Like the beets are chopped up,
the potatoes are chopped up and all this.
So like when you say salad in Russian,
it means a wholly different thing
than if you said it in the US.
And cafeteria food.
Because that was what, you know?
(11:20):
That makes me very nostalgicfor it, for Russia,
is that kind of food,
or like the cheap food Iwould buy on the street,
'cause I never had a lotof money while I was there.
And so I was just sortof getting whatever,
it wasn't like I was goingto high-end restaurants
and eating the sort of best of the best
of Moscow's culinary world at the time.
But yeah.
- But it's the nostalgia.
(11:40):
I love, hoo, that's such a potent word
and how it attaches to scents,
and bringing that to food andthinking of it, the soups.
I think soup is a quintessentiallynostalgic situation.
- And there's things youdon't even think about,
like things like the wayyou cut the potatoes,
and the shape they're in in the soup.
(12:01):
Like, we don't do that here.
It's just a little bit different.
Or the way that you just make any of it,
or like putting a dollop ofsour cream on top of soup,
that's very Russian.
- And so there's something, too, then,
to the gestures that folks do
after watching the personbefore them cut the potatoes,
that they cut the potatoes the same way
and it creates a different shape.
The way that the body andthe function come together
to create nostalgia inyour life in America.
(12:24):
Now if you see a potatofloating in a soup,
that reminds you, that's so beautiful.
I thought of Russia for the first time,
I grew up Cold War era and being scared.
And then I remember WhiteKnights, and Baryshnikov,
and that Russia was aplace to leave as a dancer.
It was a place to leave andit was an exporter of things.
(12:46):
I thought of that sospecifically in my childhood,
particularly in the Nutcracker,
which was actually a ballet
about exporting coffee,and tea, and candy.
It was about gettingRussia out to the world.
People think of it as, oh, French,
and celebrating other nations.
But it's an interesting political ballet.
But I think of Russia and exporting,
(13:08):
and it's just so interestingto to hear you in Russia,
and I think of getting away from,
because that's what dancerswere doing in the eighties,
and changing the landscapeof dance in this country.
Besides White Knights,I have only terrible,
probably super tacky Russian memories
of Dr. Zhivago and my mother.
(Sarah laughs)
- I'm so jealous, though,
(13:29):
that you were paying attentionto Russia in the eighties,
because it was such an interesting time.
- Look, you're jealousof me from the eighties.
- And I really like, for thelongest time I was so sad
that I had not beenpaying attention to it,
I was a child, but.
- Were you alive in the eighties?
- I was born in '80.
- It's okay, I'm glad youweren't paying attention
and hiding under your desk.
- I probably should not have been.
(13:49):
- No, you should not have.
- You know, in early elementaryschool, and so I wasn't.
But it was such a fascinatingtime, and it's so interesting
to look back now and realizethat my awareness of Russia
started at a very unique time,
which was really when theSoviet Union dissolved.
And the nineties are sofascinating, but so unique.
(14:10):
And so the stereotypes from the eighties
I didn't really have in my head,
because my parents weren'treally talking about
the Soviet Union or Russia a lot.
And so I became awareof it in the nineties.
So nineties Russia to mewas the Russia I knew.
And then by the time Iactually went to Russia
in the early 2000s, in 2002,
things were going pretty well in Russia.
(14:32):
The economy was stable,oil prices were up,
it was safe to go.
It was relatively easy forAmericans to go to Russia.
And so I showed up and thought,
what in the world werepeople talking about?
What, this is great.- What's the big deal?
- It's safe.
It's, you know, and Moscow was,
it is not like the rest of Russia
is this big, rich, Europeancity, even in the early 2000s.
(14:53):
It was this unique momentthat I had a very different
view of Russia than people,even a few years older than me
who had more of the 1980s.
- But you had a cravingfor that eighties moment.
- Oh, I did.
I was so jealous of peoplethat got to be in Russia
when the coup attemptshappened in the early nineties.
- This is a normal feeling, Sarah.
This is a totally normal response.
(15:15):
- I really, I was like, "Oh,how great would it have been?"
And in fact, I thinkfor many of those people
it was quite traumatic.
And people who were doingresearch there, who are academics,
which is what I am now,it was like, oh my,
what's happening, and this isn't safe,
and how are we gonna keep doing research?
And it could have gone very badly,
and for a while, well, thenineties were fairly chaotic,
(15:35):
but it was, in some ways,
and I don't wannaoverstate the comparison,
but in some ways maybe a bit analogous
to what's happening now,
where there's this big thing happening,
that's very traumatic for a lot of people.
- So you don't see yourselfgoing anytime soon?
- I don't think that I can, anytime soon.
I periodically investigateif I technically could,
(15:56):
if I really tried, and maybeI could get into Russia.
I would have to get a visa,
and I'm not sure how thatwould work right now.
I ended my affiliation
with the Higher Schoolof Economics in Moscow,
which I had for a long time.
And right at this momentthat we're talking,
it wouldn't be safe, really,for me to go into Russia,
or try to go into Russia.
So I really don't knowwhat I'll do with that
(16:18):
or how my research will.
I've just sort of had tolet it evolve as it evolves.
And I'm honestly tryingto refocus my attention
more on Ukraine, andstudying Ukrainian politics,
even though I've always come from
this very Russian perspective.
It was interesting, you talkedabout the decolonization
in what you do.
There's people in my fieldwho talk about decolonizing
(16:40):
the kind of research politicalscientists do in the region.
And I've realized, through this conflict,
that taking this veryRussian centric perspective,
I mean this is a colonial imperial power,
and you're taking aperspective of the one biggest,
most powerful country,
at the expense of reallyunderstanding other countries.
(17:00):
And I'm still wrapping my headaround how I need to change,
how I do research to thinkabout it differently.
- That's a huge and potent charge,
and it seems like it's alignedwith the work you're doing
in Studio Lab, in kind of flipping
the way we think about gettingstudents engaged in research
and getting anyone engaged in research
from a diversity, and equity,and inclusive perspective.
(17:21):
And again, here, through ampersanding,
which is what Erica'sbrain does all the time,
you are able to connecta need in this country,
and in our community ofstudy, and in your area,
and in social sciences atlarge, and flip a model
to first put equity, anddiversity, and inclusion.
It's the first thing that we're looking at
(17:42):
when we're thinkingabout how you developed,
with your colleagues,
a lab to get students engaged in research.
This is usually partof a litany of things,
but as the organizing principle,
it's such a cool way to getstudents to end with research
and change the planet.
Can you just even tellme what was that moment,
(18:02):
as you are thinking aboutrefocusing your research
into Ukraine and looking at thecolonizing forces of Russia,
where they aligned for you,
with the way you werethinking about setting up
teaching opportunities?
- It was, initially I wanted to change
how we were teaching studentsin the social sciences
in regards to research.
And I saw this really,
initially I didn't evenhave the DEI component
(18:24):
fully in my head.
It was sort of in thebackground, because I started,
the very early pilot ofthis was the summer of 2019.
And I wanted to change how we did research
in the social sciences,because it seemed to me
that we were really underutilizing
and under incorporatingstudents into research.
And I had spent years at CU at that point
telling students about UROC,which is a great program,
(18:45):
undergraduate researchopportunity program,
pays students to work with faculty
or to do their own research.
But the student reallyhas to take the initiative
to find the faculty memberand get them on board.
And so what I found wasthat a lot of students
didn't know that existed.
And even when they did, I could tell
that there were certain studentsthat were more comfortable
seeking out faculty, andthen there were students
(19:06):
that they would need a little bit of help
finding a faculty member,
or they wanted to getinvolved in research,
but they didn't have a clear idea,
because they're undergraduate students.
- In a huge university.
- Of what kind of researchthey wanted to do,
or what was even possible.
- They didn't have a map of Russia
delivered to them by afairy Russian godmother
that says, "Research this."
- And to seek out the people that did,
(19:27):
that very understandablydidn't know where to start.
And sometimes, I mean,our faculty are wonderful,
but sometimes faculty alsodidn't know where to start.
And so faculty were not very receptive,
because they weren't sure
how to make that connection either.
And so that's where itstarted with that early pilot,
summer of 2019.
And then January of 2020,we were going to pilot it
(19:50):
in the whole political science department.
I got a little bit of moneyfrom the department to do this,
and we were piloting it January of 2020.
And then, of course, the world fell apart.
The pandemic started, theBlack Lives Matter movement,
which had existed, did exist before,
but took on new momentumwithin a short period of time.
(20:10):
That raised my awareness of something
that people have beensaying for a long time.
- But the university started speaking.
- The university startedpaying attention to,
I started paying attention to,
although I was late onboard, because of course,
I don't wanna suggest that this,
like all of a sudden peoplesaid that this was a problem.
They'd been saying it fora while, for a long time.
And so all of those things were happening,
(20:30):
and it just sort of clickedin my head that Studio Labs
should be putting diversity,equity, and inclusion first.
- Yes.
- That this was a concretething that we could do,
depending on how we set it up.
And also, during the pandemic,we operated mostly remotely,
and we were on a much smallerscale than we are now.
But for the students we connected with,
(20:52):
some of them indicated thiswas really a kind of lifeline
to connecting with faculty
and having some kind ofpersonal relationship
in a situation where you're not in person,
you're not on campus.
- That timing.
- You're not having, yeah.
And so it wasn't themost auspicious timing
to pilot a new program,
but it was actually very fortuitous
in that we had anopportunity to fill a need
(21:13):
that existed right then.
- Yes.
- We did that, and itran in political science.
And then this academicyear is the first year
it's running in the social sciences.
But the key thing, like you said,
is we have to put diversity,equity, and inclusion first,
because labs are great,
and it's great to haveundergrad research assistants,
but the way the model was working is,
faculty were, and this is understandable,
it's a bit of human nature.
(21:34):
They were picking out their best students,
the most extrovertedstudents, the students that,
and those often were students
that were already poisedto do really well.
Or already had,
they came in really wellprepared for college,
they knew how to network,
they knew how to do all these things.
And I was thinking of 18 yearold Sarah going to college,
also looking for this, and not finding it.
- Would she have known how to do this?
(21:55):
Would she have approached someone,
even with the specific goals that you had?
- I did at some point, butI did it in a very bumbling,
awkward way that you dowhen you're an undergrad,
because you don't knowwhat you're doing yet.
- And that's okay.
- Right, and so what I wanted to say was,
"Look, do you wanna doresearch with faculty?
Just fill out this simpleapplication and tell us that.
You don't have to have a really clear idea
(22:15):
of what you're interested in.
You don't have to even have experience
doing any kind of job or skills."
- That is such a gift tonot have to totally know
and still say you want this.
- And not have to pretend like you know,
like just tell us what you'reinterested in if you know,
if not, that's fine.
We have faculty apply separately,
and then we do the workof matching them up
and providing some infrastructure.
(22:36):
But so we do that workof trying to match them,
and then kind of checking intolike, is this working well?
Are you working well with this person?
Do we need to matchyou with somebody else?
And we rarely have to movethings around a whole lot,
but sometimes we do.
And that's what we can provide for both.
And that makes it.- So incredible.
- Better for the facultyand better for the students.
There's some verypractical benefits to it.
(22:58):
Like it can get you someexperience on your CV,
it can connect you with faculty,
but I think that there's a more meaningful
kind of connection that can happen.
- There's a whole life coaching thing.
- Especially if we get them early on.
At any stage, I think it's beneficial,
but early on it can bea good stepping stone.
Later on it can be a good
building on what you've doneat the university already.
(23:19):
But there's a lot of researchabout how traditional labs
that incorporate undergradsperpetuate inequalities,
because they're picking the students
that are already poised to do well,
for understandable reasons.
But unless you explicitly make it a goal
and have a concrete strategy
for how you're going to disrupt
that perpetuating of inequalities,
(23:41):
you're not gonna get that.
And we have just such an opportunity
at the University of Colorado.
We're a big research university.
And so this is what partof what we can offer
that some other universitiesand colleges can't.
- Well, the way that you eventalk about studio and lab
as a dancer, I think ofthose two things together,
that often I'm having to convince folks
to understand a dancestudio is like a laboratory.
(24:02):
And so when I first heardthe name of this program,
I'm like, that name is perfect.
- Oh, it makes me so happy.
I have to give creditto Adrian Chen, though.
- Oh, it's perfect.
- I'm terrible at naming things.
And so Adrian Chen's apolitical science professor,
and he called it, he hadthis beautiful explanation
of like a studiolab, anda studio and the master
training with the Apprentice,
and the lab is really like,
(24:22):
we think of those in thenatural sciences more,
but pairing those together.
- Together, that was it.
- And I think having it at like the art,
we're in the social sciences now,
but I'm hoping we'll expand
to the arts and sciences more broadly.
Because like I think of things,
like theater and dance, right?
- Or dance studios,
they're all different kinds of ways
to get people to collaborate.
And this is really just aboutcollaborating with undergrads
(24:43):
in ways that make sensefor both the student
and the faculty member.
- Well that title has that welcome in it
that crosses those disciplines,
and it does do that thing.
For me, a studio is an embodied space.
Here we are, you know,in a recording booth
in a sound studio, talking to one another,
making something new in a lab.
A different way of, I seerows, I see more linearity.
(25:03):
And in a studio I feel the circularity
and the conversational.
They're all collaborative,
but they have different ways of facing.
And when you imaginethose things together,
it is an invitation todifferent kinds of folks
who wanna look at work in new ways.
- Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.
I'm so glad to hear thatthat's your reaction to it.
- Oh yeah.
That was one of the firstthings that landed on me.
- I tend to not, or at leastI tend to try to not lie,
(25:26):
and to be transparent.
And you actually studypeople who lie for a living.
And I'm so interested inwhat have you learned?
What strategies would you share?
What takeaways to be anexpert, somehow beloved,
while still hated liar?
Do you have any strategies?
- No.
(25:47):
- Because you don't want to.- Maybe, well.
- You don't want this to proliferate.
- Political scientists would talk
more about blame avoidance.
The interesting thing about that question
is that a lie includesintention, or knowledge,
that you have to beintentionally saying something
you know to be false.
Which of course, politicalparties, organizations,
politicians do all the time,
(26:08):
but we often don't a hundred percent know
if the person knew it was false
or there's some ambiguity in that.
And so, in political science,
we talk more about blame avoidance, which,
so if you have to do something unpopular,
or you have to go backon something, or reverse,
then you would do thingsthat are blame avoidance.
So that's like if you just got reelected,
(26:29):
do something unpopular,because you've got a while
before you have an election,
or do it during a big eventlike the World Cup or some,
which Putin has taken advantage of.
And so that's not so much about lying,
but it's really about blame avoidance.
- Ah, that's the technique.
- Finding someone elseto pass the buck to.
And so I think what politiciansand political parties
are often doing when they're lying
(26:49):
is trying to create plausibledeniability, and ambiguity,
and pass the buck onto someone else.
And so like a common strategy is to say
that it's not your fault,it's some other actor.
And Putin uses this quite actively.
He'll blame the governors of regions.
"It's not our fault, it's thatthe governor of your region
is really corrupt and not doingwhat they're supposed to do.
(27:12):
It's not my fault, it'sthat western nations
are funneling weapons into Ukraine."
Otherwise we would've hadthis resolved a long time ago.
And so blaming the West,
there's an entirelydifferent narrative in Russia
from the Russian mediasources in the country
about both what is happeningand why it's happening.
And that both western countries in Europe
(27:34):
and the United States both started
and are perpetuating the war.
And that is genuinely the narrative.
And there is some level of belief in that
in the Russian public.
It's difficult to saywith a lot of precision,
especially right now,
but there's some level of,
"The West bears responsibility
(27:55):
for Russia's war againstUkraine in some way."
And so that's the kind of thing you do.
So it's not really so much about lying
as it is about not being blamed.
- Wow, that is, I just thinkof like a Russian punk band
named "Blame Avoidance."
You know, that just feels like.
- Oh, that sounds good.
Somebody should start that.
- Somebody should start that.
Well, and it's interesting to flip it
(28:17):
and have that, hold thatin my brain from the,
maybe there isn't malice at the beginning,
but how do we not hold it in the end?
- Right, and there's other instances
where politicians want to do something
that they know is unpopular,but it seems to be
they think it's the right policy decision.
This is what we saw in the 1990s
in central and Eastern Europe a lot,
(28:37):
that they wanted to dothese economic reforms
that I think, by a lot of accounts,
many people really thought werethe right economic reforms,
but they knew were going tobe painful in the short term,
but the hope was that in thelong term would be better.
So they had to figure out waysthat they could be democratic
and have competitive elections,
but engage in policies theythought were necessary,
(28:58):
but painful, and sell the public on those.
And there's cases where theydid sell them on necessary,
but painful reforms.
Although there's a lot to say,
that's to my area of research,
is that politics of economic reform.
So I could go on and on about that.
- That also sounds likeballet training, really.
- Really?
- Yeah, oh, necessary butpainful reform, that is just
(29:19):
Russian ballet training, yes.- Well any, ballet training.
- I never thought ofthat, but that's true.
It's like any kind of training.
- I understand that.
I understand that in my human body.
I think we do the same thing.
All right, it is timefor the quick and dirty.
It has to be quick.
- Okay.
- It doesn't have to be dirty.
- Okay.
- But I like saying that.
Okay, we're gonna,
I'm gonna give you a topic,
and you're gonna say thefirst word or thought
(29:39):
that comes to mind, and it'sgonna be containing "and."
This is where we get into our theme.
- Okay.- Okay.
So if I say, "Gimme thebest ice cream cone."
And I would say, "Anythingfrom Little Man Ice Cream
in a 'h-and-made' cone."
See how there was "and" in the "hand."
So it's really open, it's big.
- Okay, I'll try.
You'll tell me if I'm doing it wrong.
- I'm gonna tell you ifyou're doing it right.
I'm gonna tell you thatyou are doing it right.
(30:00):
- Okay.
- Best band with "and" in it.
- The best band with the word "and" in it.
- Or first thing, like firstband comes to your mind.
- "The Killers" and someone else.
- That was not an "and," try again.
Try again, Sarah.
(30:21):
- "The Killer's" and "Arctic Monkey."
Oh, "The Killer's" and "PussyRiot," there's a Russian one.
- I love that, we gottaget "Pussy Riot" in here.
We would've failed thisentire interview if we hadn't.
- If that hadn't come up.
- Yeah.
- Oh, thank you so much.
That makes this lady happy.
Okay, if you were goinginto your "anding" closet,
and you would come out,
what would be your best "anding" outfit?
You'd be wearing this and?
(30:42):
- I don't know.
All I can think aboutis what I'm wearing now.
- Well, tell me what you're wearing.
They don't know.
- Tights and a dress.
- Okay, tights and a dress.
That reminds me of the "DixieChicks," "Tights on my Boat."
Okay, but we're not talkingabout the Chicks right now.
All right, when it's on the menu,
you'll always order this and?
- Oh, it's gotta be cheese and pasta.
Cheese and pasta, yeah.
(31:03):
- Cheese and pasta.
Not just mac and cheese.- Not just mac and cheese.
- You made mac and cheese sound fancy.
- If there's a fancy cheese on the menu,
I'm gonna order thefancy cheese on the menu.
- Fancy cheese and pasta.
Okay, perfect.
A made up TEDx talk that youknow would get so many views
with "and" in it?
- Oh my goodness, thepossibilities seem endless though.
(31:25):
- Well, when you "and," they are endless.
- I don't know.
There used to be an ongoingjoke in political science,
if you put like the politicsin the Age of Terrorism
and Scarlet Johanssen,
then anybody would take it or something.
Something like that.
Like the Politics of Terrorismand Scarlet Johanssen,
and then anybody would be in the class.
Like, that's how you get enrollment stuff.
- That's how you do it?
- That was the joke.- That's perfect.
(31:46):
- So I'll stick with that.
- That's perfect, I love that.
I'm taking that classnext semester, from you.
Okay, an "ander" you admire?
- An "ander" I admire?
Oh gosh, there's a lot of people I admire.
I mean, I think right now,oh, an "ander" I admire.
Zelinsky and the Ukrainian people.
The Ukrainian people and Zelinsky.
(32:06):
I would put the peoplefirst probably, but yeah.
- Yeah, let's put the people first.
- Yeah.
- In every episode we ask our guests
to give advice as ifyou were at a graduation
or just talking to a beloved.
And in my Irish blessing sort of way,
I would say, "And may theroad rise up to meet you."
Can you give us a?
(32:27):
- Oh, I wish I could,
I feel like everything I wouldsay would be very cliche.
- Let's try it, they'recliches for a reason.
- Oh, that's true, theyare cliches for a reason.
So this is advice I wouldgive at a graduation.
- Or to just a human.
- I think it would be a verylike, "and just keep going."
I've really always liked,
I think it's the Ryūkapoem that people cite
all the time, or theysay all the time now,
(32:48):
the sort of, "No feeling is final."
It's something like, just keep going,
no feeling is final, kind of thing.
And I think that really speaks to me.
I don't think it's terribly original,
and it's cliche for a reason,
but I think that youjust keep plodding along.
(upbeat music begins)
- That was CU Boulder AssociateProfessor, Sarah Sokhey
on "The Ampersand."
If you'd like to learn more
(33:09):
about Sarah's research on policy reversal
or the College of Artsand Sciences Studio Lab,
we'll leave more informationin our show notes.
"The Ampersand" is writtenand produced by me,
Erica Randall, and Tim Grassley.
If there are folks you'd like to hear from
on "The Ampersand," do please email us
at asinfo@colorado.edu.
(33:31):
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker,
the CU Boulder alum,brilliant cellist composer,
and a fantastic dancer.
Episodes are recorded at Interplay Studios
in Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erica Randall andthis is "The Ampersand."
(upbeat music fades)
(crowd murmurs)
(bells toll)
- I imagine Sarah Sokheyin the fifth grade
hearing about the dissolutionof the Soviet Union
in the newspaper, her 10year old self enraptured
by a map that seemed to burstwith brand new countries.
As she traces the borders, hersense of the world explodes
beyond the boundaries ofwhere she grew up in Virginia.
(00:23):
From this moment, she commits to a career
understanding Russia and its politics.
I see her carving academic pathways
that flip the way highereducation goes about research,
so it's more equitable.
Sarah's commitment todiversity and inclusion
feels so natural and unassuming
it invites all of us to join in.
(bell tolling)
(00:43):
(marching footsteps begin)
I can't imagine someone sokind and curious as Sarah,
who was jealous of people who grew up
during the '80s and the Cold War.
She's an academic who thinksendlessly about Putin,
policy reversals, andplausible deniability.
And yet, despite exploring cynical moments
(01:04):
of human behavior, like reducing pensions
during a World Cup, she remains fascinated
by others' stories, andcommitted to equity.
As you'll discover in our conversation,
what intrigues me the most about Sarah
is that she doesn't color theheavy topics she discusses
with her own opinions,
she guides us to our own.
(gentle music begins)
(01:27):
On "The Ampersand," we call this
"Bringing Together the Impossible: The Alchemy of Anding." (01:28):
undefined
Together we'll hear stories of humans
who imagine and create bycolliding their interests.
Rather than thinking of an"and" as a simple conjunction,
in that conjunction junction kinda way,
we will hear stories of peoplewho see "and" as a verb,
a way to speak the beautiful
when you intentionally letthe soft animal of your body
(01:50):
love what it loves.
As St. Mary Oliver asks,"What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating, and collaborating,
it reminds me to replace a singular idea
of what I think I should become
with a full sensoryverb about experiencing.
I'm Erica Randall.
(02:12):
- And this is Sarah Sokhey.
- On "The Ampersand."
(gentle music fades)
- It's interesting because I was teaching
a big introductorycomparative politics class,
was like politics around the world,
class this past spring whenRussia invaded Ukraine.
(02:33):
And so, we weren't directlytalking about Ukrainian politics
or Russian politics, but Ibrought it into the class,
because how could I not,for a variety of reasons,
and was just very honestthat I found it devastating.
And in that case, we weren't always
talking about what was happening there,
that wasn't the topic of the class,
(02:54):
and that that wouldn't have made sense.
But, in that case, I think, too,
acknowledging that these are awful things
and we care about them, notfor abstract academic reasons,
but because people are dying,
and they're going to die because of this.
And I try to never lose sight of that,
because it's easy when you're an academic
and you're obsessed, onyour own, with a topic,
and you're just interested in it,
(03:15):
to forget that there's a real world,
and this impacts real people every day.
- And not just selling the material,
but do you ever feel likeyou have to sell yourself,
like show up as a humanmore in your research,
and with students, and how do you do that?
What does it look like tomeet the Sarah who knows,
"Whew, I'm gonna delivera hard lecture today.
I'm gonna share somereal world data on things
that are gonna impact all ofus in some way or another."
(03:37):
How do you show up as Sarah and how does,
I wanna know how you see yourself
separate from the academic.
Talk to me.
- Oh, that's such a good question.
I don't know if I have agood answer for it, though.
I think it's taken a long time
for me to get comfortable withme as myself in this role.
And sort of not like I'mjust going in and like,
(03:58):
"I'm gonna pretend to be a professor now."
I actually am a professor.
Or, I'm going to play this role
where I'm going to be very professional,
I'm not going to talk muchabout my personal life
or personal experiences.
But, at some point relativelyearly on when I was teaching,
I was talking to my partner and saying,
"I don't know how to getthem engaged in this.
I'm not sure how to get them interested."
And he said, "You goto Russia all the time,
(04:19):
you love Russia, tellthem about going to Russia
and tell them why you care about this."
- So what was the firststory you told about Russia?
- Oh gosh, I don't know whatthe first story I told was.
I mean, I told stories aboutmy experiences traveling there,
and mishaps with thehealthcare system there,
'cause I taught about theRussian healthcare system.
And I have very limitedexperience, personally,
with the Russian healthcaresystem, but a bit.
(04:40):
And so I told some of those stories,
or stories about peoplethere, things like that.
And I started, it took me a long time
to get comfortable,though, with figuring out
where my personal stories might fit in,
or where talking about myselfas a person might fit in.
But when I started to learn to do that,
I realized that I connecteda lot better with students,
but with other people in general.
(05:01):
And so that's been an evolving thing,
but it's not my natural go-to
to talk about my personal experiences,
or sort of the original,"Why I do what I do,"
or why I picked Russia.
And I have to very consciously,when I teach, think about,
"Oh, I should tell themhow I got into this."
- Well, I wanna know too.
I'm trying to imagine, was it,
(05:22):
I see you like in fifth grade,
and you're at your little desk,
and all of a sudden the Kremlin comes up,
and there's big eyed Sarah,like kind of red curly hair.
It's like, this is my life's work.
Like truly, when did this come to you?
Was it the onion tops of buildings?
Was it the farmland?
Was it the language?
Was it the literature?
- You know, it really sounds strange,
but honestly it was the politics.
(05:43):
And that sounds.
- Really, from fifth grade?
- About that age, yeah,that's about right.
But the first big political memory I had,
the first big event thatI really paid attention to
was the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
and it was because my family
hardly ever talked aboutworld events, or politics,
or anything like that.
And when this happened,they talked about it.
And I remember hearing, andthis wasn't quite right,
(06:05):
but I didn't understand,
that there were these brandnew countries on the map,
and they weren't from nowhere,they weren't brand new.
But to me there were thesebrand new countries on the map,
and this was going to changeworld politics forever.
And I saved, from my localpaper as a 10 year old,
the map of the new countries.
And I was really intrigued-
- This is just how I saw it in my mind.
(06:25):
This is exactly it.
Incredible, okay, keep going.
- And, so that's how Iinitially got interested in it.
And I have two older brothers,
and one of them happenedto take Russian language
at our public high school.
There just happened to besomeone who taught Russian
when he was there, and I just.
- Where was this?
- This was in Virginia.
There just happened to besomeone at our public high school
in Virginia Beach that taught Russian.
(06:45):
And I just thought thatwas the coolest thing.
I wasn't able to takeRussian in high school
by the time I got there,but my brother did that.
And then I'd had, this was myfirst big political memory,
and I was on my high school debate team.
And one of the topics for a whole year
was foreign policy with Russia.
And that just sealed the deal.
- Done, done.- It was done, it was done.
I was obsessed with this, andit really was the politics.
(07:07):
And then later I started toget into more of the culture,
but I really didn't knowwhat I was getting into,
because I was a kid and Iwas just learning about this
for the first time.
- What was it like,
that first time getting ona plane to go to Russia?
This thing, this like mysterious,impossible, mythical land?
- Oh, it was amazing.
I really had to talkmyself into it, though.
(07:27):
I had never been to a foreign country
before I went to Russia.
People in my familydidn't really travel much.
My parents don't have passports,they still don't today.
I had a brother that had gone
on some mission trips with the church,
and that was the only person I knew
who had gone to another country.
And so I had never been to Canada.
And so I really went all outfor that first foreign trip.
- You did.
(07:48):
- And in fact, I had aprofessor at the time who said,
"Well, you've never beento a foreign country.
Maybe you wanna do a summer program
that's not as long, maybe."
And I thought, "No, no, Iwanna go the whole semester.
I wanna do study abroad,this is what I wanna do.
- I wanna be there when it snows.
Not in the summer.
I wanna be there in a heavy coat coat.
- But I knew I didn't wannago for like a week or so.
I really wanted to go and do this,
but I really had to talk myself into it.
(08:11):
On the way there I wasso nervous about it,
but it was just amazing, I just loved it.
I had worked so hard to get there
and figure out how to do it.
I had to, the collegethat I went to didn't have
a study abroad program in Russia,
so officially I had totake a leave of absence.
I didn't get any credit for it.
- That's unreal.
- I paid for it myself.
(08:31):
- Oh my gosh.
- My parents weren't gonnapay for study abroad.
- And you knew this?
- And I knew, and so I hadworked at these odd jobs,
and saved up, and founda program I could afford,
which was relatively on the cheap.
- Were you staying with a family or?
- I stayed in a dorm forthe first week or so,
and then I had a hostfamily that I stayed with,
that I've known since then, since 2002.
(08:52):
- And did they cook for youand did you start to get,
so you said you knew the politics well,
and then the geography,and then came the culture.
- Yes.
- And with the culture comes food.
- Yes.
- So do you talk to yourstudents about the food?
And talk to me about it.
- You know, I don't, itjust doesn't occur to me to.
It honestly doesn't occur to me
to talk to them about the food.
- Okay, so I have a collaboratorI work with who's Russian,
(09:14):
and she speaks a lotin Russian in our work,
and I speak in English,
and we talk about Catholicguilt, and Jewish guilt,
and the two guilts.
And she talks about making Russian food
with her grandmother andher mother in the kitchen,
and what a sacred andterrible time that it is.
Do you have stories ofbeing in the kitchen
for the first time in Russia,
(09:35):
and what you ate, or whatyou smelled, or how they ate?
- Oh, I do.
It never occurred to me to dwell on it,
but absolutely I do, becausethere's certain things,
like dill goes on everythingin Russia, and I love dill.
Whenever I see dill or I smell it,
I just love it becauseit reminds me of that.
- So you should bringdill to your classroom.
Did you like dill before?
- I don't know, I honestly, I didn't,
(09:55):
I was not a foodie kind of person.
I didn't think about food a whole lot.
At the time that I first went to Russia,
I was also a vegetarian.
- Oh gosh.
- I know, and so they asked,
this host family didn't ask me,
but the person organizing it,
they were really concerned about this.
And they said, but what does she eat?
What can we give her that would be?
- Sarah leans in, but what does she eat?
(10:16):
- But what does she eat?
And it was really, it's funny to say now,
because it's not thatodd to be a vegetarian,
but it was, they weren'tsure how to broach it.
- So it wasn't that you were American,
it was that you were vegetarian.
- They had had lots ofstudy abroad students,
so the hosting a studentwas not new to them at all,
but the vegetarian part was a little,
and they were so nice about it.
It was, Larissa was my hostmom, was so nice about it.
(10:38):
And so lots of soups thatprobably had a meat base,
but I kinda looked the other way.
And I ate fish while I was there
was kind of my compromise as well.
But the Russian food thatI love and that I've eaten
is not fancy, highbrow,foodie, gourmet style food.
It's like, what I tell people,
(10:58):
which I think Russians find is very odd.
What makes me nostalgicare like the soups,
and the meat and potatothings, and the salads.
They make these little saladswhere everything's chopped up.
Like the beets are chopped up,
the potatoes are chopped up and all this.
So like when you say salad in Russian,
it means a wholly different thing
than if you said it in the US.
And cafeteria food.
Because that was what, you know?
(11:20):
That makes me very nostalgicfor it, for Russia,
is that kind of food,
or like the cheap food Iwould buy on the street,
'cause I never had a lotof money while I was there.
And so I was just sortof getting whatever,
it wasn't like I was goingto high-end restaurants
and eating the sort of best of the best
of Moscow's culinary world at the time.
But yeah.
- But it's the nostalgia.
(11:40):
I love, hoo, that's such a potent word
and how it attaches to scents,
and bringing that to food andthinking of it, the soups.
I think soup is a quintessentiallynostalgic situation.
- And there's things youdon't even think about,
like things like the wayyou cut the potatoes,
and the shape they're in in the soup.
(12:01):
Like, we don't do that here.
It's just a little bit different.
Or the way that you just make any of it,
or like putting a dollop ofsour cream on top of soup,
that's very Russian.
- And so there's something, too, then,
to the gestures that folks do
after watching the personbefore them cut the potatoes,
that they cut the potatoes the same way
and it creates a different shape.
The way that the body andthe function come together
to create nostalgia inyour life in America.
(12:24):
Now if you see a potatofloating in a soup,
that reminds you, that's so beautiful.
I thought of Russia for the first time,
I grew up Cold War era and being scared.
And then I remember WhiteKnights, and Baryshnikov,
and that Russia was aplace to leave as a dancer.
It was a place to leave andit was an exporter of things.
(12:46):
I thought of that sospecifically in my childhood,
particularly in the Nutcracker,
which was actually a ballet
about exporting coffee,and tea, and candy.
It was about gettingRussia out to the world.
People think of it as, oh, French,
and celebrating other nations.
But it's an interesting political ballet.
But I think of Russia and exporting,
(13:08):
and it's just so interestingto to hear you in Russia,
and I think of getting away from,
because that's what dancerswere doing in the eighties,
and changing the landscapeof dance in this country.
Besides White Knights,I have only terrible,
probably super tacky Russian memories
of Dr. Zhivago and my mother.
(Sarah laughs)
- I'm so jealous, though,
(13:29):
that you were paying attentionto Russia in the eighties,
because it was such an interesting time.
- Look, you're jealousof me from the eighties.
- And I really like, for thelongest time I was so sad
that I had not beenpaying attention to it,
I was a child, but.
- Were you alive in the eighties?
- I was born in '80.
- It's okay, I'm glad youweren't paying attention
and hiding under your desk.
- I probably should not have been.
(13:49):
- No, you should not have.
- You know, in early elementaryschool, and so I wasn't.
But it was such a fascinatingtime, and it's so interesting
to look back now and realizethat my awareness of Russia
started at a very unique time,
which was really when theSoviet Union dissolved.
And the nineties are sofascinating, but so unique.
(14:10):
And so the stereotypes from the eighties
I didn't really have in my head,
because my parents weren'treally talking about
the Soviet Union or Russia a lot.
And so I became awareof it in the nineties.
So nineties Russia to mewas the Russia I knew.
And then by the time Iactually went to Russia
in the early 2000s, in 2002,
things were going pretty well in Russia.
(14:32):
The economy was stable,oil prices were up,
it was safe to go.
It was relatively easy forAmericans to go to Russia.
And so I showed up and thought,
what in the world werepeople talking about?
What, this is great.- What's the big deal?
- It's safe.
It's, you know, and Moscow was,
it is not like the rest of Russia
is this big, rich, Europeancity, even in the early 2000s.
(14:53):
It was this unique momentthat I had a very different
view of Russia than people,even a few years older than me
who had more of the 1980s.
- But you had a cravingfor that eighties moment.
- Oh, I did.
I was so jealous of peoplethat got to be in Russia
when the coup attemptshappened in the early nineties.
- This is a normal feeling, Sarah.
This is a totally normal response.
(15:15):
- I really, I was like, "Oh,how great would it have been?"
And in fact, I thinkfor many of those people
it was quite traumatic.
And people who were doingresearch there, who are academics,
which is what I am now,it was like, oh my,
what's happening, and this isn't safe,
and how are we gonna keep doing research?
And it could have gone very badly,
and for a while, well, thenineties were fairly chaotic,
(15:35):
but it was, in some ways,
and I don't wannaoverstate the comparison,
but in some ways maybe a bit analogous
to what's happening now,
where there's this big thing happening,
that's very traumatic for a lot of people.
- So you don't see yourselfgoing anytime soon?
- I don't think that I can, anytime soon.
I periodically investigateif I technically could,
(15:56):
if I really tried, and maybeI could get into Russia.
I would have to get a visa,
and I'm not sure how thatwould work right now.
I ended my affiliation
with the Higher Schoolof Economics in Moscow,
which I had for a long time.
And right at this momentthat we're talking,
it wouldn't be safe, really,for me to go into Russia,
or try to go into Russia.
So I really don't knowwhat I'll do with that
(16:18):
or how my research will.
I've just sort of had tolet it evolve as it evolves.
And I'm honestly tryingto refocus my attention
more on Ukraine, andstudying Ukrainian politics,
even though I've always come from
this very Russian perspective.
It was interesting, you talkedabout the decolonization
in what you do.
There's people in my fieldwho talk about decolonizing
(16:40):
the kind of research politicalscientists do in the region.
And I've realized, through this conflict,
that taking this veryRussian centric perspective,
I mean this is a colonial imperial power,
and you're taking aperspective of the one biggest,
most powerful country,
at the expense of reallyunderstanding other countries.
(17:00):
And I'm still wrapping my headaround how I need to change,
how I do research to thinkabout it differently.
- That's a huge and potent charge,
and it seems like it's alignedwith the work you're doing
in Studio Lab, in kind of flipping
the way we think about gettingstudents engaged in research
and getting anyone engaged in research
from a diversity, and equity,and inclusive perspective.
(17:21):
And again, here, through ampersanding,
which is what Erica'sbrain does all the time,
you are able to connecta need in this country,
and in our community ofstudy, and in your area,
and in social sciences atlarge, and flip a model
to first put equity, anddiversity, and inclusion.
It's the first thing that we're looking at
(17:42):
when we're thinkingabout how you developed,
with your colleagues,
a lab to get students engaged in research.
This is usually partof a litany of things,
but as the organizing principle,
it's such a cool way to getstudents to end with research
and change the planet.
Can you just even tellme what was that moment,
(18:02):
as you are thinking aboutrefocusing your research
into Ukraine and looking at thecolonizing forces of Russia,
where they aligned for you,
with the way you werethinking about setting up
teaching opportunities?
- It was, initially I wanted to change
how we were teaching studentsin the social sciences
in regards to research.
And I saw this really,
initially I didn't evenhave the DEI component
(18:24):
fully in my head.
It was sort of in thebackground, because I started,
the very early pilot ofthis was the summer of 2019.
And I wanted to change how we did research
in the social sciences,because it seemed to me
that we were really underutilizing
and under incorporatingstudents into research.
And I had spent years at CU at that point
telling students about UROC,which is a great program,
(18:45):
undergraduate researchopportunity program,
pays students to work with faculty
or to do their own research.
But the student reallyhas to take the initiative
to find the faculty memberand get them on board.
And so what I found wasthat a lot of students
didn't know that existed.
And even when they did, I could tell
that there were certain studentsthat were more comfortable
seeking out faculty, andthen there were students
(19:06):
that they would need a little bit of help
finding a faculty member,
or they wanted to getinvolved in research,
but they didn't have a clear idea,
because they're undergraduate students.
- In a huge university.
- Of what kind of researchthey wanted to do,
or what was even possible.
- They didn't have a map of Russia
delivered to them by afairy Russian godmother
that says, "Research this."
- And to seek out the people that did,
(19:27):
that very understandablydidn't know where to start.
And sometimes, I mean,our faculty are wonderful,
but sometimes faculty alsodidn't know where to start.
And so faculty were not very receptive,
because they weren't sure
how to make that connection either.
And so that's where itstarted with that early pilot,
summer of 2019.
And then January of 2020,we were going to pilot it
(19:50):
in the whole political science department.
I got a little bit of moneyfrom the department to do this,
and we were piloting it January of 2020.
And then, of course, the world fell apart.
The pandemic started, theBlack Lives Matter movement,
which had existed, did exist before,
but took on new momentumwithin a short period of time.
(20:10):
That raised my awareness of something
that people have beensaying for a long time.
- But the university started speaking.
- The university startedpaying attention to,
I started paying attention to,
although I was late onboard, because of course,
I don't wanna suggest that this,
like all of a sudden peoplesaid that this was a problem.
They'd been saying it fora while, for a long time.
And so all of those things were happening,
(20:30):
and it just sort of clickedin my head that Studio Labs
should be putting diversity,equity, and inclusion first.
- Yes.
- That this was a concretething that we could do,
depending on how we set it up.
And also, during the pandemic,we operated mostly remotely,
and we were on a much smallerscale than we are now.
But for the students we connected with,
(20:52):
some of them indicated thiswas really a kind of lifeline
to connecting with faculty
and having some kind ofpersonal relationship
in a situation where you're not in person,
you're not on campus.
- That timing.
- You're not having, yeah.
And so it wasn't themost auspicious timing
to pilot a new program,
but it was actually very fortuitous
in that we had anopportunity to fill a need
(21:13):
that existed right then.
- Yes.
- We did that, and itran in political science.
And then this academicyear is the first year
it's running in the social sciences.
But the key thing, like you said,
is we have to put diversity,equity, and inclusion first,
because labs are great,
and it's great to haveundergrad research assistants,
but the way the model was working is,
faculty were, and this is understandable,
it's a bit of human nature.
(21:34):
They were picking out their best students,
the most extrovertedstudents, the students that,
and those often were students
that were already poisedto do really well.
Or already had,
they came in really wellprepared for college,
they knew how to network,
they knew how to do all these things.
And I was thinking of 18 yearold Sarah going to college,
also looking for this, and not finding it.
- Would she have known how to do this?
(21:55):
Would she have approached someone,
even with the specific goals that you had?
- I did at some point, butI did it in a very bumbling,
awkward way that you dowhen you're an undergrad,
because you don't knowwhat you're doing yet.
- And that's okay.
- Right, and so what I wanted to say was,
"Look, do you wanna doresearch with faculty?
Just fill out this simpleapplication and tell us that.
You don't have to have a really clear idea
(22:15):
of what you're interested in.
You don't have to even have experience
doing any kind of job or skills."
- That is such a gift tonot have to totally know
and still say you want this.
- And not have to pretend like you know,
like just tell us what you'reinterested in if you know,
if not, that's fine.
We have faculty apply separately,
and then we do the workof matching them up
and providing some infrastructure.
(22:36):
But so we do that workof trying to match them,
and then kind of checking intolike, is this working well?
Are you working well with this person?
Do we need to matchyou with somebody else?
And we rarely have to movethings around a whole lot,
but sometimes we do.
And that's what we can provide for both.
And that makes it.- So incredible.
- Better for the facultyand better for the students.
There's some verypractical benefits to it.
(22:58):
Like it can get you someexperience on your CV,
it can connect you with faculty,
but I think that there's a more meaningful
kind of connection that can happen.
- There's a whole life coaching thing.
- Especially if we get them early on.
At any stage, I think it's beneficial,
but early on it can bea good stepping stone.
Later on it can be a good
building on what you've doneat the university already.
(23:19):
But there's a lot of researchabout how traditional labs
that incorporate undergradsperpetuate inequalities,
because they're picking the students
that are already poised to do well,
for understandable reasons.
But unless you explicitly make it a goal
and have a concrete strategy
for how you're going to disrupt
that perpetuating of inequalities,
(23:41):
you're not gonna get that.
And we have just such an opportunity
at the University of Colorado.
We're a big research university.
And so this is what partof what we can offer
that some other universitiesand colleges can't.
- Well, the way that you eventalk about studio and lab
as a dancer, I think ofthose two things together,
that often I'm having to convince folks
to understand a dancestudio is like a laboratory.
(24:02):
And so when I first heardthe name of this program,
I'm like, that name is perfect.
- Oh, it makes me so happy.
I have to give creditto Adrian Chen, though.
- Oh, it's perfect.
- I'm terrible at naming things.
And so Adrian Chen's apolitical science professor,
and he called it, he hadthis beautiful explanation
of like a studiolab, anda studio and the master
training with the Apprentice,
and the lab is really like,
(24:22):
we think of those in thenatural sciences more,
but pairing those together.
- Together, that was it.
- And I think having it at like the art,
we're in the social sciences now,
but I'm hoping we'll expand
to the arts and sciences more broadly.
Because like I think of things,
like theater and dance, right?
- Or dance studios,
they're all different kinds of ways
to get people to collaborate.
And this is really just aboutcollaborating with undergrads
(24:43):
in ways that make sensefor both the student
and the faculty member.
- Well that title has that welcome in it
that crosses those disciplines,
and it does do that thing.
For me, a studio is an embodied space.
Here we are, you know,in a recording booth
in a sound studio, talking to one another,
making something new in a lab.
A different way of, I seerows, I see more linearity.
(25:03):
And in a studio I feel the circularity
and the conversational.
They're all collaborative,
but they have different ways of facing.
And when you imaginethose things together,
it is an invitation todifferent kinds of folks
who wanna look at work in new ways.
- Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.
I'm so glad to hear thatthat's your reaction to it.
- Oh yeah.
That was one of the firstthings that landed on me.
- I tend to not, or at leastI tend to try to not lie,
(25:26):
and to be transparent.
And you actually studypeople who lie for a living.
And I'm so interested inwhat have you learned?
What strategies would you share?
What takeaways to be anexpert, somehow beloved,
while still hated liar?
Do you have any strategies?
- No.
(25:47):
- Because you don't want to.- Maybe, well.
- You don't want this to proliferate.
- Political scientists would talk
more about blame avoidance.
The interesting thing about that question
is that a lie includesintention, or knowledge,
that you have to beintentionally saying something
you know to be false.
Which of course, politicalparties, organizations,
politicians do all the time,
(26:08):
but we often don't a hundred percent know
if the person knew it was false
or there's some ambiguity in that.
And so, in political science,
we talk more about blame avoidance, which,
so if you have to do something unpopular,
or you have to go backon something, or reverse,
then you would do thingsthat are blame avoidance.
So that's like if you just got reelected,
(26:29):
do something unpopular,because you've got a while
before you have an election,
or do it during a big eventlike the World Cup or some,
which Putin has taken advantage of.
And so that's not so much about lying,
but it's really about blame avoidance.
- Ah, that's the technique.
- Finding someone elseto pass the buck to.
And so I think what politiciansand political parties
are often doing when they're lying
(26:49):
is trying to create plausibledeniability, and ambiguity,
and pass the buck onto someone else.
And so like a common strategy is to say
that it's not your fault,it's some other actor.
And Putin uses this quite actively.
He'll blame the governors of regions.
"It's not our fault, it's thatthe governor of your region
is really corrupt and not doingwhat they're supposed to do.
(27:12):
It's not my fault, it'sthat western nations
are funneling weapons into Ukraine."
Otherwise we would've hadthis resolved a long time ago.
And so blaming the West,
there's an entirelydifferent narrative in Russia
from the Russian mediasources in the country
about both what is happeningand why it's happening.
And that both western countries in Europe
(27:34):
and the United States both started
and are perpetuating the war.
And that is genuinely the narrative.
And there is some level of belief in that
in the Russian public.
It's difficult to saywith a lot of precision,
especially right now,
but there's some level of,
"The West bears responsibility
(27:55):
for Russia's war againstUkraine in some way."
And so that's the kind of thing you do.
So it's not really so much about lying
as it is about not being blamed.
- Wow, that is, I just thinkof like a Russian punk band
named "Blame Avoidance."
You know, that just feels like.
- Oh, that sounds good.
Somebody should start that.
- Somebody should start that.
Well, and it's interesting to flip it
(28:17):
and have that, hold thatin my brain from the,
maybe there isn't malice at the beginning,
but how do we not hold it in the end?
- Right, and there's other instances
where politicians want to do something
that they know is unpopular,but it seems to be
they think it's the right policy decision.
This is what we saw in the 1990s
in central and Eastern Europe a lot,
(28:37):
that they wanted to dothese economic reforms
that I think, by a lot of accounts,
many people really thought werethe right economic reforms,
but they knew were going tobe painful in the short term,
but the hope was that in thelong term would be better.
So they had to figure out waysthat they could be democratic
and have competitive elections,
but engage in policies theythought were necessary,
(28:58):
but painful, and sell the public on those.
And there's cases where theydid sell them on necessary,
but painful reforms.
Although there's a lot to say,
that's to my area of research,
is that politics of economic reform.
So I could go on and on about that.
- That also sounds likeballet training, really.
- Really?
- Yeah, oh, necessary butpainful reform, that is just
(29:19):
Russian ballet training, yes.- Well any, ballet training.
- I never thought ofthat, but that's true.
It's like any kind of training.
- I understand that.
I understand that in my human body.
I think we do the same thing.
All right, it is timefor the quick and dirty.
It has to be quick.
- Okay.
- It doesn't have to be dirty.
- Okay.
- But I like saying that.
Okay, we're gonna,
I'm gonna give you a topic,
and you're gonna say thefirst word or thought
(29:39):
that comes to mind, and it'sgonna be containing "and."
This is where we get into our theme.
- Okay.- Okay.
So if I say, "Gimme thebest ice cream cone."
And I would say, "Anythingfrom Little Man Ice Cream
in a 'h-and-made' cone."
See how there was "and" in the "hand."
So it's really open, it's big.
- Okay, I'll try.
You'll tell me if I'm doing it wrong.
- I'm gonna tell you ifyou're doing it right.
I'm gonna tell you thatyou are doing it right.
(30:00):
- Okay.
- Best band with "and" in it.
- The best band with the word "and" in it.
- Or first thing, like firstband comes to your mind.
- "The Killers" and someone else.
- That was not an "and," try again.
Try again, Sarah.
(30:21):
- "The Killer's" and "Arctic Monkey."
Oh, "The Killer's" and "PussyRiot," there's a Russian one.
- I love that, we gottaget "Pussy Riot" in here.
We would've failed thisentire interview if we hadn't.
- If that hadn't come up.
- Yeah.
- Oh, thank you so much.
That makes this lady happy.
Okay, if you were goinginto your "anding" closet,
and you would come out,
what would be your best "anding" outfit?
You'd be wearing this and?
(30:42):
- I don't know.
All I can think aboutis what I'm wearing now.
- Well, tell me what you're wearing.
They don't know.
- Tights and a dress.
- Okay, tights and a dress.
That reminds me of the "DixieChicks," "Tights on my Boat."
Okay, but we're not talkingabout the Chicks right now.
All right, when it's on the menu,
you'll always order this and?
- Oh, it's gotta be cheese and pasta.
Cheese and pasta, yeah.
(31:03):
- Cheese and pasta.
Not just mac and cheese.- Not just mac and cheese.
- You made mac and cheese sound fancy.
- If there's a fancy cheese on the menu,
I'm gonna order thefancy cheese on the menu.
- Fancy cheese and pasta.
Okay, perfect.
A made up TEDx talk that youknow would get so many views
with "and" in it?
- Oh my goodness, thepossibilities seem endless though.
(31:25):
- Well, when you "and," they are endless.
- I don't know.
There used to be an ongoingjoke in political science,
if you put like the politicsin the Age of Terrorism
and Scarlet Johanssen,
then anybody would take it or something.
Something like that.
Like the Politics of Terrorismand Scarlet Johanssen,
and then anybody would be in the class.
Like, that's how you get enrollment stuff.
- That's how you do it?
- That was the joke.- That's perfect.
(31:46):
- So I'll stick with that.
- That's perfect, I love that.
I'm taking that classnext semester, from you.
Okay, an "ander" you admire?
- An "ander" I admire?
Oh gosh, there's a lot of people I admire.
I mean, I think right now,oh, an "ander" I admire.
Zelinsky and the Ukrainian people.
The Ukrainian people and Zelinsky.
(32:06):
I would put the peoplefirst probably, but yeah.
- Yeah, let's put the people first.
- Yeah.
- In every episode we ask our guests
to give advice as ifyou were at a graduation
or just talking to a beloved.
And in my Irish blessing sort of way,
I would say, "And may theroad rise up to meet you."
Can you give us a?
(32:27):
- Oh, I wish I could,
I feel like everything I wouldsay would be very cliche.
- Let's try it, they'recliches for a reason.
- Oh, that's true, theyare cliches for a reason.
So this is advice I wouldgive at a graduation.
- Or to just a human.
- I think it would be a verylike, "and just keep going."
I've really always liked,
I think it's the Ryūkapoem that people cite
all the time, or theysay all the time now,
(32:48):
the sort of, "No feeling is final."
It's something like, just keep going,
no feeling is final, kind of thing.
And I think that really speaks to me.
I don't think it's terribly original,
and it's cliche for a reason,
but I think that youjust keep plodding along.
(upbeat music begins)
- That was CU Boulder AssociateProfessor, Sarah Sokhey
on "The Ampersand."
If you'd like to learn more
(33:09):
about Sarah's research on policy reversal
or the College of Artsand Sciences Studio Lab,
we'll leave more informationin our show notes.
"The Ampersand" is writtenand produced by me,
Erica Randall, and Tim Grassley.
If there are folks you'd like to hear from
on "The Ampersand," do please email us
at asinfo@colorado.edu.
(33:31):
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker,
the CU Boulder alum,brilliant cellist composer,
and a fantastic dancer.
Episodes are recorded at Interplay Studios
in Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erica Randall andthis is "The Ampersand."
(upbeat music fades)
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