Podcasts about mobilities research

Today, a discussion of COVID-19 in Haiti and the Caribbean with Franciscka Lucien and Mimi Sheller.FRANCISCKA LUCIEN joined the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti as Executive Director in July 2019. She is a committed advocate for social justice, and an experienced international development professional skilled in strategic management, fundraising, communications and advocacy. Her work focuses on the intersection of equity, health, and a rights-based approach to development. She served as Deputy Director of Policy and Partnerships for Partners In Health (PIH) in Liberia, coordinating with under-served communities, non-governmental organizations, the Ministry of Health, and international organizations to improve delivery of critical health services in the wake of Liberia’s Ebola epidemic. She worked extensively in Haiti, leading key projects to strengthen public delivery systems for health care, and implementing the human right to health for rural, marginalized communities. She holds an M.A. from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs and a Bachelor of Science from the Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology and founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities, associate editor of the journal Transfers, and past President of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility.  Her books include Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (out in Fall 2020 from Duke University Press); Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (Verso, 2018); Aluminum Dreams (MIT Press, 2014); Citizenship from Below (2012); Consuming the Caribbean (2003); and Democracy After Slavery: Black Publics and Peasant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica (Macmillan Caribbean, 2000). 

We sit down to talk about the recent history and far future of urban planning and design in China and worldwide with Sebastian Ibold, Project Director for the project Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport, GIZ. Sebastian has a rich past life as a consultant on urban planning issues and consulting in Asia, and his current work relates to rethinking urban mobility, shaping the city around an integration of the needs of users, technology, and sustainability.  At the end of the episode, we play a scenario analysis betting game based on a report, "The Politics and Practices of Low-Carbon Urban Mobility in China," from the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University, and the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University. The report is available at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42416653.pdf.  The episode's title is from a poem by William Cowper: https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/god-made-country. Sebastian references Dutch-American sociologist Saskia Sassen. Her biography, bibliography, and various links can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskia_Sassen.  

Red May is a month-long festival of radical thought and art that brings together speakers and thinkers to explore alternatives to capitalism. This event centered the discussion on investment and expansion in our own city. Here’s what the organizers of Red May have to say about this evening: “You think it’s your home but it’s their investment. You think you belong in this city. In reality, you’re just collateral damage. Ask the Urban Growth Machine and the Electeds who enable its relentless expansion. They’ve written your ticket out of here. You can live in the Rust Belt, Detroit or Cleveland, where rents are cheap. You can retire to Mexico: dental care is so affordable there. Buy a trailer and hit the open road. Sleep in a shelter. Or on the street. Or just die. Face it, all you do here is occupy space that has higher and better uses: space to host the Olympics or the World Cup, to house a high-paid, high-tech work force that can afford the restaurants and the rents. How did it get to this point? Who made it happen? And how can we turn that world upside down? Tonight, we convene the Red May City Council to investigate these matters and map new urban struggles.” Cedric Johnson is associate professor of African American studies and political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of From Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics and editor of The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism and the Remaking of New Orleans. Shaun Scott is a Seattle-based writer and historian and candidate for Seattle City Council District 4. His reflections on race, cinema and American spectacle have appeared in The Monarch Review and New Worker Magazine. He writes the thread “Faded Signs” for City Arts Magazine, a semi-weekly column about cultural life under late capitalism. Mimi Sheller, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology and founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is founding co-editor of the journalMobilities and past President of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility. Samuel Stein is a geography PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center and an Urban Studies instructor at Hunter College. His work focuses on the politics of urban planning, with an emphasis on housing, real estate and gentrification in New York City. He is the author of Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State. This event is part of Red May, a month-long festival of radical art and thought. Our motto is: take a vacation from capitalism. Click here for a full schedule of events. Recorded live at The Summit by Town Hall Seattle on May 17, 2019.

Will China rule the world? Laurie Taylor talks to Yuen Yuen Ang, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, and author of a study which explores China's unusual route out of poverty. They're joined by David Tyfield, Co-Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University, and author of new book examining the prospects for an alternative global power regime. Producer: Jayne Egerton.

Tamara Vukov, visiting research professor and a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy in the Department of Culture and Communication at Drexel University, talks about art and media activities in migrant justice movements such as Kein Mensch Ist Illegal (No One Is Illegal) in Germany; Sans Papier in France; and the Transborder Immigrant Tool in the U.S.