Return to Bandung

In this episode, I’m joined by Tings Chak, Art Director at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Editor of Wenhua Zongheng: A Journal of Contemporary Chinese Thought , to discuss China’s role in the shifting global order. We examine the achievements of China’s socialist revolution, its meteoric rise on the world stage in recent decades, and the complex dynamics of the ‘New Cold War’ th...

In this episode, I’m joined by Erica Caines, Coordinating Committee member of the Black Alliance for Peace and Co-Coordinator of BAP’s Haiti/Americas team, to discuss the history of imperialism and anticolonial resistance in Haiti. We explore Haiti’s historical position as the world’s first Black republic, and the imperialist onslaught that has continued unabated against the country from the momen...

In this episode, I’m joined by Nick Estes—associate professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, cofounder of The Red Nation, and author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance (Verso Books, 2019)—to discuss the long and rich history of Indigenous resistance to colonialism in North Americ...

In this episode, I’m joined by Julian Go, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and author of Policing Empires: Race, Militarization and the Imperial Boomerang in the US and Great Britain (Oxford University Press, 2023), to discuss the intertwined relationship between imperialist violence abroad and fascism and state repression here at home—a concept known as the “imperial boomerang....

In this episode, I’m joined by Sai Englert, lecturer in the political economy of the Middle East at Leiden University’s Institute for Area Studies, to talk about the frequently invoked (but less frequently understood) concept of settler colonialism. We explore the nuances of what the term ‘settler colonialism’ really means, as well as how this phenomenon has historically manifested and continues t...

Episode summary: In this episode, I’m joined by Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and author of forty books including The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World , to talk about the history and contemporary legacies of Third Worldism. We discuss the origins and trajectory of Third Worldism and the ‘Bandung Spirit,’ what became of this...

In this episode, I’m joined by Tiana Reid, an assistant professor of English at York University in Toronto and a member of Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) , to talk about WAWOG’s work organizing a revolutionary cultural front against Zionism and imperialism. We discuss the crucial role that cultural production and political education have historically played in anti-imperialist struggle, a...

Episode summary: In this episode, I’m joined by Jia Hong, an organizer with Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, to discuss the history and contemporary politics of imperialism and anticolonial resistance in Korea. We dive into the long history of foreign imperialism in the peninsula, from the Japanese occupation in the early 20th century to the ongoing U.S. military presence and its role in...

In this episode, I’m joined by Alex Press, a staff writer and labor reporter for Jacobin Magazine, to examine the complex relationship between the U.S. labor movement and anti-imperialist politics—its history, the current situation, and where we go from here. We discuss the historical entanglement of American labor with imperialism during the Cold War, the complexities and contradictions of anti-i...

Episode summary: In this episode, I discuss the BRICS—what it is, where it came from, and what significance it holds for the future of international politics. Reflecting on the bloc’s history and the most recent BRICS summit that took place last month, I explore the BRICS’ relationship to the emerging multipolar world order, and tackle the question of how we on the anti-imperialist left should thi...

In this episode, I’m joined by Aline Batarseh, Executive Director of Visualizing Palestine , to reflect on the past year of genocide and resistance in Palestine and beyond. We discuss the current state of the global Palestine solidarity movement, the importance of the information front in the fight against Israel's occupation and apartheid regime, and the crucial work that Visualizing Palestine is...

In this episode, I’m joined by Michael Galant, member of the Progressive International’s Secretariat and senior researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (here on the show in his personal capacity!). Michael and I talk about the decades-long campaign to build a New International Economic Order—a radical proposal, first articulated in 1974, for radically reshaping the entire global...

About this episode: Return to Bandung is a podcast that explores questions of imperialism, resistance, and internationalist solidarity throughout history and into the present day, and seeks to make the case for why anti-imperialist politics are as important in our current moment as ever before. In this pilot episode, I introduce Return to Bandung , provide a brief overview of the anti-imperialist...

Welcome to the Third World. My name is Pranay Somayajula. I’m a writer, organizer, and host of Return to Bandung —a podcast that explores questions of imperialism, resistance, and internationalist solidarity throughout history and into the present day. Through historical analysis, interviews with expert guests, and deep dives into classic works of anticolonial theory, Return to Bandung seeks to ma...