The Outer Limits

Bradley Garrett has crossed the globe to meet those who stockpile food in fortified shelters in anticipation of apocalyptic disasters. As a global pandemic seems to confirm some of their fears, he tells Jack Grove what we can learn from them – and what they’ve got wrong

Ashley Mears brings personal experience as a model to her academic work on the gender politics of beauty. For her latest book on mega-rich men’s use of beautiful women as a form of currency, she went on more than 100 glamorous nights out – and sometimes even enjoyed it, she tells Matthew Reisz 

Several years ago, a few young men who identified as ‘involuntary celibate’ formed a self-help group. However, they went on to embrace vicious and sometimes murderous misogyny. Kaitlyn Regehr tells Ellie Bothwell why she felt impelled to explore their disturbing world

During his time as a graffiti writer, Stefano Bloch was chased by the police, threatened by gangsters and witnessed savage violence. He tells Jack Grove about how he has incorporated such experiences in a powerful memoir that also makes an important contribution to research on urban life

Anne-Kathrin Kreft tells Matthew Reisz how interviews with Colombian women’s activists left her mentally and physically exhausted – and ideologically transformed

Steph Grohmann’s ‘revenge eviction’ gave her vivid, first-hand experience of the trials and consolations of occupying unused buildings, finds Matthew Reisz

Prison governor-turned-criminologist David Wilson tells Rachael Pells about befriending killers, doing unauthorised research and challenging his students’ preconceptions

Performance art is inherently ephemeral and can be highly controversial. But Matthew Reisz hears why the blood-soaked relics from one performer’s challenging shows are worth preserving and studying

Colleagues may look askance at ‘the death squad’, but while teaching and research into one of life’s only two certainties may be taxing, it is also vital, Matthew Reisz hears

Neil Dagnall and Ken Drinkwater tell Matthew Reisz about the rare pleasures of teaching and researching belief in ghosts, alien abductions and conspiracy theories

Western countries’ determination to tackle the migration crisis without taking any risks with their own personnel is wasteful and counterproductive, the Oxford anthropologist tells Matthew Reisz 

Understanding animal behaviour presents many challenges in the field. Matthew Reisz meets Rory Wilson, a biologist who has won awards for his innovative methods of tracking everything from albatrosses to sloths

Two researchers who study rainforest resilience tell Jack Grove of their alarm at seeing the devastation wrought by wildfires

Matthew Reisz meets Andrea Pető, recent recipient of the Madame de Staël prize, a scholar at Hungary’s Central European University whose feminist probing into the dark corners of Hungary’s past is provoking strong reactions in the ‘illiberal democracy’

Braving frozen horse liver, shamanic rituals and endless vodka-soaked toasts may not have resulted in the hoped-for discovery of a hitherto-unknown form of opera, but Nicholas Till has no regrets about his visit to Yakutsk

For insight into the ‘pervasive dislocation’ of people’s lives today, the sociologist Jeff Ferrell rode the rails across the US. He tells Matthew Reisz about life on the road and the limits of mainstream research

The mere mention of fairies in academic circles can bring derision. Yet the field is a rich one that has much to offer open-minded, multidisciplinary scholars, writes Simon Young

Kaitlyn Regehr learned from former striptease dancers that what they did was not a safe, sex‑positive hobby but often a means of survival that intersected with sex work

Dame Sue Black’s pioneering work has taken her to war zones and the aftermath of natural disasters. She explains the scientific rigour required in the field

Bernard Leeman, anti-apartheid fighter and peripatetic champion of low-cost rural tertiary education, describes the circuitous route he took to Vanuatu

From the Victorian slum-dwellers whose lives were transformed after they found a warbling rodent, to the jazz-like sound of mouse music, Richard Sugg says that if you take strange stories seriously, you may find something beautiful

Witnessing the work of military surgical teams in Afghanistan caused conflicting emotions in an academic author and a sense of the futility of war and of his own profession

An academic conference in the world’s northern-most human settlement was a profoundly unsettling – and enlightening – experience for Randy Malamud

James Tooley reflects on who helped him, who let him down and what he learned from his time in prison in Hyderabad

An academic researching the Camorra talks to John Elmes about Kalashnikovs and pizza, investigating a closed community, and how she stays safe

Clive Oppenheimer recounts dodging lava bombs and gunmen as he guided the director to global hot spots for his film about volcanoes

David Mould had to navigate cartoon lemurs and other barriers in order to help local academics study factors hindering development

An academic who takes students from the UK to Mumbai to lead a community theatre programme tells Chris Parr how the project affects all who take part

Neil Reid is fulfilling a childhood dream and working in a cloud forest in Honduras, where the natural wonders and the need to defend them can push the region’s dangers out of mind

John Elmes talks to Paul Jackson about the politics scholar’s central role during negotiations between the Nepalese government and Maoist rebels

Matthew Reisz on the scientific benefits of leaving corpses out to rot

Academic Victoria Fontan has borne witness to Iraq’s unfolding tragedy. She discusses encounters with Islamic State and US troops and her fears for the country’s future

James Tooley ran into trouble while researching low-cost private education in developing nations

To study mass tourism, Hazel Andrews entered a world of binge-drinking, sexism and racism. She describes why she did it and what she learned

For 15 months, social geographer Jane Dyson lived in a mountain village with young Indian workers, bonding over ‘mountain ice cream’

Donna Yates is tackling the illicit trade in antiquities, and although it can be dangerous, the archaeologist says it’s a world away from Lara Croft

An academic talks about her experience, the impact on her work and the long road to recovery

Tanya Bunsell’s immersion in the world of weightlifting yielded insights into steroid use and ‘muscle worship’

Elisabeth Kendall’s work on jihadist poetry led to tribespeople seeking her expertise

The academic who says riding the waves can boost cross-cultural communication and sustainable tourism

Data gathering can be a dangerous business, oceanographer Penny Holliday tells Paul Jump

A failed dealer used his insider status to research drugs, violence and the American Dream

How a brutal murder led one academic to the underworld of dogfighting

In a world untouched by the Sun for millennia, a UK scientist found research heaven and arachnophobe hell

People take refuge in drama when the bombs rain down, and the arts aid rebuilding when the guns fall silent, says James Thompson, who has travelled to some of the world’s most violent regions, only for the horrors of conflict to be felt closer to home

In the first of a new series on academics who conduct research in extreme circumstances, Gillian Fowler recalls the six years she spent working as a forensic anthropologist exhuming mass graves in Guatemala