In our final episode of our bookshelf mini-series, Isabella interviews Black feminist artist-researcher, writer and curator, Nydia Swaby. 

While often referred to as the first wife of Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey and the Future of Black Feminist Archives documents Swaby's work to recover Amy's life as a political activist, cultural producer and Pan-Africanist in her own right. In the podcast, she reflects on her expansive journey through Amy's fragmented and dispersed archives, engaging in historical research alongside autoethnographic practice, speculative narrative, and arts-based research methods too. Swaby reflects on the precarity of Black feminist archives and the necessity of preserving these histories through creativity and experimentation.

This episode is part of a mini-series inspired by our latest shado bookshelf season: To Be Loved, Is To Be Remembered: Archiving for Liberation. We explored titles from Lawrence Wishart Books' Radical Black Women collection, curated in collaboration with the Black Cultural Archives to redress erasures of Black British and Black Transnational Feminist Histories. These works shine a light on the lives and activism of Claudia Jones, Gerlin Bean and Amy Ashwood Garvey - three revolutionary figures whose legacies continue to shape global justice movements.

Nydia Swaby's practice engages archives, autoethnography, photography, the moving image, and the imagination to explore the gendered, diasporic and affective dimensions of Black being and becoming. She is also the author of the book Amy Ashwood Garvey and the Future of Black Feminist Archives, which traces her journey in piecing together a biography of Garvey from her fragmented and dispersed archive.

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In today's episode, author A.S. Francis is joined by guest host Isabella Kajiwara for a powerful conversation on the life and legacy of Gerlin Bean - otherwise known as "Mother of the Movement." 

Together, they explore Bean's vital contributions to youth work, Black Power politics, gay liberation, and her deeply relational approach to leadership. Bean's efforts in intergenerational organising and transnational activism are also highlighted, while unpacking the challenges of documenting her legacy and the process behind writing her story.

This episode is part of a mini-series inspired by our latest shado bookclub season: To Be Loved, Is To Be Remembered: Archiving for Liberation. We explored titles from Lawrence Wishart Books' Radical Black Women collection, curated in collaboration with the Black Cultural Archives to redress erasures of Black British and Black Transnational Feminist Histories. These works shine a light on the lives and activism of Claudia Jones, Gerlin Bean and Amy Ashwood Garvey - three revolutionary figures whose legacies continue to shape global justice movements.

Amelia Francis is a PhD researcher examining women's involvement in Britain's Black radical organisations during the 1960s-1980s and the development of a Black women's movement. Amelia also works in production at Tate Modern, serves as a consultant to the Young Historians Project, and is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the History MattersJournal. 

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In today's episode, guest host Isabella Kajiwara is joined by black feminist writer and researcher Lola Olufemi in discussion of Claudia Jones: A Life in Exile by Marika Sherwood, the first book to chart her work in the movement for racial justice, focusing on her time in Britain.

They discuss the importance of remembering Claudia Jones as a communist, acknowledging the exile and persecution she faced due to McCarthyism in the U.S. and how her life was shaped by state violence and surveillance. Olufemi highlights Jones' efforts to bring an analysis of gender and race to Communist parties' understandings of exploitation, and how Jones harnessed cultural production as a mode of consciousness-building and resistance. Olufemi and Kajiwara discuss the challenges of sustaining revolutionary work amidst state surveillance and economic precarity, and what it will take for us to build truly inclusive and cross-disciplinary movements.

This episode is part of a mini-series inspired by our latest shado bookclub season: To Be Loved, Is To Be Remembered: Archiving for Liberation. We explored titles from Lawrence Wishart Books' Radical Black Women collection, curated in collaboration with the Black Cultural Archives to redress erasures of Black British and Black Transnational Feminist histories. These works shine a light on the lives and activism of Claudia Jones, Gerlin Bean and Amy Ashwood Garvey - three revolutionary figures whose legacies continue to shape global justice movements.

Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer, researcher and Associate Lecturer based in the design school at University Arts London. Her work focuses on the utility of the political imagination in the textual and visual cultures of radical social movements, examining the role cultural production plays in materialist resistance and collective conceptualisations of futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (Pluto Press, 2020), Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Hajar Press, 2021), and the forthcoming Against Literature (2026).

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In the last few years, we’ve seen the idea of ‘radical rest’ explode - but is rest always radical? Or has it been coopted by the wellness industry to placate us?

Zoe and Larissa go back to radical rests’ roots in Black Womanist Thought and Crip Theory to understand how we actually tackle the social conditioning of toxic productivity under white supremacist capitalism. What does doing the bare minimum mean? How does resting our body-minds make space for broader economic and societal shifts?

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Since anti-apartheid activism, South Africa has been a beacon for people of conscience across the world to learn from. In this episode, Zoe and Larissa speak with a PhD student, Raees Noorbhai, who is an organiser with 10 years of experience fighting for free education at Wits University.

Trialling a different episode format (feedback welcome!), Zoe and Larissa reflect on some of the learnings from our dialogue with Raees. This chat covers tactics like marches, mass meetings and hunger strikes. Tune in to hear about how all of these have been used in South Africa’s Fees Must Fall movement, and to gain inspiration for the movements you’re a part of. Let us know if you’ve used any of these, or if you’re hoping to now!

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How do I make my street into a renewable power station? Speaking with Dan Edelstyn from the Power Project, this episode discusses how people power is fuelling renewable power generation on a street in Walthamstow. In Ann Pettifor’s seminal book, The Case for the Green New Deal, she wrote, “every building a power station”. Filmmaker duo Dan and Hilary have rose to the occasion alongside their community. The pair are capturing the process and using their art both to document the journey, and to compel others to action.

Tune into the Power Station film coming out soon here: https://membership.power.film/join-free

References:

The Case for the Green New Deal by Ann Pettifor

https://www.waterstones.com/book/artpolitik/neala-schleuning/9781570272486

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Stream Dan and Hilary’s previous film, Bank Job

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What happens when riders refuse to pay, and do it together? In this episode, we explore the fare strike as a bold social justice tactic, where collective refusal to pay transit fares, or drivers' refusal to collect them, becomes a tool to demand more equitable public services. From Chile to Japan, fare strikes have been used to demand better public transport, job protection and wage increases - but does it always work? Can we just stop paying for the bus to protest privatisation? Or does it require a deeper, more strategic approach.

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This week, Zoe and Larissa are in conversation with community organiser, youth worker and educator, Sara Bafo. This episode draws on her extensive experience to consider how we can use the media, the limitations of mainstream channels, and how we build alternatives. They also discuss how to take these decisions collectively with accountability to those we organise alongside.

N.B. this episode was recorded on Thursday 3rd July 2025 so all views expressed are from that date.

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