Borderscapes

Studying abroad is a privilege to expand your knowledge and experience in a foreign country. It has all the perks for an eighteen-year-old to live, laugh, and maybe, find love. But what if I told you that it's not all about sunshine and rainbows? What if there's more to face?

Well, welcome to a life of an international student. Where we talk about the hard truth one faces. Aside from an eye-opening world waiting to be discovered, what about the barriers that halt us? How does this affect us?

Well, friends are the power of the language, culture, and the shock of a new reality. Let's face it! New place, new friends, new rules? Isn't it a little bit shocking? With hours of school and the fact that you have to adjust so quickly, it's going to be one hell of a ride! But one that's worth every penny. Life outside is fun, expensive, challenging, but thrilling all at the same time, but it is all about how you choose to handle it!

In this episode, we will talk about the hard facts of a foreign exchange student, opportunities, words of wisdom, and the differences when studying abroad. By the end of this podcast, you will know our first-hand experiences as ordinary students in a whole new world.

By Yasmeen AlBusairi

Imagine you're a football player and you're the main striker in your team. There is five minutes on the clock and it's a very crucial game. You get the perfect pass and you scored the goal, everyone is happy, the fans are all over the place, you're happy and your teammates are happy. The whistle blows and you look towards the referee and he calls for VAR. You look up on the screen and the goal is signaled offside by a fingertip. So, imagine the feeling you get when you score that crucial goal but it's all gone because of one small fingertip issue because VAR saw it and flagged it offside.

We deep dive into the world of football and VAR and talk with different people from the industry as they give their standpoint on whether VAR has spoiled the game or not while I also give in my personal opinions on VAR.

By Rishabh Ravindhar

Brexit has certainly been a very controversial topic ever since it first began, but did you ever think for a second, that it would have a major impact on the future of the music industry? Very soon musicians will no longer be able to freely travel across the EU to play shows to their fans, instead if they wish to play anywhere within the EU, they will have to have travel visas, which will be very costly for sure.

This is going to make life very difficult for independent musicians like Tom Lumley, who has just recently released his first EP with his band. The music industry has already suffered so much over the last year with the Covid19 pandemic, and with restrictions beginning to be eased, many artists no doubt are very much looking forward to getting back out on the road and performing to their fans. But, with this border that is being put in place between the UK and the EU, we must wonder, what does the future hold for the future of the music industry? Take a listen to find out.

By Jack Willard

Violet is a student who also does online cam work. She logs on when she wants to, on a camera room, performs and gets paid for that. She is an animal lover, a vegan, and an anthropologist student with a deep interest in people, their experiences and what they enjoy. This episode explores her story and together, we enroll in a deep, private, and surprisingly revealing conversation where we explore not only her experiences with limits and boundaries as a sex worker, but also how as women, we face so many misguided and absurd standards about the way we should treat our bodies, the way we experience its borders and how we should draw our own personal limits around them, because we are the only ones entitled to do so.

By Claudia Fernández

Laila Hussein, a young woman in her early 20's who used to live in a highly conservative household in the buzzing city of Cairo, Egypt, rebels against her family values and moves out of her family home. Laila shares her story, a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking series of events consisting of limitation of freedom, erasure of individuality, and cultural oppression in a refreshing fashion.

We discuss our shared female experience in living within the cultural borders of the Middle East, and deeper into the borders of Egypt, then Cairo, then the borders of our own homes, discussing the differences and similarities of what femininity, culture, and family means to us.

Laila Hussein is a dear friend of mine, and while I have lived some of the important events in her life, she tells her story in a refreshing and mature way, like I've never heard before.

By Mona Youssef

In 2020, a sudden epidemic swept the world. During the nearly 176 days of lockdown, we rely heavily on various social media to maintain our normal lives. Have you ever thought about how these new media will be like after the epidemic is over? Have they become part of us? Or will they fall quickly?

This episode is going to talk about people 's experience from unfamiliar to skillful application of these media in lockdown time and explore these platforms' futures by interviewing my friend Sia who has the same experience as me of being an international student.

By Wanxin Chen

What is home? Is home only a physical space that we occupy, a space where we feel safe? A space where we are understood and appreciated? Or is it an idea that lives within us? When so many of us have it all, there are a few that are still desperately longing for home.

On this episode of Borderscapes, Tousif explores the idea of home as a way to come in terms with his life long struggle to find home within himself.

As a privileged, cis-gender heterosexual man, Tousif never had to struggle for any material necessities growing up. But even while sitting in his room back in his home country in Bangladesh he would long for home, it made him realize that home is much more than the four walls that he lived in.

This podcast is a reflection of his own idea of home, as well as of those who struggle in a similar way. 'Finding home' is an attempt to come in terms with their long search for peace within themselves.

By Tousif Farhad

Using social media enables us to communicate with people anytime and anywhere, and to transmit and obtain information, especially during the pandemic, people are more dependent on seeking contact and information. But have you thought about when you are away from social media, do you really lose contact with the world? Or get back the chance to get along with yourself?

This episode focuses on the first-person experience of social media detox, how it represents a dilemma in the way of people using social media, meanwhile explore the borders of "myself". Want to try social media detox? Get inspiration through this episode.

By Yu-Hsin Chen

In the past year, county borders gained new importance as suddenly these lines on a map decided if you were allowed out of your house or doomed to stay in.

However, in this episode of Borderscapes, Katherine examines the meaning of these borders beyond the experiences of 2020.

Having grown up in the Kentish countryside, she had always assumed that she didn't have any kind of county identity. This was until her parents left Kent for a new life in West Sussex and she discovered a strange sense of disconnect with the county.

Hence, this podcast is a hunt for her own county identity, as she attempts to establish what is different about her home county and finds out what it means to be Kentish.

By Katherine Jones

In January 2021, a specific set of conditions led the price of GameStop stock to skyrocket. It had surface-level news coverage, but how much do you REALLY know about this story? This incredibly abnormal market behaviour saw financial institutions go head-to-head with individual investors, who were fed up with their driving companies into the ground for profit. The resulting chaos produced a Borderscape between these parties, which we'll explore in-depth in this podcast. You don't want to miss this.

By George Townsend