SOAS Radio

I sit down with author Mahesh Rao to interview him about his short story collection One Point Two Billion. We talk about his writing process, his motivations for his short stories, and his short stories as vignettes into different cross-sections of modern neo-liberal Indian life.

In this first episode, we speak to Reylon Yount, an MA student of “Music in Development”. Reylon plays the yangqin, a percussive string instrument also known as the Chinese hammered dulcimer.

As a biracial Chinese American, he cherishes the opportunity he has to stay connected to his heritage through music. He is also interested in the potential of music to create the cultural conditions necessary for sustainable development.

Listen to/buy his EP here: www.reylon.bandcamp.com

Contact: www.reylonyount.com

Join all four co-presidents in the SOAS Radio studio today discussing the past couple of very eventful months here at SOAS Students' Union. The co-presidents respond to some questions submitted by SOAS students, including:

3:46  Why is the SU not letting students hold them to account?

6:26 Why is the SU acting like a rogue entity whereby they dismiss and intimidate all those with grievances.

8:21 Why did some S.U. co-presidents vote against having a referendum to hold them to account?

14:38 Why were all students not balloted if they want to support recent teachers strike action- is the student union unrepresentative, only 10% of SOAS students voted in electing union officials many of which had only 1 candidate- is the student union therefore dictatorial and akin to a one party state

20:58 Also do you think tactics of intimidation by picket-liners who in turn forced student solidarity (by people being scared to cross the picket line) is acceptable?  

32:24 Why hasn't SOAS Admin + SOAS SU done more to mobilize support for compensation? Especially when international students are paying literally thousands of pounds?

32:33 If both lecturers and students are losing out economically - but we are only supporting the lecturers - how can we call this one-way support ''solidarity'', especially when students are quite vulnerable too?

Intro/ outro song: IDK by Willow

If you have questions you'd like addressed in the next episode, please submit them anonymously here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSedS4pzjIIhslF6W24l88SLES3JA8fyd6MVawILX096ytFxGA/viewform

Here is our next episode in the Global Sport Conversations Podcast Series. Today we interview Dr. J Simon Rofe and Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff, who respectively, have been at the forefront of academic scholarship in and around sport diplomacy across the past decade or so. Simon and Lindsay speak to Verity about their own perspectives on: what is sport diplomacy and governance; who benefits, in particular, is an athlete a diplomat? And some thoughts on the future of the debate.

For more information on today’s speakers please check out the following:

Simon’s profile - https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff74153.php

A recent piece from Simon - https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/22167/

Lindsay’s website - https://www.lindsaysarahkrasnoff.com/

A forthcoming edited text by Simon and with a contribution from Lindsay - http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526131058/

About the Podcast:

The Global Sport Conversations Podcast Series is a collaborative project between: the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, the Japan Research Centre, the Centre for Media and Film Studies and SOAS Radio. All proudly funded by the Research and Enterprise Office Seedcorn Initiative.

The purpose of this podcast series is to explore, with industry and academic experts, the role sport has played in their lives and professional practices. It is an exciting opportunity for a variety of voices and multiple interpretations of the leading question: where does sport fit in global diplomacy?

In this conversation with Nico Marzano - film curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London - we speak his work as a curator and about the upcoming edition of a very special small film festival, called “Frames of Representation”. We speak about the idea of the film festival as laboratory; as a space for discovery for innovative cinematic language and as a space where cinema and art become dynamic forces for change. Why does the 'film festival as laboratory' matter? Can cinema change the world? What do you believe in as a supporter of independent cinema?

#FoR18 - “Frames of Representation” – 20-28 April 2018 @ ICA London

http://www.framesofrepresentation.com/

Tracklist:

Pina (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

A Song For H Far Away (Max Richter)

Interview by Max Bloching

Here is our first episode in the Global Sport Conversations Podcast Series. A collaborative project between: the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, the Japan Research Centre, the Centre for Media and Film Studies and SOAS Radio. All proudly funded by the Research and Enterprise Office Seedcorn Initiative.

The purpose of this podcast series is to explore, with industry and academic experts, the role sport has played in their lives and professional practices. It is an exciting opportunity for a variety of voices and multiple interpretations of the leading question: where does sport fit in global diplomacy?

The first interview is with Aziyadé Poltier-Mutal, who is the Head of the Perception Change Project, in the Office of the Director General at the United Nations. Aziyadé speaks to Verity about the upcoming United Nations and UEFA Match for Solidarity; an insight into the relationship between the United Nation and the International Olympic Committee; and finally her own experiences and career development.

If you are interested in the locations, structures and voices involved in sport, development and peace on a global scale… then this podcast is must listen!

Aziyadé has kindly shared some further documents and links for further information and resource:

http://www.metropolelemanique.ch/docs/05-10-2017-final-report.pdf

https://www.olympic.org/development-through-sport

http://www.uefa.com/matchforsolidarity/#/

https://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/120968E3CAD783C8C125823300567E99?OpenDocument

https://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/431DAA62A3E5D7A6C12581F400491DE6?OpenDocument

In this first episode of The Impostors, three anthropologists look back to the beginning of their PhDs, the difficulties of writing ethnography, and the silver linings that help them get through the process.

In this episode, Laura Siegler talks to Omar Salha, Phd Student at SOAS University. Omar’s research focuses Muslim football players and their role in the integration of the Muslim community in Britain. He is also a member of Football Beyond Borders, an organisation that supports young people from low income background in education, work and public life through football practice.

Omar talks about structural improvements through accommodation of religious practices in football clubs, and the different influences that local sport practices and mega sporting industries have on identity politics.

University staff UK-wide have entered the 4th week of striking in one of the biggest industrial actions of the sector. On March 12th, an agreement between the University College Union (UCU) and employers represented by Universities UK (UUK) was proposed and later rejected. The meeting discussing the proposal at the UCU North London Headquarters drew a crowd of hundreds of strikers protesting the deal.

Miia Laine for SOAS Radio spoke to some of the university staff present about their views and experiences of the strike and the proposed deal.

Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, SOAS South Asia Institute – Research Associate

In an age where a number of South Asian states seem to re-define their nationalism, Pakistan is engaged in building both its identity and partnerships aimed at re-defining the country's role and status in the hierarchy of nations. It no longer considers itself a weak embattled state that has limited capacity to respond. Pakistan's new power configuration aims at a more significant role in South Asia and also the Middle East. The important issue, however, is that how will a new imagined geo-political environment trained on a traditional socio-political paradigm respond to the changes?