Below the Radar

Julia Aoki hosts a discussion with Dr. Sibo Chen and Dr. Cary Wu on anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Chen, assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, discusses his research on media narratives, political polarization, and disinformation. Dr. Wu, an associate professor at York University, highlights the rise of anti-Asian racism and its impact on mental health. Sibo emphasizes the importance of bringing together diverse voices, including scholars, community practitioners, and journalists, to discuss and address the long-lasting impact of anti-Asian racism, which intensified during the pandemic. The conversation also covers the importance of understanding different perceptions of racism within Asian communities and the need for transdisciplinary research to address these issues effectively.

Resources:

Sibo Chen: https://www.torontomu.ca/procom/people/sibo-chen/

Cary Wu: https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/carywu/

#StopAsianHate: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jtc-2021-2002/html?lang=en

Angus Reid Institute: https://angusreid.org/

Bios:

Sibo Chen

Sibo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University. As a critical communication scholar by training, his areas of interest include Public Communication of Climate and Energy Policy, Risk and Crisis Communication, Transcultural Political Economy, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Currently, he serves as Executive Board Members of the International Environmental Communication Association as well as the Canadian Communication Association.

Cary Wu

Cary Wu (PhD, UBC) is an assistant professor of sociology at York University. His research focuses on political culture, race and ethnicity, and health inequality. He has published widely on these topics and often shares his research with the public via national and international TV, radio, and newspaper forums including NPR, CBC, CTV, Washington Post, Toronto Star, Maclean’s, and The Economist. He is currently working on a five-year (2022-2026) SSHRC Insight Grant research project to develop a political sociology of health (PSH) to study social and political trust as essential determinants of health.

Welcome to Common Concern: Conversations on Anti-Asian Racism in the Wake of COVID-19. This is a special Below the Radar series produced in collaboration with Toronto Metropolitan University and SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Common Concern is a mini-series that considers the historical context, and short and long term impacts of a rise of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lens of academics and community organizers.

In this introductory episode, Canadian Journal of Communication editor Stuart Poyntz is joined by Sibo Chen to discuss the origins of Common Concern, as an offshoot of Sibo’s ongoing research, the potential for podcasting as an accessible vehicle for knowledge mobilization, and the development of this special series in partnership with Below the Radar.

Bios:

Sibo Chen

Sibo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University. As a critical communication scholar by training, his areas of interest include Public Communication of Climate and Energy Policy, Risk and Crisis Communication, Transcultural Political Economy, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Currently, he serves as Executive Board Members of the International Environmental Communication Association as well as the Canadian Communication Association.

Stuart R. Poyntz

Stuart R. Poyntz is Professor and Associate Director of the School of Communication and a Director of the Community Engaged Research Centre (CERi) at Simon Fraser University. His work in participatory research has largely involved teenagers in informal learning spaces and art institutes. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University, Hong Kong Baptist University, and the University of British Columbia, and was President of the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People.

Stuart's research addresses children’s media cultures, theories of public life, social care and urban youth cultures. He has published five books, including the forthcoming monograph, Youthsites: Histories of Creativity, Care and Learning in the City (Oxford UP), and has published widely in national and international peer-reviewed journals, including Oxford Review of Education, Popular Culture, Journal of Children and Media, Canadian Journal of Communication, Cultural Studies, Studies in Social Justice, Journal of Youth Studies, Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, and in various edited collections.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Kate Hennessy, Associate Professor at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts & Technology and member of anti-patriarchal, anti-colonial folk inspired punk band, The Saltlicks.

Together, they chat about Kate’s practice in anthropology and contemporary art, the experience of working collaboratively and across disciplines, and her recent exhibitions Becoming Anarchival at Gallery 881 and The Water We Call Home on Galiano Island.

Featuring music by The Saltlicks (“Eyeliner,” “Waxing and Waning”).

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/263-kate-hennessy.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/263-kate-hennessy.html

Resources:

Making Culture Lab: https://www.makingculturelab.com/

Ethnographic Terminalia: https://ethnographicterminalia.org/

The Water We Call Home: https://www.thewaterwecallhome.com/

Becoming Anarchival: https://www.smithhennessystudio.com/exhibition/becominganarchival881

The Saltlicks: https://thesaltlicks.bandcamp.com/album/diaries

Bio:

Kate Hennessy is an Associate Professor specializing in Media at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT). She is a cultural anthropologist with a PhD from the University of British Columbia (Anthropology). As the director of the Making Culture Lab at SIAT, her research explores the role of digital technology in the documentation and safeguarding of cultural heritage, and the mediation of culture, history, objects, and subjects in new forms. Her video and multimedia works investigate documentary methodologies to address Indigenous and settler histories of place and space. Current projects include the collaborative production of virtual museum exhibits with Indigenous communities in Canada; the study of new digital museum networks and their effects; ethnographic research on the implementation of large scale urban screens in public space; open-access and innovative forms of publishing; and, the intersections of anthropology and contemporary art practices.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Becoming Anarchival — with Kate Hennessy.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 18, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/263-kate-hennessy.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Michael Turner, a Vancouver-based writer and musician. Am and Michael discuss the release of his latest book Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems. They also talk about the Hard Rock Miners, as well as programming work at the Malcolm Lowry Room, the Railway Club, and the Candahar Bar during the 2010 olympics.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/262-michael-turner.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/262-michael-turner.html

Resources:

Michael Turner: https://mtwebsit.blogspot.com/

Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems: https://www.anvilpress.com/books/playlist-a-profligacy-of-your-least-expected-poems

Bio:

Michael Turner lives in the garrison town of Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. His books include Hard Core Logo, The Pornographer’s Poem and, more recently, 9×11 and Other Poems Like Bird, Nine, x and Eleven. His wartime journal mtwebsit.blogspot.com continues to cause him problems.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Playlist: A Profligacy of Your Least-Expected Poems — with Michael Turner.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 11, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/262-michael-turner.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Lisa Jackson, an award-winning filmmaker, whose work spans hybrid documentary, installation, VR, and more. Am and Lisa discuss her latest work, Wilfred Buck, a portrait of Cree Elder Wilfred Buck, an Indigenous star lore expert. They also talk about her time as an undergraduate student at SFU and her journey as a filmmaker.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/261-lisa-jackson.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/261-lisa-jackson.html

Resources:

Lisa Jackson: https://www.lisajackson.ca/

Door Number 3: https://doornumber3.ca/

Wilfred Buck: https://doornumber3.ca/wilfred-buck/

Transmissions: https://doornumber3.ca/transmissions/

Biidaaban: https://doornumber3.ca/biidaaban-first-light/

Suckerfish: https://www.lisajackson.ca/Suckerfish

Bio:

Lisa Jackson lives in Toronto and is Anishinaabe from Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Her award-winning work has screened at CPH:DOX, Sundance, Berlinale Forum Expanded, SXSW, Camden, Hotdocs, Tribeca, BFI London, the Melbourne Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and broadcast widely. She’s made works ranging from current affairs to IMAX, animation to VR, and even a residential school musical. In 2021 she received the Documentary Organization of Canada’s Vanguard Award and in 2022 she was selected for a Chicken & Egg Award. Her 2024 hybrid feature documentary Wilfred Buck premiered in the DOX:AWARD section at CPH:DOX and was a top five audience pick at Hot Docs and won Best Canadian Film at Calgary Film Festival and the Women Inmate Jury Award at RIDM. Her short Lichen screened at Sundance in 2020 and Indictment: The Crimes of Shelly Chartier is one of the top watched documentaries on CBC, won the 2017 imagineNATIVE Best Doc award and was also co-produced by Lisa.

Her Webby-nominated VR Biidaaban: First Light premiered at Tribeca Storyscapes in 2018, exhibited internationally to 25,000+ people, and won a Canadian Screen Award (Canada’s Oscar), the second time she’s received this honour. Transmissions, a 6000-square-foot immersive multimedia installation and sister project to Biidaaban, premiered in Vancouver in 2019 and was featured on the cover of The Georgia Straight. In 2016, she directed the VR Highway of Tears for CBC Radio’s The Current which was nominated for a Canadian Association of Journalists award. In 2015 she was drama director for the 8 x 1 hour APTN/ZDF docudrama series 1491: The Untold Story Of The Americas Before Columbus, based on the bestselling book by Charles C. Mann, which was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. She has an MFA in Film Production from York University (thesis prize) and is an alumna of the TIFF Talent and Writers Labs, Canadian Film Centre’s Directors Lab, IDFA Summer School, CFC/NFB/Ford Foundation’s Open Immersion VR Lab, and was a Fellow at the MIT Open Doc Lab.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Star Stories — with Lisa Jackson.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, February 4, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/261-lisa-jackson.html.

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Beatrice Marovich, Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Hanover College and author of Sister Death: Political Theologies for Living and Dying. Together, they chat about the process of writing the book, and the theoretical and philosophical concepts of death as a relationship of enmity and sisterhood. Enjoy the episode!

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/260-beatrice-marovich.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/260-beatrice-marovich.html

Resources:

Beatrice Marovich: https://www.beatricemarovich.com/

Sister Death: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/sister-death/9780231208376

Bio:

Beatrice Marovich is the author of Sister Death: Political Theologies for Living and Dying (Columbia University Press, 2023). She teaches in the Department of Theological Studies, at Hanover College. Her work offers provocative reflections on the way that strange and ancient religious figures and ideas remain at work in our cultures, in our politics, and in our bodies in both beautiful and deeply unsettling ways.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “On Dying — with Beatrice Marovich.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 28, 2025. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/260-beatrice-marovich.html.

In this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Véronique Sioufi, the Researcher for Racial & Socio-economic Equity at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC Office, and a doctoral candidate in geography at Simon Fraser University.

Am and Véronique discuss what brought her to her doctoral work and her interest in issues of labour inequality, as well as how her position at the CCPA was created in order to look at structural racism in BC and fill in major data gaps. They also talk about how she and her colleagues in the CCPA approach questions of decolonisation in their work.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/259-veronique-sioufi.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/259-veronique-sioufi.html

Resources:

Véronique Sioufi: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/people/veronique-sioufi/

Véronique's Doctoral Research: https://www.sfu.ca/geography/about/our-people/profiles/veronique-emond-sioufi.html

CCPA BC: https://www.ccpabc.ca/

Bio:

Véronique is the CCPA-BCs Researcher for Racial & Socio-economic Equity, a data-driven, intersectional initiative that investigates structural racism and socio-economic inequalities in BC. An interdisciplinary researcher, Véronique critically examines the social and political structures affecting the ability of the working class to thrive. She brings a rich blend of expertise and work experience in labour, economic geography, critical data studies, critical race theory and communication. Currently a doctoral candidate in geography at Simon Fraser University, her SSHRC-funded study delves into crowdwork in Canada and Tunisia, particularly how platforms rely on and reproduce precarity and the uneven distribution of that precarity across gender, race, class and geography.

Véronique also holds an MA in Communication from SFU, where she explored the tensions in Canadian unions' use of privately owned social media platforms for collective organizing. Véronique is proud of her Palestinian roots, which make her particularly sensitive to the geographies of politics and power. She is passionate about community-driven, collaborative and hopeful research.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Racial Equity in Policy Making — with Véronique Sioufi.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, January 14, 2025.

https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/259-veronique-sioufi.html.

In this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Damla Tamer, a visual artist and sessional lecturer at UBC whose work explores the affective conditions of labour under late capitalism, and the evolution of forms of civil protest within the contemporary political history of Turkey. Damla is also a founding member of the Art Mamas artist collective, which aims to create support networks for artist caregivers, while critically exploring the place of motherhood and care work within the dominant culture of art production.

Am and Damla discusses her recent exhibition at Access gallery, which explored the aftermath of the Gezi protests in Turkey through textile works, her work with housing co-ops in False Creek South, and why she thinks it’s ok for students to express love for a work of art.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/258-damla-tamer.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/258-damla-tamer.html

Resources:

Art Mamas CBC Article: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/exhibitionists/art-mamas-meet-the-vancouver-collective-that-creates-community-for-mothers-in-the-arts-1.5129578

Art Mamas | Access Gallery:

https://accessgallery.ca/programming/artmamas

art/mamas: Intermedial Conversations on Art, Motherhood and Caregiving

https://criticalmediartstudio.iat.sfu.ca/artmamas/?page_id=291&fbclid=PAAaYDby0LbG_w1ZkyIsEjU61ZIV3FfuBCa25TBFHLHuMn9XUUmJqpUro5pPU

UBC Profile:

https://ahva.ubc.ca/profile/damla-tamer/

Bio:

Damla Tamer (born in Istanbul, Turkey) is a visual artist and educator living on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories. Her practice engages with the intersections of textile crafts and contemporary studio practices, with a special focus on weaving. Her work is heavily invested in searching for a new ethics of temporality through the relationships between aesthetics and politics. Her most recent work focuses on tracing the rise of neoliberal authoritarianism in Turkey and its relation to global movements, the evolution of forms of civil protest and resistance, and the capacities and limits of language and representation in locating oneself in a world that is rife with shifts. She does social-collaborative work as part of various artist collectives and co-operatives. She is a founding member of the artist mothers collective A.M. (Art Mamas) and has organized extensive public programming and co-published a book on motherhood, caregiving and social reproduction in relation to art and labour at large. She teaches at The University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Emily Carr University of Art+Design.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Art Mamas — with Damla Tamer.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 17, 2024.

https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/258-damla-tamer.html.

Tags:

SFU, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Simon Fraser University, Am Johal, Below the Radar, Damla Tamer, Art Mamas, Gezi, Vancouver Podcast

In this episode of Below the Radar, host Am Johal sits down with Mena El Shazly, a visual artist specializing in moving image creation, curation, and programming. Her practice speculates on notions of presence and transcendence in the digital world, exploring how processes of decay provide alternative forms of transformation and regeneration. They discuss her approach to time-based media, how the collaborative Death Spells project explores the ancient Egyptians afterlife obsessions, the Sudanese Crystalist movement, and how a teenage visit to Dracula’s castle unexpectedly waylaid her tennis career, steering her toward a life in art.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/257-mena-el-shazly.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/257-mena-el-shazly.html

Resources:

Mena El Shazly: https://substantialmotion.org/profile/mena-el-shazly

The Crystalist Manifesto: https://post.moma.org/modern-art-in-the-arab-world-primary-documents-the-crystalist-manifesto/

The Motion of the Image: https://thecinematheque.ca/films/2024/motion-image

The Lind Biennial: https://thepolygon.ca/exhibition/the-lind-biennial/

Stir ‘Splainer: 5 artists at The Lind Biennial exhibition at the Polygon Gallery: https://www.createastir.ca/articles/lind-biennial-stir-splainer

Small File Media Festival: https://smallfile.ca/

Bio:

Mena El Shazly is a visual artist who works with analogue video, embroidery and performance. Her practice speculates on notions of presence and transcendence as informed by the internet culture and ancient rituals, and explores practices of cultivating decay to arrive at alternative forms of transformation and regeneration. Exhibitions of her work include Polygon Gallery, Vancouver (2024), Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo (2024), and House of World Cultures, Berlin (2015). She was a fellow of the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2015). El Shazly is based in Vancouver on unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ First Nations. She obtained an MFA from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (2023) and a BA from the American University in Cairo (2013). El Shazly also has a well-established curatorial practice. She is the Artistic Director of the Cairo Video Festival organized by Medrar and a programmer at the Small File Video Festival.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “On Crystals, Tennis and Vampires — with Mena El Shaly.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 3, 2024.

https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/257-mena-el-shazly.html.

Tags: SFU, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Simon Fraser University, Am Johal, Below the Radar, Mena El Shazly

This week on Below the Radar, we’re joined by Tina Sikka, Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University. Tina discusses her research and writing on topics such as consent, justice, and feminist science studies, as well as her work in EDI at the university.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/256-tina-sikka.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/256-tina-sikka.html

Resources:

Tina Sikka: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/people/profile/tinasikka.html

Sex, Consent and Justice: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-sex-consent-and-justice.html

Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/health-apps-genetic-diets-and-superfoods-9781350202030/

Disrupted Knowledge Book: https://brill.com/display/title/64108?language=en

Disrupted Knowledge Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/disruptedknowledge

Bio:

Dr. Tina Sikka is Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University, UK. Her current research includes the critical and intersectional study of science, applied to climate change, bodies, and health, as well as research on consent, sexuality, and restorative justice. Dr. Sikka also works in the areas of decolonisation, bordering practices, and DEI.  Dr. Sikka’s book, Health Apps, Genetic Diets, and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023), uses autoethnography, science and technology studies, and new materialism to examine what constitutes ‘good health’ and explore possibilities for enacting health justice. Her previous book, Sex, Consent, and Justice: A New Feminist Framework (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) offers a novel approach to sexual ethics and transformative forms of justice using case studies from #MeToo, while her first book, Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (Springer, 2019), draws on feminist science studies to explore the science underpinning solar climate engineering.

Dr. Sikka’s work on EDI, and current role as Director of EDI in The School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University, has led to invitations to lead workshops and she acts as a consultant on race, gender, and the workplace, cancel culture, and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the public and private sectors.

Cite this episode:

Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Technoscience and Intersectional Justice — with Tina Sikka.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, November 19, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/256-tina-sikka.html.