Security in Context

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Selective Security in the War on Drugs: An Interview with Alke Jenss” from July 5, 2023. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Executive Producer of the Security in Context podcast Anita Fuentes interviews author Alke Jenss about her new book, "Selective Security and the War on Drugs: The Coloniality of State Power in Columbia and Mexico" (January 2023). Dr. Alke Jenss is a senior research fellow at the Arnold-Bergstraesser Institute in Freiburg, Germany. Her research is centered at the intersection of critical political economy, state theory, and urban insecurity, with a focus on Latin America, particularly Colombia and Mexico. Selective Security and the War on Drugs: The Coloniality of State Power in Columbia and Mexico: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538151099/Selective-Security-in-the-War-on-Drugs-The-Coloniality-of-State-Power-in-Colombia-and-Mexico For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “The Struggle to Reshape the Middle East: An Interview with Samer Shehata” from June 26, 2023. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Executive Producer of the Security in Context podcast Anita Fuentes interviews Samer Shehata about "The Struggle to Reshape the Middle East in the 21st Century" (Edinburgh University Press). Samer Shehata is an Associate Professor of Middle East Studies in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is the editor of recently-published book "The Struggle to Reshape the Middle East in the 21st Century." His areas of research include Middle Eastern politics, Egyptian politics, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist politics, and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. He is the author of "Shop Floor Culture and Politics in Egypt" (SUNY, 2009), and editor of "Islamist Politics in the Middle East: Movements and Change" (Routledge, 2012). His articles have appeared in both academic and policy journals including the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Current History, MERIP, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Middle East Policy, Folklore and as book chapters and encyclopedia articles. His analysis and op-ed pieces have been published in the New York Times, Boston Globe/International Herald Tribune, Salon, Slate, Arab Reform Bulletin, Al Hayat, Al Ahram Weekly and other publications. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview “Iran, Sanctions and Economic Warfare: A Conversation with Narges Bajoghli” from June 4, 2023. ⁠Click here to watch the original video⁠. Executive Producer of the Security in Context podcast Anita Fuentes and Security in Context Media and Knowledge Production Intern Jordi Bernal interview Narges Bajoghli about her upcoming book, "How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare." Narges Bajoghli is an award-winning anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Professor Bajoghli received her PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from New York University, where her dissertation was awarded the Dean's Outstanding Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences. She was also trained as a documentary filmmaker in NYU's Culture and Media Program. She is the co-author of the upcoming book, "How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare," which is slated for release in February 2024. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview "The Human Consequences of Sanctions: An Interview with Francisco Rodriguez" from May 24, 2023. Click here to watch the original video. Executive Producer of the Security in Context Podcast Anita Fuentes interviews Professor Francisco Rodriguez. Professor Francisco Rodriguez is a Rice Family Professor of the Practice of International and Public Affairs at the Joseph Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He has also taught economics and public policy at the University of Maryland, Wesleyan University, and the University of Notre Dame. Rodriguez has held positions in the public and private sector, including head of the Economic and Financial Advisory of the Venezuelan National Assembly (2000-2004), head of the Research Team of the United Nations' Human Development Report Office (2008-2011) and chief Andean economist of Bank of America (2011-2016). For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview "Turkish 2023 Presidential Election Heads for a Run Off: Analysis and Implications" from May 16, 2023. Click here to watch the original video. Executive Producer of the Security in Context Podcast Anita Fuentes interviews Professor Firat Demir about the 2023 Presidential Election in Turkey. Firat Demir is a Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma (OK, USA). He received his B.A. from Bogazici University (Istanbul Turkey), and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Notre Dame (IN, USA). Firat is also an affiliate faculty in the Department of International and Area Studies, the Center for Peace and Development and the Center for Social Justice at the University of Oklahoma. Firat is an associate editor of the Review of Social Economy and the Journal of Economic Surveys. His main fields of research are economic development and open economy macroeconomics focusing on the issues of economic globalization, structural change, South-South trade and finance, long run development and growth, and political economy of development. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video interview "Understanding China in Latin America: an Interview with Paul Amar and Fernando Brancoli" from May 9, 2023. Click here to watch the original video. Executive Producer of the Security in Context Podcast Anita Fuentes interviews Paul Amar and Fernando Brancoli about their latest book, "The Tropical Silk Road." Dr. Paul Amar is a professor of Global Studies at UCSB trained in political science and anthropology with a long history of research, teaching and publishing in the field of Critical Security Studies. He holds affiliate appointments in Feminist Studies, Sociology, Comparative Literature, Middle East Studies, and Latin American & Iberian Studies. Before he began his academic career, he worked as a journalist in Cairo, a police reformer and sexuality rights activist inRio de Janeiro, and for six years as a conflict-resolution and economic development specialist at the United Nations. His books include: "Cairo Cosmopolitan" (2006); "New Racial Missions of Policing" (2010); "Global South to the Rescue" (2011); "Dispatches from the Arab Spring" (2013); and "The Middle East and Brazil" (2014). Recently, he was Chair of Middle East Studies, founding director of the PhD program in Global Studies, and Director of the Global Security Studies hub at UCSB. He is a founding editor of the journal “Critical Military Studies” and a reviewer for landmark journals such as Security Dialogue, Critical Terrorism Studies, and the International Journal of Feminist Politics. His book "The Security Archipelago" won the Charles Taylor award for Best Book of the Year from the American Political Science Association's Interpretive Methods section in 2014. Fernando Brancoli is Associate Professor of International Security at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is a Fellow at the School of Social Science (SPSS) at the University of Princeton and an Associated Researcher at the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. His research interests are centered on how narratives of violence and neoliberalism circulate in the Global South, specially the Middle East and Latin America. In the last years, he conducted field research on Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. For more please visit www.securityincontext.org or follow us on Twitter @SecurityContext

Hamid Khalafallah is a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy focusing on inclusive governance and mobilization in Sudan. He is also a program officer for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), supporting Sudan's democratic transition. In this interview, Hamid Khalafallah shares his take on Sudan's militarized conflict.

Margaret Cerullo is a professor of Sociology and Feminist Studies at Hampshire College and a member of the Lightning Collective, which put together the book “Zapatista Stories for Dreaming An-Other World by Subcomandante Marcos.” In this gorgeous collection of allegorical stories, Subcomandante Marcos, idiosyncratic spokesperson of the Zapatistas, has provided “an accidental archive” of a revolutionary group's struggle against neoliberalism. For thirty years, the Zapatistas have influenced and inspired movements worldwide, showing that another world is possible. They have infused left politics with a distinct imaginary—and an imaginative, literary, or poetic dimension—organizing horizontally, outside and against the state, and with a profound respect for difference as a source of political insight, not division. With commentaries that illuminate their historical, political, and literary contexts and an introduction by the translators, this timeless, elegiac volume is perfect for lovers of literature and lovers of revolution.

What has Security in Context achieved in the past two years? And what does the future hold for the project? In this episode, we hear from some of the key people leading Security in Context's research network, including: Omar Dahi, Project Director of Security in Context and Economics Professor at Hampshire College; Shana Marshall, Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and Assistant Research Faculty member at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs; Pete Moore, Associate Professor of Politics at Case Western Reserve University; Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Firat Demir, Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma and co-director of University of Oklahoma's Center for Peace and Development; Rabie Nasser, economist, researcher and co-founder of the Syrian Center for Policy Research; and Fernando Brancoli, Assistant Professor of International Security and Geopolitics at the Institute of International Relations and Defense at the University of Rio de Janeiro.

In this episode we investigate the Russian war in Ukraine from a global South perspective by analyzing the effects of the crisis on the different countries and regions of the global South, and highlighting the issues that are currently missing from the mainstream discussion. Our guests include: Eric Draitser, independent political analyst and host of CounterPunch Radio; Samar Al-Bulushi, assistant professor of anthropology at University of California, Irvine; Noha Aboueldahab, assistant professor of international law and transitional justice at Georgetown University in Qatar; and Arlene Tickner, professor of international relations at the School of International, Political and Urban Studies, at the Universidad del Rosario Bogotá. At the end of the episode, Security in Context co-founders Omar Dahi and Firat Demir discuss the main highlights of the interviews and share their own takes.

Khaled Barakat is a Palestinian-Canadian activist and writer, currently based in Vancouver, who was recently subjected to a media and political campaign aimed at silencing him and those fighting for Palestinian rights in Canada. Attempts to criminalize Barakat originated in an article published in the right-wing newspaper The National Post, and quickly became subject of debate in the Canadian Senate, with a conservative senator going so far as to asking the government to expel Barakat, a Canadian citizen, from the country. The campaign against Khaled Barakat is one of many smear campaigns being launched against pro-Palestinian voices, a phenomenon that seems to be increasing nowadays.

According to the late Pakistani writer and revolutionary activist Eqbal Ahmad, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination stirs the emotions of the entire world, particularly the nations and societies of the formerly colonized world. In this episode we explore the Palestinian struggle for liberation from the perspective of solidarity movements. Our guests include: Mouin Rabbani, an independent analyst specialized in Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict; Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney and associate professor at Rutgers University; Lina Meruane, an author and professor at the Madrid branch of the New York University; and Yara Hawari, an academic, writer, and senior policy analyst at Al-Shabaka.

In this episode we explore two issues that are frequently ignored in discussions about the climate crisis: first, how the impacts of climate change will be unequally felt around the world, and second, the negative side of the politics of the climate movement in the global North. Our guests include: Betsy Hartmann, author of “The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness” (2017, Seven Stories Press), Anne Hendrixson, senior policy analyst at Challenging Population Control; Max Ajl, author of “A People's Green New Deal” (2021, Pluto Press); Fikret Adaman, professor of economics at Boğaziçi University; and Kasia Paprocki, author of “Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh” (2021, Cornell Press). In addition to these interviews, the episode includes some excerpts from Jame K. Boyce's lecture titled “Climate Change in an Unequal World,” available on Security in Context's YouTube channel. James K. Boyce is the author of books, such as “The Case for Carbon Dividends” (2019, Polity Press) and “Economics for People and the Planet: Inequality in the Era of Climate Change” (2019, Anthem Press).

In this episode we explore the socioeconomic impact of Covid-19, paying special attention to its implications for gender and North-South inequalities. Our guests include Mark Weisbrot, Co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research; Mehrinaz El Awady, Leader of the Gender Justice, Population and Inclusive Development Cluster at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; and Julio Gambina, Professor of Political Economics at the National University of Rosario and member of partner research network CLACSO. As a bonus, this episode includes excerpts from interviews with leaders of partner grassroots women's organizations in Gulu, Uganda, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma and West Virginia University. At the end of the episode, Security in Context's Omar Dahi and Firat Demir discuss the main highlights of the interviews and share their own takes on the content.

In this episode, we investigate the implications of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan from different angles with the help of our guests. Rafia Zakaria tells us about her new book, Against White Feminism, and how it ties into Western media coverage of Afghan women. We also speak to Professor Michael Klare, defense correspondent at The Nation magazine, about his take on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan; a very different one to those being portrayed in mainstream media. The episode ends with our September media roundup, a brief section in which we discuss news articles, reports, and other materials focusing on (in)security issues.