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Jackie Obungah is in conversation with Aida Mwanzia about the importance of centering Black youth and community perspectives in policy making. Aida speaks about a policy brief she wrote advocating for a cap on international student tuition, as well as her experience working with Ethọ́s Lab to create accessible and inclusive tech spaces.
Am Johal is joined by Maltese-American cartoonist Joe Sacco, renowned for his long-form graphic journalism and field work in conflict zones and places where people are facing displacement and dispossession. They discuss his new book, “Paying the Land,” dealing with the painful history of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and resource extraction in northern Canada, as well as overarching themes of dispossession, the violence of settler-colonialism, and the bonds between people and land that are prominent in his work. Joe also shares some of his upcoming projects and touches on the intensification of political tensions in Portland, OR, where he lives.
How do we come together to make and enjoy art in a time of physical distancing? Interdisciplinary artist and community organizer Vanessa Richards joins host Am Johal in his backyard for a physically distanced conversation about convening community through music during the pandemic. They discuss the challenges and opportunities of practising community-engaged arts over these past months; Vanessa’s experiences of virtually leading Van Van Song Society and Dancing in the Dark; and how Vancouver is responding to and participating in this moment of heightened community action for racial justice.
On this episode of our Below the Radar Conversations Series, our host Am Johal is joined by Ann Livingston, community organizer and drug user activist. Ann is the co-founder of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and is currently the Executive Project Coordinator of the BC-Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors. Am and Ann discuss the two current public health emergencies: the COVID-19 pandemic and the fentanyl contamination deaths in BC.
Ann Livingston is a community organizer, who works to improve access to citizenship for people who use illegal drugs. After co-founding the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) in 1998, she was employed as VANDU’s executive program director for 10 years. Ann organized with PWUD to form several drug users’ groups including the BC Association of People on Opiate Maintenance, the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, the BC Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors & the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs. Ann has advised the Vancouver Injection Drug User Survey, the NAOMI & SALOME Heroin Trials, BCCSU and the City of Vancouver. Ann was central in ensuring the policy of 1-for-1 Needle Exchange become Needle Distribution & Collection as well as seeding drug user groups for people who smoke crack, people who drink illegal alcohol, women who use drugs and survivors of the heroin prescription programs. Ann has opened 4 unsanctioned overdose prevention sites. She is the Executive Project Coordinator of BC/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal speaks with Louise Schwarz, founder and co-owner of Recycling Alternatives. Am and Louise talk about the cultural shift surrounding recycling from 1989, when Recycling Alternatives was founded, and today. They also discuss the future of recycling and waste management, and what policies might help keep more waste out of landfills.
On this episode of our Below the Radar Conversations Series our host Am Johal speaks with public health practitioner, activist and LGBTQ community leader Michael Roberson. They talk about how to read the current political times.
On this episode of our Below the Radar Conversations Series we talk with Garth Mullins, documentarian, community organizer, and host and executive producer of the podcast CRACKDOWN. Garth and our host Am Johal talk about how the overdose crisis in Vancouver has been affected by COVID-19, and the positive affects that listening to drug user activists can have on the safety of the community.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal sits down with Karen Jamieson, Vancouver-based dancer and choreographer. Karen's company Karen Jamieson Dance works with residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside through community engagement and cross cultural dancing, and is recognized nationally as groundbreaking. Additionally, her work, "Sisyphus," was named one of the 10 Canadian choreographic masterworks of the 20th century by Dance Collection Danse. Karen has be recognized for her talent and dedication to her field, receiving the Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award in 2013, honoured with the Isadora Award in 2016, and in 2018 she was inducted into the Canadian dance hall of fame "Encore! Dance hall of Fame!"
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal sits down with Dan Adleman, an Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Toronto. He has also previously taught at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design. Dan received his PhD from the University of British Columbia in 2016, in his dissertation he explores new-rhetorical approaches to American fiction grappling with the emergence of a new media environment at the turn of the millennium. Alongside Am Johal, he is the co-founder of Vancouver Institute for Social Research, a non-profit graduate-level critical theory free school run out of the Or Gallery since 2013.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Adel Iskandar, Middle East media scholar and Assistant Professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication. He is the author and co-author of several works, including “Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution” (2013, AUCP/OUP), “Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation”, (2010, University of California Press) and “Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism" (2002, Basic Books). His research primarily involves media, identity and politics. Adel is also the co-editor of online publication “Jadaliyya,” and academic podcast “Status.”
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