Cultural Anthropologist Eshe Lewis Hosts The New Season Of ‘Sapiens’ Podcast

In its fifth season, Sapiens, a podcast created by Sapiens Anthropology Magazine, speaks with anthropologists to help uncover what makes us human. This season will be hosted by cultural anthropologist Eshe Lewis and executive produced by Chip Colwell. The diverse array of stories will cover everything from the origins of the chili pepper to stolen skulls in Iceland. The show takes a cultural deep dive as to why things are the way they are by digging deep into our human past, cultural beliefs and practices. It is available now on Apple Podcasts and most other places to listen to podcasts.

Lewis, who is the project director for the Sapiens Public School Training Program, holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Florida and has dedicated the past decade to working with Afro-descendant peoples in Peru on issues of social movements, women’s issues, Black feminism, and gender violence.

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Forbes spoke with Lewis via email about what listeners can expect this season. We also discussed how being a cultural anthropologist informed her work hosting Sapiens and what she learned from the experience.

Risa Sarachan: How did you select the diverse stories featured in the 5th season?

Eshe Lewis: Each episode of season five features the work of one of the Sapiens Public Scholars Training Fellowship fellows. I didn’t select the stories—each fellow determined what aspect of their research they would showcase, but I had high hopes for this season. The anthropologists in the program have shown tremendous dedication to developing their public science writing and podcasting skills and have done a fantastic job creating audio stories that are currently being heard around the world. The podcast episodes highlight the complex nature of their work, the thoughtful questions they are asking as social scientists, and their deep understanding of and dedication to their respective topics. All that richness really shines through in this collection.

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Sarachan: What episode of Sapiens are you most excited about this upcoming season?

Lewis: What a difficult question! Each episode is so special, and there are two different formats—narratives and interviews—so that makes it even trickier to compare them. And then there’s the wide range of topics. We have episodes about the criminal justice system in Mexico, violence against Black women and non-binary people in Baltimore, Icelandic human remains in U.S. museums, and more.

Sebastián Vacas-Oleas created a gem of an episode that focuses on the Shuar people, an Indigenous group in western Amazonia, shamanism, and land defense. He did a brilliant job of teaching listeners about how ancestral knowledge figures into modern politics for the Shuar by tracing the life of an Indigenous activist. He took on the challenge of weaving back and forth through the Shuar language, Spanish, and English which is no easy feat, and immersing the audience in the environment that forms the backdrop of the story. It is an audio story that eases the listener into Vacas-Oleas’ realm of study and leaves them with a new perspective on the issues he works on. That’s the goal for storytellers, and this episode is a great example of how to do it well.

Sarachan: I love the episodes that I’ve heard so far. How does your work as an anthropologist and researcher inform your job as host of this show?

Lewis: I’m so glad to hear you’re enjoying this season. My role as host is to briefly set the scene for each episode and, in the case of the interviews, to serve as a stand in the for audience. I like to think what makes me a good anthropologist and researcher is my incessant curiosity about the world. My awareness of cultural differences across space and time makes me less willing to take mundane aspects of human life in one place as a given everywhere. I want to understand what I’m seeing in the broader context of politics, history, and culture and know what it means to the people directly impacted by changing phenomena. As a host, I rely on that curiosity when asking the experts to take listeners to their place of study, be it in a different historical period or geographic location, and into the heart of the issue at hand. I want to know how they personally experience climate change or the burn of chili peppers and their significance to the human experience. I try to ask questions that help the researchers flesh out the nuances of their work so listeners can understand what is at stake and why these issues are important.

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Sarachan: What have you learned while creating Sapiens?

Lewis: I’ve been reminded of the powerful impact of good storytelling and just how much work goes into telling stories well. It’s been awe-inspiring to see the fellows translate their academic work for a broader public audience, and then make the jump from writing to audio. It’s a lot of work! They dealt with the challenges of recording in different countries, working with several different people who helped with translations and voice acting, and then weighed in on the sound engineering. When you hear the episodes, you don’t get to see all that work, but it’s there in the powerful messages in each piece. I didn’t have many opportunities to be involved in podcast creation or to think as much about using audio to share my own research and it’s been a great eye-opener for me to see just how powerful this medium can be. This season is a reminder that there are so many people doing salient, exciting research and learning how to share it effectively with the world can be very satisfying.

Sarachan: What can audiences expect in season 5?

Lewis: A bit of everything, really! The listeners will find themselves in different countries and time periods. There is plenty of complexity, suspense, Aha! Moments, and questions about the human experience, how we interact with other humans and our environments, and ethical conundrums anthropologists and archaeologists frequently grapple with. I’m going to quote one of the interviewees in the first episode who says, “It’s a wild ride. Brace yourself!”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Sapiens can be listened to here.