The Fire These Times

This is a conversation with Brazilian researchers Camila Nobrega and Joana Varon about their paper for Global Information Society Watch, "Big tech goes green(washing): Feminist lenses to unveil new tools in the master’s houses." Extended bio below. The research by Nobrega and Varon is part of a report launched by the Association for Progressive Communications. You can find the full report here. Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: Power structures, Big Tech and what kind future we want technosolutionism through feminist lenses Who has the ability to consent? Gatopardismo (Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui): proposing 'changes' while reinforcing existing power structures Monocultures of minds (Vandana Shiva) What are we sustaining and what are we developing when we talk of 'sustainable development'? What is 'green data'? The 'good life' through euro-centrism Discussion about Brazil  Extractivism and data colonialism Resources mentioned: Please visit thefirethisti.me Recommended Books/Other A extinção das abelhas by Natalia Borges Polesso (Joana) Un Mundo Ch'ixi es posible by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (Camila) Amanda Piña (choreographer) Camila Nobrega is a Brazilian journalist working on social-environmental conflicts for more than ten years, fostering Latin American feminist lenses and social-environmental justice. She has worked for media vehicles in Brazil and has contributed to international media, like The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Mongabay. Currently based in Berlin, she is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science department at the Free University of Berlin. To connect journalism, academic research, and artistic languages, she develops the project Beyond the Green (https://thenewnew.space/projects/beyond-the-green/), focusing on megaprojects that affect our lives, bodies, and territories. It aims to strengthen narratives that connect the right to communication and land rights. Member of Intervozes collective that struggles for media democratization in Brazil. medium@nobregacamila Joana Varon is Brazilian, with Colombian ancestry and a nomad heart. She is a feminist researcher and activist focused on bringing decolonial Latin American perspectives in the search of feminist techno-political frameworks for shaping the development, deployment and usages of technologies. As it is a collective search, she is the Founder Directress and Creative Chaos Catalyst at Coding Rights, a women-run organization working to expose and redress the power imbalances built into technology and its application, particularly those that reinforce gender and North/South inequalities. Former Mozilla Media Fellow, Joana is currently a Technology and Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. She is also affiliated to the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

This is a conversation with Jefim Vogel of the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, and Julia Steinberger of the Institute of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Lausanne, about a paper they worked on entitled "socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: An international analysis of social provisioning." Julia is also an author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report, contributing to the report's discussion of climate change mitigation pathways. Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed How the major environmental and social crises of our time are interlinked, especially energy use Meeting basic needs at low energy use Leapfrogging fairly Disparities between global North and global South (Some of) the limits of economic growth Citizens' assemblies and other examples of ways forward Living well within limits Recommended Books: Jefim's: Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power by Noam Chomsky Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown Julia's: Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet--And How We Fight Back by Kate Aronoff The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming by Eric Holthaus We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism by Laurence Cox & Alf Gunvald Nilsen

This is a conversation with Paz Peña, a Chile-based independent consultant and activist, who recently published a paper entitled “Bigger, more, better, faster: The ecological paradox of digital economies” for Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch). The research by Paz Peña is part of a report launched by the Association for Progressive Communications. You can find the full report here.  Topics Discussed: Digital economies and environmental sustainability The ecological paradox of dematerialisation ‘Smart cities’ and the Internet of Things (IoT) The problem with techno-solutionism Tech in the framework of degrowth and postgrowth Artificial Intelligence is a feminist issue Tech isn’t neutral Recommended Books: Posthuman Knowledge by Rosi Braidotti Cómo pensar juntos by Isabelle Strengers After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration by Holly Jean Buck I mentioned my article for Shado Mag on the Emotional Case for Postgrowth If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts! Music by Tarabeat.

This is a conversation with Mia Wong, a writer and researcher with Cool Zone Media whose essay "When communists crushed the international workers’ movement" for Lausan was the subject of this conversation. Get early access + more perks on Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: The Tiananmen massacre in its historical context The meaning of Tiananmen How we remember Tiananmen and what we erase The before and the after The cost of denialism Tiananmen/Syria comparisons Occupying the squares vs occupying the factories On class identities How could it have been different? Aesthetics and politics Burying the past On tankies Recommended Books: Rhythms of the Pachakuti: Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia by Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy by David Graeber Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil by Timothy Mitchell Hatta Shūzō and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan by John Crump + I recommended Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan by Sho Konishi

This is a conversation with Susan A. Crane, author of the book “Nothing Happened: A History“ Get early access + more perks on Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: How do people think of the past? What does Nothing even mean? Four expressions of historical consciousness: 1- Nothing Happened 2- Nothing is the Way it Was 3- Nothing has Changed 4- Nothing is Left How far away does the past have to be before being considered the past? What the past says about the present The examples of Germany, Chile, the USA, Spain and Lebanon When histories become ruin On biographies and ‘great men’ On ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ in history Resources mentioned: Why Man Creates by Saul Bass The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Memory and the Event. Form and Meaning in Oral History by Alessandro Portelli Nostalgia for the light by Patricio Guzmán History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige by Rea Tajiri The mnemonic imagination by Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering Why Did Ozu Cut To A Vase? by Nerdwriter Recommended Books In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale The Resonance of Unseen Things: Poetics, Power, Captivity, and UFOs in the American Uncanny by Susan Lepselter Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman A History of Silence: From the Renaissance to the Present Day by Alain Corbin

This is a conversation with Boris Michel and Paul Schweizer who helped create the ‘This Is Not an Atlas‘ book for Kollectiv Orangotango, which is available as a free PDF. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: What is ‘This is Not an Atlas’? What traditional cartographies erase The relationship between maps and power When do maps work? Examples of Alarm Phone and Indigenous mapping How to become an occasional cartographer Discussion of: Is This Is Not an Atlas an Atlas? On the Pitfalls of Editing a Global Collection of Counter-Cartographies How can cartography help us understand our relationship to nature? What is hydrocartography? Recommended books: Manual of collective mapping by iconoclasistas Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement & Resistance by Anti-Eviction Mapping Project Weaponizing Maps: Indigenous Peoples and Counterinsurgency in the Americas by Joe Bryan and Denis Wood Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability by Eyal Weizman The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World by Denis Wood and John Fels

This is a conversation with Bram Büscher around the topics discussed in his book ‘The Truth about Nature: Environmentalism, in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism‘ Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: Meaning of ‘post-truth’ and platform capitalism Environmentalism, political action and social media Mediating knowledge and politics through new media platforms “Doom and gloom” versus “being optimistic” Temporality on social media and the urge of the ‘now’ New media platforms are not neutral platforms Alienation, politics and new media Can it be good? The role of new media in the conservation and environmental movements South Africa’s Kruger National Park, new media and racial politics The difference between understanding and knowledge, and how new media plays into that Recommended Books: Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek Darwin’s Hunch by Christa Kuljian If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts!

This is a special episode in which I just read the names of those who died due to the Beirut port explosion on August 4th 2020. Resources: http://beirut607.org/ http://thepublicsource.org/ https://armlebanon.org/ #BeirutExplosion 

This is a special episode, initially recorded and released on August 7th 2020 with Lina Mounzer.  I'm re-releasing it as it was.  Twitter thread with reflections on this day https://twitter.com/joeyayoub/status/1422610135172714498  #BeirutExplosion #BeirutBlast

This is a conversation with Lina Mounzer and Timour Azhari, repeat guests on the podcast, about the legacy of the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (1915–1918) and its legacy today. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed + Resources: What was the Great Famine? Causes and Context (Allies blockading from the sea, Ottomans barring grains, role of local elites like Michel Sursock) Hunger and Hallucination: Tales from the Great Famine (Lina's talk) An Abandoned Village Bears Witness to Lebanon’s Famines – Old and New (Timour's article) Parallels to today A Hungry Population Stops Thinking About Resistance: Class, Famine, and Lebanon's World War I Legacy Is there an amnesia problem in Lebanon? Yes and No The sense that history is repeating itself Working as a way of coping Thinking of leaving and of the established migration routes (belonging, identity, legitimacy etc) The role of the diaspora beyond bringing aid Across the Rickety Bridge by Farrah Berrou Akram Khater's Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender and the Making of a Lebanese Middle Class, 1861-1921 The gendered component of the famine The Megaphone short doc  Maybe let's eat the rich Coexistence as being between rioters and peaceful protesters What counts as violence vs non-violence What we've inherited from the Lebanese wars (1975-1990) Recommended Books Timour: On the Road by Jack Kerouack Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami Citizen Hariri by Hannes Bauman Lina: Beirut Nightmares by Ghada Samman A Month in Siena & The Return by Hicham Matar Yes, I am a destroyer by Mira Mattar