Below the Radar

This week, our host Am Johal is joined by Dr. Kora DeBeck, Erica McAdam, Kali Sedgemore, and Dean Wilson; four guests who all do important work in research and advocacy for drug users in Vancouver. They discuss the recent research that they’ve been involved in as well as the past and present models of drug policy in the city, looking at various decriminalisation policies and the current pressing i...

Leela Gandhi is a professor and writer of the book, Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship. This episode goes into different forms of friendship in the contexts of democracy, post-colonialism, and climate change; and how friendship can change depending on different circumstances. It is fitting that this episode is hosted by Am Johal an...

Philosophy scholar and author Willow Verkerk sits down with Am Johal to discuss Nietzsche and his ideas of friendship, as well as her current work on the Gendered Mimesis project at KU Leuven. Willow compares Nietzsche’s more agonistic notion of friendship with other philosophers like Aristotle, Kant, Derrida – and draws from Luce Irigaray to consider friendship from a more gendered lens. Willow a...

Bob Williams is the writer of the book Using Power Well: Bob Williams and the Making of British Columbia, which describes his many political contributions to British Columbia. In this episode, our host Am Johal sits down with Bob to discuss his public life and the political impacts that his decisions continue to have. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/bel...

Khari Wendell McClelland—a diversely talented musician, writer, and community facilitator—joins Am Johal to discuss music as a tool for community healing. Khari explores music as an interactive process, and sees music as an opportunity to connect with the surrounding community. As an artist, he speaks about the importance of one's presence and the ability to connect with the audience. He says his...

Erika Lewis is a singer and musician of Tuba Skinny, a blues and ragtime band from New Orleans. Erika is also a solo artist, with the albums, “Waiting for Stars” (2016) and “A Walk Around the Sun” (2022). This episode goes into the different musical influences of New Orleans, Erika’s move from blues to country, and her overall experiences of street busking and touring internationally. There is als...

Situated within the current context of police brutality, for-profit prisons, and excessive incarceration rates, Am Johal sits down with educator, writer, and public scholar, Walidah Imarisha. Walidah describes her creative works involving ideas and futures of police and prison abolition, including her book Angels with Dirty Faces, and her current work developing Space to Breathe – a film that look...

On this episode of Below the Radar, host Am Johal is joined by Lizzie Borden, an independent filmmaker who's been directing & creating since the 1970s. Lizzie describes her unique creative journey, as a filmmaker who never went to film school and instead came into filmmaking after studying visual arts. She discusses her inspirations, which vary from gallery art, to second-wave feminism, to women i...

Leanne Prain is the writer of The Creative Instigator's Handbook: A DIY Guide to Making Social Change and Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet & Knit Graffiti. In this episode, Melissa Roach and Leanne discuss the inspiration for The Creative Instigator's Handbook, the different range of projects and artists described in the book, the impact of the pandemic, and the creativity of “Do It Yourself” art...

This week we’re highlighting an episode created by our friends at Urbanarium City Talks, from their Should I Stay Or Should I Go? podcast. This series follows Jenny Tan on her mission to figure out how to keep on living in Vancouver, as she explores the housing crisis from her trailer home in the Westend. Throughout the series, Jenny asks Sonja Trauss, president of YIMBY, journalist/writer Sam Coo...

On the fourth and final episode of The Trip Diary, Steve Tornes speaks with Bowinn Ma and Uytae Lee about their public engagement work involving transit systems, as well as the possible futures of transportation in the Lower Mainland. Bowinn and Steve have a conversation about INSTPP and B-Line/rapid bus initiative in West Vancouver, while Uytae described how his series, “Uytae Lee's Stories About...

On this third episode of The Trip Diary, Steve Tornes speaks with Councillor Tony Valente and Dr. Meghan Winters talks about cycling, advocacy, and street allocations. Tony describes his advocacy work before being elected to council, and what steps transportation advocates can take in other cities, as well as the development of Esplanade Street as a complete street. Meghan talked about her differe...

On this second episode of The Trip Diary, Steve Tornes speaks with Dr. Peter V. Hall about the Employer Transit Subsidy Study, a research project which examined the factors that encourage people to switch from driving to public transit and who, even if you made transit free, would still not use public transit. Compared to our last episode on equity, this research is quantitative and numbers based,...

On this first episode of The Trip Diary, Steve Tornes speaks with Lori Macdonald and Sadia Tabassum about their research on transit-based mobility through an equitable lens. Lori discusses how recent migrants to the City of Vancouver learn and familiarize themselves to a new public transportation network, while Sadia describes how transit spaces affect women of colour in different ways, pushing ba...

Genevieve LeBaron is a new Professor and Director of the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University, and the Principle Investigator of the ReStructure Lab. In this episode, Am and Genevieve discuss her research work on forced labour and the global market forces which incentivize those practices. They also discuss the new role for public policy in solving real-world solutions as well as the...

William Lindsay worked as an educator at Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, and Concordia University. In this episode, Am and William discuss the writing process for his latest book, “Rez Dog Blues & The Haiku: A Savage Life in Bits and Pieces,” and its focus on music and movies, horror and hope, and the honest depiction of Indigneous life, in the 60s and 70s, on reserve...

David Lester is the author and graphic designer of Prophet Against Slavery, Benjamin Lay: A Graphic Novel and he is the illustrator of 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike. David is also the guitarist for the bands, Mecca Normal and Horde of Two. This episode explores the subject of the book, Benjamin Lay, the radical Quaker who used guerrilla theatre to shame slave owners and tr...

Shauna Sylvester is the former Executive Director of the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue and is moving on to be the Executive Director of the Urban Sustainability Directors’ Network. Shauna has also been involved in various organizations, such as the Social Planning and Research Council of B.C., the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society, Canada’s World, among others. This episode ex...

In community engagement, values of relationship-building, trust, understanding, and care are paramount—which means listening and learning on both sides. In this episode of Below the Radar, host Am Johal is joined by Magda Goemans, manager of Community Campus Engage Canada. Together, they discuss her almost decade-long journey in the field of community engagement, the priorities of their practice,...

Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States (University of North Carolina Press 2021) is about the displacement of Indigeneity in the discourse around race in American political theory, with settler memory being about recognizing or acknowledging the history of Indigenous peoples in colonialism, and then disavowing the active presence of settler colon...

The Community Engaged Scholarship Institute, situated at the University of Guelph, brings together community and campus skills and resources in order to advance community-identified research goals. This episode describes various projects, such as the Community Engaged Teaching and Learning (CETL) Program, the Research Shop, and the Guelph Lab. Am and Liz discuss the role of the Institute and how c...

In 1983, the province of British Columbia saw the rise of a social movement like no other since — uniting activists, community organizations and trade unionists in protest. This time on Below the Radar, host Am Johal speaks to David Spaner, an author, cultural critic, and organizer who has written a compelling history of the Solidarity resistance movement. Released in December of 2021 by Ronsdale...

SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts Assistant Professor Eldritch Priest joins this episode Below the Radarl to discuss the potential in nonsense and failure, the phenomenon of the earworm, and his journey from musicianship to employing theory. In this episode, Eldritch explores his beginnings as a jazz guitarist, the practices that guide his work and his teachings, and the path that led him to...

This episode of Below the Radar is a special live event recording from “A Conversation About Urban Choreography,” presented in-person at SFU’s Vancouver campus on November 9, 2021. Taking gesture as a point of entry, Justine A. Chambers and Alana Gerecke extend their collaborative exploration of the everyday choreographies that are built into an urban experience. Combining artistic and academic re...

Micheal Vonn, from the PHS Community Services Society, joins Am Johal to discuss the relation between overdose prevention initiatives with different health policies at different stages of the pandemic. This is a conversation about how policies may not take into account marginalized, at risk groups, especially in the context of crises, whether for a pandemic, or for climate change resiliency. As so...