Resetting The Table

This is a special episode we recorded on a summer podcast retreat on Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) territory, Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast. While resting ourselves, we explore how we can embody rest as a radical and reciprocal practice. We discuss rest as a form of resistance to capitalism and white supremacy, essential to community care and advocating for systemic change, and our own understanding and experiences of rest as a rhythm of life—whether it be napping, building boundaries, connecting to the land, and sacred attentiveness. As we touch on lessons from Black feminism and Jewish shabbat, precursor to the Christian sabbath, we ask: who has access to rest? What would rest redistribution look like? How can rhythms of rest lead us into broader and transformative changes? We hope you will be challenged and inspired by this conversation to practice a rhythm of rest in your own life and community.

A huge THANK YOU to our Patreon supporters for making this retreat possible for us!

Episode Notes & Annotations:

Currently, we do not have the capacity for releasing updated transcripts per episode. We plan to update Season 2 episodes with transcripts as soon as we're able. If you have the interest, skills, and volunteer capacity to help us out with this, get in touch: [email protected]

In this episode, Céline, Maria and Trixie talk about the importance of representation, the pervasiveness of whiteness in books and stories we read growing up, and the powerful recognition that comes with seeing ourselves in the media. We takedown some tropes and discuss the emergence of Asian experiences and storytelling, including Turning Red, Never Have I Ever, and Scarborough (no spoilers!).

Rent Scarborough online through TIFF: https://digital.tiff.net/film/scarborough/

In this fiery episode, which builds off our Gender Troublemaking episode, Maria, Céline, and Trixie have a candid conversation about white feminism 101. What is white feminism, how does it show up in everyday interactions and norms as well as society and culture more broadly? How have we experienced and witnessed the harm done by white feminism, historically, and today? In this salty, laughter-filled discussion, we cover the history of white feminism as in league with white supremacy, pop culture examples, and TERFism as a form of white feminism.

Content note: In this episode, we mention slavery, sexual violence and lynching. These topics are not covered in depth or detail. As always, do what you gotta do to take care of yourself and skip this episode if that’s what you need.

Technical note: We had some sound issues with this episode, so you might notice some weird blips, background noise, and static. Thanks for the patience as we do our best to address this moving forward.

Notes & Annotations:

In this episode, Maria, Céline, and Trixie talk Gender 101: what is gender, what does it mean to us, and how can we be gender troublemakers no matter what our relationship to gender is? In this informal and playful conversation, we cover a range of topics related to gender: basic terminology, gender as a social construct, the gender binary and how it relates to capitalism and colonialism, troubling gender, and the significance (and practice) of using pronouns. We touch on feminism and gender, heteronormativity in the church, and showing up for trans siblings and trans women. Also, Maria comes out as nonbinary! They use they/them pronouns now.

Content notes: The first part of the episode is mostly Gender 101 and our own experience and commentary. Around the 38 minute mark, we talk about violence against trans women. Around 45 minutes, we talk about colonialism and genocide when we discuss where the gender binary comes from.

Additional Resources & Readings:

The Gender Binary is a Tool of White Supremacy: https://aninjusticemag.com/the-gender-binary-is-a-tool-of-white-supremacy-db89d0bc9044

#ItEndsHere: Rebelling against colonial gender violence (Leanne Simpson): https://rabble.ca/feminism/itendshere-rebelling-against-colonial-gender-violence/

Red Women Rising Report: https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubccommunityandpartnerspublicati/52387/items/1.0378104

In this episode, Maria, Céline and Trixie speak with educator Josema Zamorano about the academic project being entrenched in colonialism and white supremacy, and decolonial alternatives to learning—including radical pedagogy and public education. We talk about embodied learning, blurring Western academic categories, and the role of art & creativity in being-as-knowing. We’re all learners, so even if you’re not in an academic context, we hope you take away something from our conversation.

Transcript coming soon!

In this exploratory conversation about consent, Céline, Maria and Trixie discuss how consent connects with bodily autonomy, especially in our interactions with one another, and how the lack of consent (societal as well as interpersonal) leads to distrust and disconnection from our bodies. We talk about teaching and modelling consent with kids, choice, communication, and unpack the problematic use of “consent” by anti-vaxxers and the right.

Parents and folks with littles in your life, we’d love to hear from you on how you teach and model consent with kids! Leave us a voice message on Anchor.fm/resettingthetable, we hope to feature some of these tidbits in a future episode.

Note: After having this conversation, Céline came across some reading about the white supremacist ideology of “Freemen-on-the-land,” which employs rhetoric around the lack of “consent” as a form of pseudolegal language. While this context wasn’t incorporated into our episode, it’s helpful supplementary information to keep in mind as we question the use of consent by anti-vaxxers and the right, more generally.

Transcript coming soon.

In this episode, chapter two in our non-chronological food series, Trixie, Maria and Céline chat with special guest Iona Fresnoza of Kapé Coffee. Iona shares how coffee relates to cultural reclamation, land stewardship, and decolonization, and about her journey founding Kapé, a social enterprise and small-batch coffee roaster working directly with Indigenous women farmers in the Philippines.

Episode Notes & Annotations:

Find @kape.coffee at kape.coffee online or locally in Vancouver at Kulinarya, La Glace Ice Cream, Legends Haul, Oh Sweet Day, and Cafe Kuya.

When talking about Phillipinx cultural reclamation and identity, Iona and hosts mention Cambio & Co, Living Hyphen, Tita Collective, and Kimmortal.

Iona also mentions the book Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino -/ American Postcolonial Psychology, the title and concept derived from Franz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks (mentioned by Céline).

Welcome to Season 2 of Resetting The Table! In our first episode, Trixie, Maria and Céline nerd out on music: who we’re listening to, how we can be intentional in our music choices, and paying attention to the songs and messages that musical artists are putting out in the world. We talk about conscious consumption, representation and subjectivity in music, and explore how music can de-centre whiteness and build political consciousness. In our journey to a liberatory faith practice, we also unpack (and rant about) Christian worship music and how it is entwined in bad theology and white evangelicalism.

Transcript coming soon. And stay tuned for a fun accompanying playlist in the works.

Have you eaten? In this episode on food, first of a few, Trixie and Céline discuss appropriation and moralizing of food, food as a love language, force of cultural reclamation, and source of sustenance in collective memory-making and resisting white supremacy and gentrification. Trixie also talks about her work at Flavours of Hope with newcomer refugee women and food as creating community and belonging. In future food episodes, we’ll touch on food sovereignty, food systems, and more. Got a topic you want us to talk about, or a guest idea? Email [email protected].

We did it, people, we made a first season! This is the last episode of season 1. Our podcast team will be taking a pause to rest and rack up a few more episodes in advance this summer. Thanks for the support - we’re incredibly nourished by the community and conversations emerging from this podcast, and we are excited to continue this work together. Onwards!

Transcript coming soon.

Episode Notes & Annotations:

Some unmentioned inspirations and/or food justice co-conspirers for this episode: hua foundation, Youth Collaborative for Chinatown, Mia Birdsong’s food chapter in “How We Show Up.”

Celine mentions her piece, “Let Us Be Water: Grieving Gentrification in the Heart of the City” for GUTS Magazine: http://gutsmagazine.ca/grieving-gentrification/

Trixie, Maria, and Céline talk, rant, and laugh with guest Sunia Gibbs about purity culture, its heyday in the evangelical church, how it connects to patriarchy and rape culture, and reclaiming a healthy sense of sexuality and selfhood. Sunia is a pastor, artist, and activist who leads The Groves Church in Portland. She also co-wrote the music for our podcast! Find Sunia at @suniagibbscreative on Instagram and on her website http://suniagibbsart.com. More about The Groves church at thegroveschurch.com.

Episode Notes & Annotations:

CONTENT WARNING: In this episode, we talk candidly about purity culture, including sexual shaming, modesty, toxic masculinity, and spiritual trauma. If you grew up in a similar Christian tradition, you might have baggage in common with us - but these topics aren’t always easy to engage with, depending on where you’re at. For us, this conversation was healing and cathartic; it might not be that way for others. Be informed, and be kind to yourself.

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE: We speak a lot about our own experience in this episode growing up socialized as women, especially in relation to purity culture, which enforces a rigid gender binary. Our language in this episode thus tends to be quite binary and gendered, i.e., centring cis women’s experiences. We want to acknowledge that our stories and language do not encompass the experiences of trans and non-binary folks who also were harmed by purity culture. We will be making room for these voices in future chapters as we continue the unlearning and learning journey. We’re also planning on unpacking the gender binary in a future episode, so stay tuned. We're grateful to do this work in community: send us feedback or questions at [email protected].

People, books, and other works mentioned during this episode: