100 - In conversation with Walidah Imarisha.
From What If to What Next
And here we are. Episode 100. What a journey! Thank you so much for being a part of it with me. I could not be more delighted by today's guest, who I have wanted on this podcast since its inception. It's the wonderful writer, educator and poet Walidah Imarisha, one of my great she-roes. I really hope you are going to love the conversation that we had. And this episode starts with a couple of BIG announcements which I won't spoil, I'll leave you to dive into them.
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99 - What if invitations to participate in civic life were creative and caring?
From What If to What Next
On this, our 99th episode of ‘From What If to What Next’, we have the first episode in which both guests actually joined my physically in the studio! I was joined by Ruth Ben Tovim and Anne-Marie Culhane, both extraordinary practitioners of community arts and what they call ‘the Art of Invitation’. I have learned so much from both of these extraordinary women. The question we dive deep into is “What if invitations to participate in civic life were creative and caring?". You are going to love this one. The video Ruth mentions about the ‘Town Anywhere’ exercise is here. In two...
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98 - What if we deeply listened to the natural world?
From What If to What Next
You're in for a bit of a treat here. In today's episode things are a little bit different: you usual Producer is your host, you usual host is a guest, we've woven some beautiful sound recordings into our episode to make it a sensory experience for you. Our other guest is Andrew Skeoch, sound recordist and author of the excellent book, Deep Listening to Nature. You can find his Listening Earth catalogue of nature soundscape albums here. This episode was such a joy to be part of, I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it, and I hope that you find yourself listening to the...
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97 - What if there was an alternative to capitalism, after all?
From What If to What Next
Today's episode is a beauty. It brings together Dr. Lyla June Johnston, an Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages with Nick Romeo, author of 'The Alternative', to explore 'What if there was an alternative to capitalism after all?' They bring such contrasting yet complementary perspectives for a conversation that, at times, takes the breath away. I hope you love this episode. My deepest thanks to them, and to you for your support of this podcast, and Ben Addicott, as always, for his audio pixie dust...
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96 - What if we had a Right to Roam?
From What If to What Next
Here in the UK, the Right to Roam has been pushed into the news headlines by the activities of Dartmoor landowner Alexander Darwall, who just announced that he is appealing the recent victory for campaigners who overturned the ban on wild camping that he brought in last year. His actions have triggered a beautifully colourful and well-supported campaign, and growing political support. This week we bring together Nadia Shaikh and Lewis Winks, both of whom campaign for a right to roam, to explore what it could actually be like to have a right to roam, how it would impact society, the natural...
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95 - What if we became better Protopians?
From What If to What Next
Better what, I hear you ask? You're in for a treat as I introduce you to futurist and futures designer Monika Bielskyte. She is one of the world's boldest and most adventurous futures thinkers, so you are in for a treat as we dive deep into her concept of 'Protopian' thinking, and so much more. Prepare for a super workout for your imagination! Please consider supporting the podcast by visiting and becoming a patron.
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94 - What if compassion could heal society?
From What If to What Next
Season's greetings to you! Here is your special Christmas day episode, appropriately focusing on the theme of compassion. Our guests are Jared Seide and Dr Ann Seide, whose work on compassion is amazing. To find out more about Centre for Council, click here. You might also enjoy this film about their "Cops & Communities: Circling Up" program, this one about LAPD officers talking about working with "council huddles" and a presentation Jared and Ann did for a cohort of Law Enforcement leaders on compassion training for police officers. I really hope you love this episode, and thanks so...
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93 - What if we could reimagine the world in bioregions?
From What If to What Next
As you'll have spotted by now, we're never ones to shy away from asking a good big bold What If question. This week we are diving into the question of how different things would be if we were to rethink the scale on which we operate, and were to root ourselves more closely in nature's own boundaries. The bioregional movement was a big thing in the 1990s and faded away a bit, but is now back with a bang, and we speak to two of its key proponents, Erika Zarate and Daniel Christian Wahl to find out more. How would bioregionalism going mainstream change the world and how we look at it? This is a...
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92 - What if we decolonised the ecological sector?
From What If to What Next
The British Ecological Society’s REED Ecological Network (REED standing for Racial and Ethnic Equality and Diversity) was formed due to the very low levels of people of colour represented in the sector, and their feeling that "it’s easy to feel alone when working in ecology, the environment and related fields like agriculture". My two guests this week, Bushra Schuitemaker and Reuben Fakoya-Brooks are both members, and in spite of working in quite different ecological sectors, are active founder members of this network. How did it start? What does it do? And how does it actively fire...
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91 - What if we could train our imagination to reimagine change?
From What If to What Next
Jonathan Rhodes and Joanna Grover recently wrote a great book called 'The Choice Point' and work together as Imagery Coaching. They work with a wide range of organisations and individuals, building their capacity to be imaginative in a multisensory way. Naturally, their tools and their insights are highly relevant to the themes of this podcast given that, as bell hooks once put it, "what we cannot imagine cannot come into being". I hope you enjoy our conversation and that, at the end of it, your own imagination feels like it has had a good workout too! As always, thanks for listening and do...
info_outlineWe're back, and boy oh boy are you in for a treat. Since Episode One there were two guests I most wanted to have on this podcast. The first, adrienne maree brown, I was fortunate enough to speak to in Episode Fifty. The second I am sharing with you today. This time there's just one guest, and it is the brilliant prison abolition activist Mariame Kaba. I've admired her work, and her writing, for years now, and it was such a delight to spend 45 minutes in conversation with her. I'm not going to say anything more, other than that I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.