Rising with the Tide

Water Shapes Life: Riverine Rights, Indigenous Struggles in India & the Politics of Memory with Rahul Ranjan - Episode 37

Spring comes around and the scenery around us comes alive once again! Jamie accidentally falls into a river and, feeling wronged by Mother Nature, decides its time to learn about them. Know thy enemy, I guess. Your hosts depart for the eastern parts of India where they're gracefully welcomed by Rahul Ranjan, postdoc fellow at Oslo Met Univeristy. 

Rahul's research on the rights of rivers, and its intersections with political struggles in India is invaluable. Our discussion touches on the insurrectionary figure of Birsa Munda, politics of anti-coloniality and anti-authoritarianism, what it means for rivers and water to have 'rights', as well as the role memory and manners of remembrance play in how we memorialise people and events. We trek back to our respective homes with a newfound appreciation of the complexities of our rivers, too often thought of as 'just' a river, and a glimpse into India's brutal, yet inspiring past through Indigenous memory.

You can find Rahul on Twitter - @Ranjana_Rahul

Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org

Song for the episode: "Yesterday Once More" by The Carpenters

Africa’s Last Colony: Aeolian Aesthetics, Poetry & Energy Politics in Western Sahara with Joanna Allan - Episode 36

After a hearty break, your hosts come back reinvigorated and ready to tackle some more topics they themselves know literally nothing about.

We travel to the lands of Western Sahara with the help of Joanna Allan, Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University, to learn about energy, poetry, and the remnants of colonialism in Africa. Of course, as critical geography studies, neo-colonialism scholars and others have repeatedly proven, colonialism never really went away. It took on different forms, sometimes less overt, sometimes under different names. But Western Sahara still stands as a living, breathing, example of colonialism. Joanna runs us through a brief history of the Saharawi people and their fight for independence, as well as Spain, Morocco and Mauritania's colonial efforts to keep the Saharawi under their boot as a colony - even today. 

 

We learn from Joanna about oil and wind energy politics in the region, how Saharawi poetry - entrenched in their culture and livelihood - affects and resists the invasions of the land by transnational wind turbine companies, and the gender dynamics behind complex social conflicts in the lands of the Sahara. The Saharawi fight on for a free Western Sahara, where their poetry and ways of life may prosper.

 

You can find Joanna on Twitter - @Joanna_Allan

 

Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org

Song for the episode: "Lanza un dedo al cielo" by Yslem, Hijo del Desierto

Black Gold / White Lies: Security, Corruption, and Pipelines in Modern America with Alleen Brown - Episode 35

Ready, set, jump! As your hosts bravely hop across the pond in a single superhuman jump, they receive a call from Alleen Brown, reporter for the Intercept. Managing an olympian landing right in the middle of the Twin Cities, Jamie and Skander follow Alleen as she takes them to the region's oil pipelines causing havoc on the local community and environment.

While her reporting for the series "Policing the Pipeline" is more focused around stories of corruption and security around Enbridge's Line 3, Alleen has worked many years on parallel topics, covering land defense and injustice in the US. We jump back to Europe having learned much about the types of secretive behaviour state and corporate actors engage in to tackle resistance to such large projects, knowing that struggles everywhere benefit from a better undestanding of reactions from above and the impacts felt by local people and communities. 

 

You can find Alleen on Twitter - @AlleenBrown

Alleen's articles for the Intercept can be found here

Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org

Song for the episode: "Winter Mornings, Coffee & Cedar Smoke" by Annie Humphrey-Jimenez

More Than a Word: The History, Theories and Concerns of Environmental Justice with Brendan Coolsaet - Episode 34

Another one! Sick of their ignorance around the subject, your hosts embark on a roadtrip to France to meet one of the leading experts in Environmental Justice today, Brendan Coolsaet! The associate professor takes us through a history of the movement, from its emergence in marginalised communities of colour in the United States, to its 'hop' across the pond where the term is gaining popularity by the day. We discuss the semantic drift of "Environmental Justice", what it actually means for people today, and key concepts which researchers are fighting bloodthirsty battles over in modern day academia. 

 

Brendan's book on the topic, "Environmental Justice: Key Issues" is a fantastic way to get into EJ with plenty of accessible, critical, perspectives. Our conversation also digs into Brendan's recent trip around Italy, where he witnessed first-hand the effects of climate change on the Italian agricultural system as he moved from farm to farm. Through theory and practice, there is so much to think and learn about in the realm of Environmental Justice, and we're glad people like Brendan are there to help illuminate the path, and make sure that as we progress towards a better world, we don't get lost on the way. 

 

You can find Sakshi on Twitter - @Bcoolsaet

Brendan's website is here

Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org

Song for the episode: "Bandy Bandy" by Zap Mama

 

 

Colouring the Courts Red and Green: Environment, Indigenous Rights & the Law with Sakshi - Episode 33

Jamie and Skander race to Cambridge in the latest episode of Rising with the Tide. Of course, as Jamie lives nearby he takes on a smug look and takes comically small and warped steps. Little does he know, Skander hasn't skipped leg day. The run from Oslo to their newest guest Sakshi is a breeze for the latter, even if he had to run on top of the North Sea Jesus-style. Sakshi, currently finishing her PhD at Cambridge University, walks the pair through halls of colonial history and legacy. They discuss her research on indigenous rights and the court system in Australia, Brazil and Canada. Sakshi introduces us to concepts such as Marxist Legal Theory and Indigeneity, and even explains her misgivings about books such as Andreas Malm's "How to Blow Up a Pipeline". 

As they cover one green criminology case after the other, from Wet'suwet'en land defenders to Steven Donziger, your hosts come out of their auspicious meeting with Sakshi having a better understanding of what the law can and cannot do for people around the world fighting for their rights, be it for the preservation of indigenous places or the protection of natural resources from the greedy grasp of corporations. 

You can find Sakshi on Twitter - @SakshiAravind

Sakshi's blog is also online at: www.defiantecologies.home.blog

Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org

Song for the episode: "January 26" by A.B. Original

The War on Tigray with Teklehaymanot Weldemichel - Episode 32

Your hosts embark on a journey to Northern Norway to meet an expert on none other than the Tigray region of Ethiopia, Teklehaymanot Weldemichel. Though a more somber subject than what we usually touch on, the war on Tigray deserves much more attention and international action. Teklehaymanot describes to us the atrocities witnessed around Tigray, from inhumane war crimes to the burning of entire villages. We discuss the recent history of the region, Tigray's position within Ethiopia, and the events leading up to the war. Teklehaymanot himself is a victim of this war, even if he resides away from it, as much of his family and friends must endure and survive in a region without internet or telecommunication.

 

Although we could have talked for hours more on the subject, our conversation touches on a wide variety of questions related to Tigray and the war such as why the international community has failed, discourses in Western and Ethiopian media surrounding the Tigrayans, as well as the fact that the events of the last two years do in fact cover all of the criteria for there being a Genocide in Tigray. Teklehaymanot's own published work argues that the ongoing, devastating, famine is a product of human design by the belligerents of this war.

 

We ask that comments to this episode remain kind-hearted and human as they always are, and thank Teklehaymanot for his courage in telling his story and that of his compatriots abroad.

 

You can find Teklehaymanot on Twitter - @TeklehaymanotG

 

Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

 

Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

 

Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org

 

Song for the episode: "Lomi Ayney Berhe" by Eyasu Berhe

Yarning for a Better World: Extractivism, Mining and Indigenous Issues in Australia and at Large with Claire Burgess - Episode 31

Season 3 continues to take surprising turns as your hosts attempt their first proper livestream! Jamie picks up his shovel and kindly digs through the Earth's core to the other side of the world for us to meet Claire Burgess, PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, in the land down under. 

 

As we cartoonishly hang upside down, unaccustomed to the reversed gravitational waves of Australia, Claire answers our barrage of questions regarding her research on mining and "green" extractivism. We discuss why copper is the new oil, indigenous knowledge and just what the heck 'yarning' means. As we near the end of our conversation, we realise that Australia's place in colonial/settler issues is much more pervasive than we knew of, and that the modernisation and proliferation of "green mining" is just beginning... But, while Jamie takes a page from Minecraft's book and pushes us up to the European continent block by block, we also find ourselves yearning for more yarning around these topics, that feel ever so present and, thankfully, more and more talked about. 

You can find Claire on Twitter - @Claireburgo

 Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

 Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

 Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org 

Songs for the Episode is "Little things" by Ziggy Ramo ft. Paul Kelly

 

The Fault(s) in Our Planet: Volcanoes, Geoengineering and the Climate Crisis with Bill McGuire - Episode 30

Happy New Year! A new notch on humanity's belt never felt so good! As we slowly approach a (touch wood) post-covid era, another crisis looms not far behind. You already know what it is, we don't have to spell it out for you. What you may not know however is that this crisis has an effect on the earth itself. Not the planet, the ground, dummy! 

To get some real information on the subject, your hosts grab a couple of torches, a dusty Indiana Jones hat and some protein bars to find Professor Bill McGuire from UCL! As we walk together through caves and hop from one tectonic plate to another, our discussion ranges from the effect of global warming on volcanoes to his eco-thriller novel Skyseed about geoengineering gone wrong. As Bill leads us out of the dark tunnels of the Earth and back onto the surface, we feel like we've got a brand new perspective on the ground beneath our feet. It, also, is part of a fragile ecosystem which can have tremendous ripple effects if disturbed. 

You can find Bill on Twitter and more of his work on his website

 Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

 Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

 Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org 

Songs for the Episode is "It's The End of the World As We Know It" by R.E.M.

Political Ecology: Nature Wasn‘t Complicated Enough with Paul Robbins - Episode 29

While Jamie is away on his quest to join the proletariat in order to secure a liveable wage, Skander is joined by Andrew, a fellow student from the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Oslo.

 

Together, with the help of arcane zoomic rituals, they conjure the spirit of Paul Robbins, Dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to ask him a few questions about the sacred political ecology textbook he once wrote... and re-wrote... and re-re-wrote. You know the saying, 3rd edition's the charm. Paul is a fantastic researcher and theorist who has published a plethora of fascinating research and work around questions such as: why it is that working on topics related to nature is inherently political?

We discuss his work and efforts at the Nelson Institute, the academic wars of the 90s and what we can learn from the degrowth/ecomodernism divide. We left this conversation even bigger fans of Paul's work, having learned much about a field which we consider to be our (upcoming) own, and running to ask our local bookshops if they have copies of his book Lawn People. 

 

You can find Paul on Twitter and more of his work on his website

 Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

 Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

 Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org 

Songs for the Episode is "Muzzle of Bees" (Intro) by Wilco & "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward" by Billy Bragg

Adapting & Overcoming Climate Risks in an Unequal World with Jola Ajibade - Episode 28

Welcome!

Season 3 continues as we delve into climate adaptation and mitigation with Jola Ajibade, Assistant Professor at Portland State University! After going over her many accomplishments and the serendipitous road she took to get to where she is today, we discuss flooding adaptation measures in Lagos, Nigeria, surveillance and the intersections between private profit and disaster capitalism (with an obligatory mention or two of the Shock Doctrine, of course). Listen in to learn all about what makes us resilient in the face of climate change, where we fail in adaptation and how we may overcome the difficult times ahead. 

 

You can find Jola on Twitter and more of her work on her website

 Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

 Links to all streaming platforms and socials: linktr.ee/risingwiththetide

 Or head to our website! www.risingwiththetide.org 

Song for the Episode is "Eye Adaba" by Asa