Elizabeth Pisani is one of the world’s leading epidemiologists, her incendiary book, The Wisdom of Whores, argued for a total reappraisal in our approach to AIDS (ruffling quite a few feathers in the process). In recent years, she’s focused her attention on Indonesia, a country she sees as “one giant bad boyfriend”. Her project, Indonesia etc. meditates on this nation of wild idiosyncrasies. Widely considered as one of the best pieces of non-fiction of 2014, it’s a work that sees Elizabeth reflect on everything from live jousts, cannibals to political corruption

In this fascinating talk, Elizabeth explores the positive role of corruption, arguing that it can have a distributive, positive function in Indonesian society.