Travel is not just seeing the world but understanding it...
INTERVIEWS
The Kafe Fønix Dialogues
Interview with Booker Prize winner, David Szalay:
On craft, alienation, and human connection: an in-depth conversation with novelist David Szalay.
Interview with Jonathan Newman
On relational ethnography, travel, and the origins of ‘A Travel Guide to Connection’.
Dispatches, Dialogues, and Talks
Podcasts, forum addresses, and research reports rooted in the relational ethnographic lens at the heart of A Travel Guide to Connection - offering provocative, counter-intuitive reflections that challenge mainstream assumptions on technology, commercialisation, and contested global power.
PODCAST
People Problems
How do people work?
Are we all the same deep down, or is there something else going on?
Join social anthropologist Jonathan Newman, his nephew, composer Luke Deane and a host of fascinating professionals to discuss topics which seem simple at first, but very quickly blow our minds.
UN POLICY FORUM ADDRESS
Ethics in Cannabis
Jonathan Newman argues neither the industry-chasing profit-nor the UN-constrained by entrenched bureaucracy and power differentials-will align cannabis with Sustainable Development Goals.
The core ethical question is asking why both institutions refuse to lead on genuine social and ecological change.
DSEI FORUM PRESENTATION
Ethics and Gridlock in the Arms Trade
Delivering a provocative talk directly on the exhibition floor at DSEI—one of the world's largest arms fairs—Jonathan Newman confronts the industry from within. He uses an anthropological lens to challenge how commodified security and mimetic competition manufacture continuous fear, arguing that treating insecurity as an endlessly expanding market undermines genuine safety.
PODCAST
The FuturAI Podcast with Pranath Fernando - AI Consultant
Redefining Progress: AI, Humanity’s Path, and the Simplicity Revolution
Using an anthropological lens, Jonathan challenges the illusion of human control over technology, inviting listeners to rethink power dynamics and explore collaborative, relational coexistence with AI rather than mastery.
DISCOVER
Jonathan Newman at Kafe Fønix (6th June 2026)
