Liberation Pedagogy Podcast

Today - January 25, 20201 - marks the ten year anniversary of the start of the Egyptian Revolution. This episode remembers the revolutionaries that participated in the uprisings especially women. In this episode Manal Hamzeh will discuss women’s resistance during the Egyptian revolution and the state sanctioned tactics of violence that weaponized women’s bodies during the revolution. Manal shares the significance of Shahadat and Haki as significant Arabyaa feminist decolonizing methodologies that enabled women that participated in the revolution to share their testimonies of resistance and survival. Manal also discusses how cultural production can be used to translate shahadat/testimonies as public pedagogy.

In this episode Suzanna Weiss – a holocaust survivor – reflects on her memories of surviving the holocaust and shares the political influences that led her to over seven decades of resistance. She reflects on her participation in social movements historically, and her involvement over the last decade in struggle for justice in Palestine. She discusses the following: dangers of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s (IHRA) definition and its weaponization of anti-Semitism; the distinction between Judaism and the State of Israel and its policies; apartheid; the meaning of solidarity, her pedagogy of solidarity, and political commitments in solidarity with Palestine.

In this double episode Raul Barbano and Michelle Munjanattu report back about Venezuela’s December 6th, 2020 National Assembly elections as they served as election observers, and speak about the Bolivarian revolution, the impact of sanctions on Venezuela and the economic and political crisis facing the country, the Lima Group’s role in capitalist accumulation in the region, U.S. and Canadian imperialism and ways social movements are mobilizing against the crisis. This episode also offers rich reflections and examples of how to build a communal and socialist society and offer lessons from the global south on how to resist capitalism and emphasizes the importance of political education and solidarity in struggle, and shares liberatory visions for another world.

In this episode Shahrzad Mojab enacts a one-woman play using an autobiographical narrative that memorializes revolutionary activity past and present, in Iran, the Middle East and elsewhere. This one woman play in its performance embodies revolutionary pedagogy and teaches us to examine an individual autobiographical story to understand history, struggle and social relations through a dialectical method.

In this episode Marisol Lebrón reflects on the uprisings that shook Puerto Rico in 2019. She situates the uprisings within a longer history of colonialism, and the present economic, political, social and environmental crisis. She also talks about Hurricane Maria, policing and the criminalization of protest, sovereignty in the archipelago, the Puerto Rico syllabus and meanings of liberation.

In this episode Hafsa Kanjwal discusses the on-going siege of Kashmir by the Indian state and the abrogation of article 370 that took place one year ago in August 2019. She speaks about the revocation of article 35A, the implementation of domicile certificates and their political, economic, environmental and demographic ramifications for Kashmiri’s, and settler colonialism in the region. She discusses the pedagogical impetus of the Critical Kashmir Studies Collective and the Kashmir Syllabus, through a Kashmiri lens that challenges dominant academic and public discourses on the region. She also reflects on the meanings of self-determination, azadi (freedom) and solidarity.

Reflecting on the Beirut blast, in this episode Rania Masri explains the sectarian political system in Lebanon, its disastrous consequences, and political alternatives for reconfiguring the state. She shares insights on a political front that has been building alternatives for a democratic, civil secular state in Lebanon which envisions abolishing political sectarianism. She provides analysis of the Lebanese rebellions and underscores the distinction between the October 2019 uprisings from the current revolt, and what is at stake for those that oppose the current system. She also discusses the dangers of foreign intervention, principled solidarity, the politics of hope, liberatory public pedagogy and imaginaries for liberation.

In this episode Hicham Safieddine discusses the economic crisis that preceded the Beirut blast, and how the explosion will further exacerbate Lebanon’s economy. He addresses the perils of foreign (imperialist) intervention, vulture capital, and the sectarian political system that dominates the country. He also discusses the need for political alternatives for change, revolutionizing social relations, solidarity, ideological education, and liberation. 

In this episode Chris Ramsaroop discusses the struggle migrant workers face in Canada. He discusses the historical antecedents of the migrant labour/indentured labour regime which he links to slavery and the global political economy. He also speaks to workers conditions during the covid-19 pandemic, political education, and harvesting freedom.

Jamal Juma' discusses the Israeli annexation plan in detail and how it could materialize on the ground in occupied Palestine; its economic, political and social implications on Palestinian life; and annexation as an ongoing colonial, imperialist strategy of liquidating the Palestinian struggle. Jamal also discusses the popular resistance defending Palestinian life and land, land defence as pedagogy, the Covid-19 pandemic under occupation, and liberation from settler colonialism, imperialism and fascism.

In this episode Indigenous land defender Eve Saint is in conversation with Chandni Desai to discuss the Wet’suwet’en struggle, and the mass uprisings that took place in colonial Canada in 2020 against the Coastal GasLink Pipeline project, policing, and Canadian settler colonialism. Eve shares reflections on Indigenous resistance, police violence, Indigenous governance, healing and freedom.

Professor Beverly Bain discusses the history of black struggle in Canada and how the past informs the present day struggles against policing and the carceral state, through a radical Black feminist, anti-capitalist, internationalist perspective with host Chandni Desai. 

Professor David Stovall discusses the prison-school nexus and abolition pedagogy with host Professor Chandni Desai, in reference to recent uprisings against police brutality.