Where We Stage Our Secret Selves was born out of my PhD research — and out of everything that research stirred in me long after the fieldwork ended. When I began my doctorate, I identified as a feminist, cisgender, heterosexual Italian-Australian woman shaped by migration across continents and by intergenerational histories I was only beginning to understand. Professionally, I stood at the intersection of academia and the not-for-profit sector, committed to questions of power, gender and justice. Researching sex work and migration in Malta initially felt like a continuation of that trajectory, yet I did not yet realise how profoundly it would reshape it. Speaking about sex so openly — and relatedly, about abortion, desire, violence, intimacy, motherhood, fear, fantasy — created a space of shared vulnerability between myself and the people who trusted me with their stories. Conversations that began as research interviews often became moments of unexpected honesty and release.

This podcast emerged from a desire to return to these conversations from a different angle — beyond the thesis, beyond academia — and to create something more accessible, more dialogic, and more alive. It is an attempt to honour the complexity of the people who shaped my research, to move past flattened narratives of victimhood or sensationalism, and to invite a wider audience into the nuanced, uncomfortable, liberating terrain where sex, migration, power, and identity meet. This is where the collaboration with the Synaps network proved invaluable. Synaps’ commitment to producing clear, accessible analysis helped shape the way this podcast foregrounds voices often marginalised in mainstream conversations. This collaboration allowed Where We Stage Our Secret Selves to move traditional academic research, breaking down complex findings into digestible and engaging insights that resonate with a wider audience.