Below the Radar

Global health epidemiologist Angela Kaida joins Below the Radar to share her passion for research to support the sexual and reproductive health of women and nonbinary people. An associate professor in SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences and a recent researcher-in-residence with SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative, Angela adopts an interdisciplinary, community-driven, ethics-based approach to...

Below the Radar checks in with Simon Fraser University’s recently installed president and vice-chancellor, Joy Johnson. Stepping into her new role in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Joy speaks to how SFU is working to meet the current challenges it is facing, from adapting to online learning and an added strain on mental health, to addressing systemic racism and inequality within the universit...

Below the Radar explores critical theory, anti-authoritarianism, the philosophy of technology, and the storied academic career of SFU School of Communication professor Andrew Feenberg, who studied under influential theorists, including renowned German-American philosopher Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School. Am Johal and Andrew Feenberg discuss Andrew’s intellectual journey with critical theor...

Below the Radar explores immigration and connecting to community and social justice movements through art with Adriana Contreras, a visual artist and storyteller who captures dialogues as they unfold as a graphic recorder. Adriana is in conversation with co-hosts Fiorella Pinillos and Melissa Roach about her journey with visual arts and dance as a first generation immigrant from Colombia. Adriana...

“Cities are fundamentally about people.” Mary Rowe joins Below the Radar to discuss the pandemic moment as an opportunity to reimagine how we live together in an urban environment. She and Am Johal are in conversation about the urgent need to build social solidarity around collective disaster, honing in on how people are in relationship with their community at the hyperlocal level. As the presiden...

In this episode of Below the Radar, Brandon Yan, the executive director of Out on Screen, joins producers Fiorella Pinillos and Paige Smith to discuss his work in film education dialogue and fostering inclusive spaces for youth. Brandon speaks to supporting queer and trans youth in schools by bringing queer joy into classrooms, working collaboratively to push forward policy change, and reimagining...

Below the Radar’s Am Johal talks issues in urbanism and art as a research method with Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, and Helmut Weber of the cultural research collective, Urban Subjects, based in Vancouver and Vienna. In this episode, they reflect on past arts exhibitions and programs they’ve facilitated on the urban experience, image politics, and visual representations of urbanism. Their work make...

SFU librarian Baharak Yousefi joins Am Johal on Below the Radar to discuss critical librarianship, interrogating the entrenched systems and structures of libraries. She speaks to issues around the way librarians are schooled, the commodification of knowledge, and the need to make libraries welcoming spaces to all. Baharak also shares her love of books and culture that brought her to librarianship...

Barbara Holland is a leading community engagement scholar who has done extensive research in the areas of organizational change in higher education, service learning, and community-university partnerships. In this episode, she is in conversation with host Am Johal about the shifting landscape of community engagement and embedding engagement in the culture of the urban university as a method of sch...

When Sobhana Jaya-Madhavan landed in Vancouver 25 years ago from Malaysia, she was told her foreign credentials would make it hard to find employment as a social worker and was encouraged to apply for minimum wage jobs. In this episode, Sobhana is in conversation with Am Johal about the joy of finding community in a new place — and the barriers to employment she experienced as a newcomer to Canada...

Below the Radar explores Lacanian theory with Lacan Salon President and SFU English Professor Clint Burnham. Clint speaks to how Lacan’s ideas are taken up in the digital age. Clint takes up Lacanian theories of the ‘unconscious,’ ‘extimacy,’ or ‘the split subject,’ as well as Žižek’s works, to unpack racism and microaggressions; intimacy and digital devices; and virtual interactions and teaching...

Dalannah Gail Bowen reflects on a lifetime of making music and convening community in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. A passionate singer, community arts administrator, and activist, Dalannah shares her philosophy of walking compassionately through the world and how she aims to make space for — and remove barriers to — finding connection through art making. She and Am Johal discuss her work in...

Below the Radar unpacks ethics in community-engaged research and experiential learning with Kari Grain, who has been working with host Am Johal at SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative. Kari speaks to her dissertation on the impacts of international service learning on local community partners. Centering ethical relationships and the unlearning of harmful biases about expertise and knowledge...

Community-engaged scholar and filmmaker Lyana Patrick joins Am Johal to discuss how an Indigenous approach to community-building can positively impact the health and wellness of communities. Combining a diverse interdisciplinary background with her own lived experience, Lyana’s work addresses the ongoing colonial impacts of governance and urban planning on Indigenous community health. In this epis...

Since the onset of the COVID-19, WISH Drop-In Centre Society has rapidly expanded its efforts to support street-based sex workers. Am Johal is joined by executive director, Mebrat Beyene, to discuss how WISH and other Downtown Eastside service providers are collectively responding to the pandemic, which has restricted services and exacerbated many pre-existing crises facing the community. Mebrat s...

Am Johal is joined by Derek Woods, an assistant professor of Media Studies at the University of British Columbia. They discuss Derek’s intersecting expertise in media studies and ecotechnology, examining what he deems the three defining characteristics of ecotechnology: artificial ecosystems, media archaeology, and the cultural imaginary through science fiction. They also problematize the term ‘An...

A visual artist who grew up in Vancouver’s Chinatown, Gwen Boyle’s work explores movement, history, and place. The granddaughter of a Pender Street jeweller, Gwen draws inspiration from the sights and sounds of her childhood — the clinking of beads on an abacus, the hammering of jade, the melting of gold. Gwen is in conversation with host Am Johal about experiences from her Chinatown upbringing. S...

Working at the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, Jen Sungshine collaborates with fellow Love Intersections artists to celebrate diasporic narratives of queer identities. Jen joins host Am Johal to discuss art making and storytelling as a tool to address systemic racism and build understanding in conversations about gender and sexuality. She shares some recent Love Intersections proje...

Urban Indigenous youth are taking the lead, advocating for policies that uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples on and off-reserve. Host Am Johal is joined by Jessica Savoy and Edgard Villanueva-Cruz from Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement Society (ALIVE). They discuss their recent report, Our Place, Our Home, Our Vision: Youth Voices of East Vancouver. The report contains Indigenous and no...

Below the Radar explores unfolding the enfolded with Laura U. Marks, an SFU professor, and scholar who works on media art and philosophy with an intercultural focus. She is in conversation with co-hosts Am Johal and Paige Smith about her research into experimentalism and aesthetics in Arab cinema and the connections between Islamic art and philosophy and new media art. Laura talks about co-foundin...

Ta7talíya Nahanee joins Am Johal to discuss her work in creating social change through decolonial facilitation, rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing and chenchenstway, the law of lifting each other up. Ta7talíya shares her journey of founding Decolonizing Practices, developing Sínulhkay and Ladders, and how she engages people in conversations about redress, land equity, privilege, and resisting th...

Am Johal is joined by Eris Nyx, an artist and community organizer in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside who advocates for tenants' rights and an end to the war on drugs. She and Am discuss the impact of COVID-19 on drug users and residents of Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels, and how restricting visitors in SROs and reducing access to services during the pandemic has heightened safety concerns around...

Elvy Del Bianco of Vancity Credit Union speaks to the power of cooperatives to help communities meet their own needs. He is in conversation with host Am Johal about the role coops can play in the production of social goods, and how they can support communities of entrepreneurs, small businesses, non-profits, and workers through solidarity and infrastructure. They also discuss the Vancity Emilia-Ro...

Justine A. Chambers and Laurie Young see choreography in everything. Both are deeply interested in the daily movements that make up the choreographies of our lives, and in capacity to use dance as a political tool. As two dance artists, mothers, and women of colour, the two came together across continents to co-create “One hundred more,” a dance performance portraying the gestures of resistance. T...

Yulanda Lui and Rachel Lau share experiences from the making of the radio documentary series “Speak My Language,” which highlights the stories of Chinese-Canadian seniors facing barriers in accessing the BC healthcare system. A project of Yarrow Intergenerational Society for Justice, the radio pieces were created in collaboration with youth and seniors under the mentorship of project coordinator a...