Welcome to the “Common Concerns” podcast. Here, Xiang Biao and his guests aim to transform social theory into a tool that empowers people to think for themselves.The researchers do not aim to provide listeners with universal answers. Rather, they seek to help them gain clearer insight into their own questions. In a world where many people feel increasingly alienated from the systems that shape their lives, they create a space where academic concepts meet lived experience and researchers reflect together with their conversation partners.Biao believes that social research has been trapped in a “small loop” for far too long. The small loop represents a closed circle of academic debates that rarely touches on the real questions that actually concern people. That is why Biao and his guests strive to step out of this small loop and enter the “big loop”—a chaotic, vibrant, sometimes uncomfortable space where ideas are tested, questioned, and transformed through interaction with the real wor
