Welcome to the Radio Reversal Collective!

In case you’ve just stumbled across this newsletter by accident, we’ll start with a bit of an introduction. The Radio Reversal collective is a long-standing audio collective based in so-called brisbane. Since 2012, we have been producing and presenting a weekly, research- and interview-based live radio show on community radio station 4zzz (102.1fm). As a collective, we come together around a shared vision of anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-ableist, abolitionist, Indigenist, queer feminist political education.
We are committed to using the tools of audio production and storytelling to platform and amplify grassroots community organising, critical theorising, and political art, music, and activism.

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The Radio Reversal Podcast

This week, we are thrilled to be celebrating the launch of our brand new podcast!

After many years of making live radio, we see the podcast as a chance to deepen and extend our existing on-air radio work by re-composing materials in themed ‘seasons’, to help us draw out key insights and reflect on what we’ve learned. In these first couple of episodes, we’re going meta: digging into the why of this new podcast project, and what listeners can expect from the Radio Reversal Podcast.

Over the course of this episode, you’ll hear us talk a bit about the broader “pedagogy” of Radio Reversal - that is, how we understand our experiences of teaching and learning through radio-making. For some bigger reflections on pedagogy and what it means to think about it beyond traditional ideas of education, we recommend digging into: Paulo Freire's landmark "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" and bell hooks extraordinary “Teaching to Transgress”, both of which we discuss in passing in this episode. We also allude to some of the ways that traditions of abolitionist organising and theorising have shaped our approaches, which you can follow up by digging into Dylan Rodriguez’s excellent piece here. If you listen especially carefully to the podcast (ha!) you’ll also hear Shreya mention a wonderful piece by Radio Reversal co-founder Fern Thompsett and her comrade Eli Meyerhoff on “militant co-research” and the possibilities of free education projects that stand in uncompromising solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty. This work in turn references this extraordinary piece by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on “Land as Pedagogy”. You can also check out some of Eli’s longer work in his wonderful book “Beyond Education: Radical Studying for another world.”

In the context of these conversations on pedagogy, we also talk about some of the companion projects of Radio Reversal, including the Brisbane Free University. Many of the regular producers of the Radio Reversal podcast also come together as participants and organisers of the Brisbane Free University Radical Reading Group, which meets fortnightly to discuss a variety of texts that help us to navigate the political questions of the present conjuncture. If you’re interested in getting involved with the thinking and organising we do through the free university, please get in touch!

Radio Reversal & Paradigm Shift: Podcast Launch Party Mixtape!

If you’ve stumbled across this podcast and you’re in South East Queensland, it’s not too late to come and join us for our LAUNCH PARTY! We are extremely excited that our dear friends from Paradigm Shift invited us to collaborate on a launch party to celebrate our move online! As you can see in our poster above, we’re meeting at the Woolloongabba Substation in brisbane from 3pm - 6pm on Sunday 24th September.

We’ve got an incredible line-up coming together to celebrate the launch of the RR podcast. But if you can’t make it in person, never fear! You’ll be able to listen back to the launch mixtape next Sunday, in the second episode of our podcast! Strap in for deep conversations with Professor Chelsea Watego and Kevin Yow Yeh, poetry performances and interviews with Jonathan Sriranganathan and Lamisse Hamouda, live music by Phil Monsour and Andy Paine, all brought together by a raucous array of hosts from Paradigm Shift & Radio Reversal.

SO! Let us know what you think of our BRAND NEW PODCAST. We are always eager to hear your reflections, thoughts, questions, concerns, or suggestions for future shows. We’d love to build an even deeper community around this project, so please do get in touch and get involved!

For now - SUBSCRIBE to this newsletter to make sure you never miss an episode of the Radio Reversal Podcast!

Yours in solidarity,

The Radio Reversal Collective

Thanks for reading Radio Reversal: The Podcast's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.