Recorded in May 2021, when racist attacks against Asian, South- and East Asian minoritised groups spiked in the U.S., U.K, and elsewhere were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, this conversation brings together Dr. Katucha Bento, Can Tao, Dr. Sarah Liu and Dr. Nini Fang. Against the background of a violent, racist attack in front of the University of Edinburgh library against a student, this conversation highlights the necessity to recognise the intersecting systems of oppression at work in racism and reflects on political solidarities and action necessary for anti-racist struggles.

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Speakers' bios:

Can Tao:

Can is a PhD researcher in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the everyday nationalism in Chinese high schools. She initiated the solidarity protest last December outside the main library, which she will give us a bit more context in this conversation. After this demonstration she joined the movement “Racism Unmasked Edinburgh” as an admin. Racism Unmasked Edinburgh is a movement to combat racism towards East Asians and South East Asians in Edinburgh, especially during the pandemic. It aims to create a safe space for the community, educate allies, and potentially push for greater policy changes.

Dr Nini Fang:

Dr Nini Fang is a lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. Her work foregrounds lived experiences, examining how the socio-political bears upon the personal-subjective. Her teaching pushes for a more politically sensitive curriculum that addresses social inequality in the consulting room. She is a Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. She sits on the Executive Board for the Association for Psychosocial Studies, the Editorial Board for New Associations (British Psychoanalytic Council). She is also the Associate Director for the Centre of Creative-Relational Inquiry (UoE).

Dr. Sarah Liu is Lecturer in Gender and Politics in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. Her research and teaching focus on the cross-national comparison of how contexts, namely women’s political representation, social movements, and immigration in the media, shape the gender gaps in political opinion and behaviour. She has published widely in academic journals and has been featured in multiple international media and also appears regularly on BBC Radios London and Scotland. Sarah is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Staff BAME Network at the University of Edinburgh and sits on various equality, diversity, and inclusion task forces both within and outside the University.

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The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode, Dr. Shaira Vadasaria hosts a conversation with Tanatsei Gambura, Hannah McGurk, Natasha Ruwona, and Lea Gagliardi Ventre of UncoverED, a collaborative student-led and decolonising archival project at the University of Edinburgh. They speak on their history and collective work of placing the University, as an institution and a body of students and staff, within its imperial and colonial legacy, using the University's own archives. Reflecting on race, positionality and the politics of archival interpretation, they discuss what is at stake for them in opening up the university's imperial past and racial present.

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Speakers' bios:

UncoverED Team

Hannah McGurk is a writer and facilitator from South London. She is the Head of Outreach at Project Myopia, an organisation dedicated to decolonising curricula and teaching practices, a Project Coordinator at UncoverEd, and Assistant Director of the Fringe of Colour Films festival 2020. Hannah is currently a final undergraduate student at the university of Edinburgh studying English Literature and German.

Natasha Thembiso Ruwona is a Scottish-Zimbabwean artist, researcher and programmer. They are interested in Afrofuturist storytelling through the poetics of the landscape, working across various media including; digital performance, film, DJing and writing. Their current project Black Geographies, Ecologies and Spatial Practice is an exploration of space, place and the climate as related to Black identities and histories. Natasha is interested in different forms of magic and is in particular drawn to the power of the moon. Natasha completed a curatorship for Africa in Motion Film Festival 2019 and was selected as Film Hub Scotland's New Promoter for Glasgow Short Film Festival's 2020 edition. They are a Project Coordinator for UncoverED, Assistant Producer for Claricia Parinussa, a Committee Member for Rhubaba, Board Member of the CCA, and a Submissions Viewer for Glasgow Short Film Festival. Natasha is co-producing a program for this year's Glasgow Film Festival.

Lea Gagliardi Ventre is a writer and researcher from Italy. Her main writing motif rests on the social anthropology and philosophy of language and fiction, as they relate to the making of material contexts. Lea looks at the construction of histories from a deconstructivist vantage point, focusing on the present and ongoing legacies of imperialism and colonialism in Europe. She is a Project Coordinator for UncoverED, currently researching the colonial anatomy of the University of Edinburgh through the works of medical doctor and philosopher Theophilus Scholes.

Tanatsei Gambura is a contemporary intermedia artist, poet and cultural practitioner. Her interests are drawn from personal experience, exploring the themes of black womanhood through an anti-colonial, transnational lense. Central to her focus are issues of geopolitics, indigineity and futurism. A historian, geographer, and culture theorist at heart, she takes a research-based approach to her practice, often centring archival material as the basis of her work.

Notes and further links:

http://uncover-ed.org

http://clariciaparinussa.com

http://www.rhubaba.org

https://www.cca-glasgow.com/

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The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode of Undersong - Race and Conversations Other-wise, Dr. Shaira Vadasaria speaks to Dr. rashné limki and Dr. Salima Bhimani about the politics of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion work. What work goes into defining and implementing 'equality' on an institutional level? Who is doing the work and what kinds of effects does it have?

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Speakers' bios:

Dr. Salima Bhimani is the Chief Equity + Inclusion Strategist for the Other Bets at Alphabet (Google). She leads, partners with and enables the Bets to achieve equity, inclusion and increased representation (EID) through systemic change. Her secret sauce as an EID expert comes from merging her praxis as an organizational systemic change designer, advocate, strategist, researcher, educator and consultant.

She came to Alphabet as an award winning social equity practitioner of 23 years having worked in the public, private, international and academic sectors. Some of her work highlights include: Remodeling the Canadian Federal Government’s resourcing channels by exposing racial profiling and structural racism in education systems. Working in the global south, leading efforts on women’s human rights through NGOs. Creating racial and gender equity policy frameworks for large scale institutions. Prior to her role at Alphabet she was the CEO and Founder of Relational, a global institute focused on empowering organizations on the path

of EID.

In addition to her professional background, she brings academic rigor to EID work with a PhD In Education focusing on transforming racial and gender

social exclusion in communities and institutions. A Master in Environmental Studies looking at the agency of women of color in their representation

in public spheres. A Bachelor of Education and Honors

Bachelors in Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies.

Dr. rashné limki:

rashné is an engineering student (Bombay) turned politics major with legal aspirations (Oberlin, Ohio) turned race and ethnic studies scholar (San Diego, California) turned work and management researcher (London/Edinburgh). Her academic thinking and writing focus mainly on the ethics and politics of work and technology in a global context. In particular, she is interested in the role of difference (primarily, race, gender and ability) in the emergence and distribution of new forms of work. She is currently lecturer in Work and Organisation Studies and the Director of Equality and Diversity for the University of Edinburgh Business School.

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The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode, Nasar Meer speaks to Anya Topolski and Ben Gidley about their efforts to think through antisemitism and islamophobia together. Their work engages with the history of racialisation in Europe, that has shaped current framings of 'the Jew' and 'the Muslim', and in turn, contemporary forms of antisemitism and islamophobia. All references, authors, and thinkers mentioned in this episode can be found below in the podcast notes.

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Anya Topolski is an associate professor in ethics and political philosophy at the Radboud University Nijmegen, where she researches in the field of critical philosophy of race and focuses on the race-religion intersection in Europe.

At the Ethics and Politics Department of the Faculty of Philosophy, she is currently the principle investigator for the Race-Religion Constellation Project and coordinator of the Race, religion, Secularism Network.

Ben Gidley is a senior lecturer at the Department of Psychosocial Studies, at Birkbeck, University of London. His research engages with the question of how we live together with difference and explores the role of British Jews in the wider European diaspora, as well as in the history and politics of British multiculture.

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Podcast notes:

Sylvia Wynter

Encounters Project: https://www.mmg.mpg.de/640536/encounters-ora-joint-research-project

Brendon Mcgeever

David Feldman

Les Back

Paul Gilroy

IHRA Definition of Antisemitism

Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism: https://jerusalemdeclaration.org

Amos Goldberg

Franz Fanon

Walter Mignolo

Gil Anidijar

James Renton

Gidley, Ben & James Renton (Eds.) 2017. Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe – A Shared History?: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137412997

Brian Klug: https://www.jmberlin.de/sites/default/files/antisemitism-in-europe-today_2-klug.pdf

Hannah Arendt

Butler, Judith. 2009. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?

Wekker, Gloria. 2016. White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race.

Heng, Geraldine. 2018. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages.

Lindsay Kaplan

Jansen Y, Meer N. Introduction: Genealogies of ‘Jews’ and ‘Muslims’: Social imaginaries in the race–religion nexus. Patterns of Prejudice. 2020;54(1-2):1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2019.1696046

Meer N. Racialization and religion: race, culture and difference in the study of antisemitism and Islamophobia. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 2012 Nov 12;36(3):385-398. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.734392

Meer N, Noorani T. A sociological comparison of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain. The Sociological Review. 2008 May 1;56(2):195-219. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2008.00784.x

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The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

What does speech, intonation, and accent invoke? How are "culture" and "race" understood and analysed through speech in the world and the field of Sociolinguistics? In this episode, Shaira Vadasaria speaks to Dr. Lauren Hall-Lew, a sociophonetician at the University of Edinburgh, about her ongoing work on phonetic variation and the differences in speech amongst speakers of different social backgrounds.

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About the speaker:

Lauren Hall-Lew is a reader in Linguistics and English Language at the School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences, at the University of Edinburgh. She received her MA and PhD from Stanford University and was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford before joining the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer. Most recently, Lauren has co-initiated the Lothian Lockdown Project, which investigates questions of public health, media and communication among residents of Edinburgh and the Lothians in relation to COVID-19.

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Podcast Notes:

Yaeger-Dror, Malcah, Lauren Hall-Lew, and Sharon Deckert. "It's not or isn't it? Using large corpora to determine the influences on contraction strategies." Language Variation and Change 14, no. 1 (2002): 79-118.

Rosa, Jonathan, and Nelson Flores. "Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective." Language in society 46, no. 5 (2017): 621-647.

Rickford, John R., and Sharese King. "Language and linguistics on trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and other vernacular speakers) in the courtroom and beyond." Language 92, no. 4 (2016): 948-988.

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The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In the second episode of 'Undersong - Race and Conversations Other-wise', Nasar Meer speaks to creative producer Wezi Mhura and arts curator and educator Lisa Williams. Together, they talk about Lisa and Wezi's different artistic and historic interventions into the cityscape of Edinburgh, as well as the history and presence of Black-Scottish life.

See below for links to the projects, places, and people mentioned in this episode.

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About the Speakers:

Lisa Williams founded the Edinburgh Caribbean Association in 2016 and curates a range of arts events across Scotland to promote the shared heritage between Scotland and the Caribbean; including film, literature and live music. She runs educational and anti-racist programmes in schools and universities and leads walking tours focusing on Edinburgh's Black History. Lisa has a BA in African and Asian Studies, an MA in Arts, Festival and Cultural Management and is an Honorary Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. She is currently a member of advisory boards for the V & A Dundee and the National Trust of Scotland among others and works as a consultant to heritage, arts and cultural organisations across the nation.

Wezi Mhura is a freelance creative producer, who has initiated and developed projects with widely diverse groups of artists, organisations and artforms including dance, street theatre, circus, physical theatre, digital and music performances.

She is the founder of AfriFest, Scotland’s first festival commemoration of African Arts and Culture, and a celebratory showcase of visual, performing arts and culture of the Scottish Pan-African community. Wezi has a passion for cross-artform, multi-disciplinary collaborations and experimenting with new forms, she often works within unconventional, outdoor and site specific spaces. Highlighted achievements include the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Commission, two critically acclaimed events in the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Culture programme and the 2020 Scotland wide BLM Mural Trail.

She is currently a Creative Associate with National Theatre of Scotland and Associate Creative Producer for the Traverse Theatre.

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Podcast notes:

Afrifest: https://www.afrifestscotland.com

Black History Walks Edinburgh

BLM Mural Trail Edinburgh (no longer on location)

http://curiousedinburgh.org/blm-mural-trail-edinburgh

https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/news/spotlight-onthe-black-lives-matter-mural-trail

The Writers’ Museum Edinburgh: https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/venue/writers-museum

Wezi Mhura’s BLM Mural Trail: https://www.wezi.uk/blm-mural-trail/

Kokumo Fadeke Rocks – Contemporary African/Asian/Scottish writer and performance poet: https://www.kokumorocks.net/

David Spence – 18th Century anti-slavery/abolitionist activist, Fife.

Robert Wedderburn – Jamaican-Scottish 19th Century activist, published The Horrors of Slavery (1824)

Vernon, P. & Osborne, A. 2020. 100 Great Black Britons. London: Little, Brown Book Group

Frederick Douglass – 19th Century abolitionist and political activist, Massachusetts and New York, US

Jeda Pearl – a Scottish Jamaican poet, based in Edinburgh. http://www.jedapearl.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JedaPearl

Edinburgh Ladies Emancipation Society – 19th Century abolitionist group in Edinburgh

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The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Promotional clip from Undersong: Episode 1

In the first episode of 'Undersong', our host Shaira Vadasaria introduces the podcast and speaks to Katucha Bento, Tommy Curry, and Radhika Govinda about the role of intersectionality in their work. Reflecting on what intersectionality's purchase is within and beyond its point of origin, leads the discussants to critically (re)assess the concept's legacy and traction.

This inaugural episode was created in collaboration with genderED, a cross-University hub for gender and sexualities studies at the University of Edinburgh.

In the first episode of 'Undersong', our host Shaira Vadasaria introduces the podcast and speaks to Katucha Bento, Tommy Curry, and Radhika Govinda about the role of intersectionality in their work. Reflecting on what intersectionality's purchase is within and beyond its point of origin, leads the discussants to critically (re)assess the concept's legacy and traction.

(CW: mentioning of sexual violence including rape)

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About our guests:

Dr Katucha Bento is a Lecturer in Race and Decolonial Studies at the University of Edinburgh with national and international experience working with the intersections of racialisation politics and race, multiples constructions of gender, formations of nation and nationality, migration, Black diaspora, discourse and affective economy. Her background is rooted in the Black Movement in Brazil, samba community and quilombo territory.

Professor Tommy J. Curry joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Edinburgh in the Fall of 2019. His research interests are in Africana Philosophy and the Black Radical Tradition. His areas of specialization are: 19th century ethnology, Critical Race Theory, Social Political Theory, and Black Male Studies.

Dr Radhika Govinda is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. Her research bridges the fields of sociology of gender, international development and South Asian studies. Radhika’s work demonstrates the importance of understanding gender politics at the intersections of caste, class, race/ethnicity and religion in women’s and social movements, in development policies and practice, in everyday social relations in rural and urban spaces, and in the global dynamics of knowledge production.

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Podcast Notes - references and people mentioned:

Bento, K. (forthcoming) Herstories – Black Brazilian Women Narrating Oppression in the UK. In “Reframing intersectionality” – co-edited volume by Kimberle Crenshaw.

Curry, T. 2017. The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood. Temple University Press.

Truth, Soujourner. 1851. Ain’t I A Woman?

Nira Yuval Davies and Florya Anthias. 1983. Contextualizing Feminism — Gender, Ethnic and Class Divisions. In Feminist Review, Volume: 15 issue: 1, page(s): 62-75

Savitribai Phule, Ruth Manorama, Sharmila Rege, Mary John, Gopal Guru, Ange-Marie Hancock, Patricia Hill Collins, Nivedita Menon, Dr. Sirma Bilge, Gail Lewis, Lélia Gonzalez, Catherine McKinnon, Susan Brownmiller, Susan B. Anthony, Darrin Hutchinson, bell hooks, Devon W. Carbado, Maria Lugones, padê editorial (Publishing house), Frances E. W. Harper, Edward Said, Encarnación Guttierrez Rodriguez, Silvia Riviera Cucicanqui, José Esteban Muñoz, Gloria Anzaldua.

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The title music for this episode is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

The introductory episode of 'Undersong: Race and Conversations Other-wise' features Shaira Vadasaria (University of Edinburgh) and Katucha Bento (University of Edinburgh), who introduce the podcast and talk about the origin and legacy of the title 'Undersong'.

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References:

Audre Lorde (1973) 'Black Studies.' In Lorde, A. (1992) 'Undersong: Chosen Poems, Old and New.' Norton.

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The title music of this podcast is "Origin Funk" by Ketsa, provided under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/