Priya Kandaswamy on Embracing Permanent Change

08/04/21 • 35 min

We’ve all experienced a LOT of change over the past year and a half. Many of the things we assumed to be stable anchors suddenly turned out not to be, as everything from the global economy and education to politics and media were irrevocably transformed.

Many with privilege have responded to such upheaval by demanding a swift and complete return to the same capitalist normal that unevenly organized life in the before times.

But those for whom the old normal was a source of oppression rather than comfort have had a different reaction to such changes. Folks have instead invested in practices like mutual aid, unlearning, and interdependency, all which provide models for more just social foundations.

In episode 138 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews gender, sexuality, and ethnic studies scholar and professor Priya Kandaswamy. Priya has long been fascinated with how institutions and individuals shape and reshape one another in the context of power.

As she details in their conversation, Priya’s career shifted dramatically earlier this year. In March 2021, one full year after COVID-19 had forced major shutdowns across the US, Priya’s employer, Mills College, announced that fall 2021 would be its last year admitting new students and the beloved liberal arts college in Oakland, California, would completely close by 2023. As a result, all faculty and staff would thus need to find other employment.

Priya shares how personal upheavals (like a career change) combined with collective upheavals (like a pandemic) provide glimpses into a new normal, one that is organized around permanent change.

Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as prison abolition movements, radical herbalism, feminist of color welfare histories, and the mycorrhizal bonds between trees and fungi, Priya explains how she is learning to embrace permanent transformation as a way to individually and collectively build new worlds.

Transcript and show notes: https://ideasonfire.net/138-priya-kandaswamy

Many with privilege have responded to such upheaval by demanding a swift and complete return to the same capitalist normal that unevenly organized life in the before times.

Priya shares how personal upheavals (like a career change) combined with collective upheavals (like a pandemic) provide glimpses into a new normal, one that is organized around permanent change.

Transcript and show notes: https://ideasonfire.net/138-priya-kandaswamy

Previous Episode

Mark Villegas on Collaborative Abundance in Hip-Hop Cultures

Host Cathy Hannabach interviews filmmaker and hip-hop scholar Mark Villegas, who has built his career foregrounding the power of collective abundance.

Highlighting the strength, inspiration, and generosity that emerges from collaboration, Mark’s endeavors illustrate the transformations that take place when diverse ideas and cultural traditions are brought together.

In the conversation, Mark and Cathy chat about why multiracial, transnational, and cross-generational hip-hop cultures have been such a vibrant model of political and artistic abundance.

Mark explains how his new book Manifest Technique traces these genealogies as well as how Filipino American DJs and cultural producers use hip-hop to theorize transition and resist colonial legacies.

They also talk about the new communication strategies and gathering practices that Brown and Black hip-hop communities have developed during COVID-19 and discuss how they can serve as models for life beyond the pandemic.

Finally, we close out the episode with a vision for an abundant relationality, one that can shape new collaborative futures.

Transcript and show notes: https://ideasonfire.net/137-mark-villegas

Next Episode

Jessica Bissett Perea on Indigenous Transformations in Academic Publishing

Publishing plays a central role in higher education, primarily through the hiring, tenure, and promotion process. Because of this, transforming academic publishing means transforming how scholarly knowledge itself is produced, circulated, and applied.

The research process, writing process, and publishing process are all deeply intertwined and all offer opportunities to build the kinds of worlds we want to inhabit.

To explore how this process works and the worldmaking possibilities it opens up, in episode 139 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Dena’ina musician-scholar Jessica Bissett Perea.

Jessica is the founder of the Indigeneity Collaboratory, an Indigenous-led and Indigeneity-centered research collective that advances relational ways of being, knowing, and doing. She’s also an associate professor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis.

In the conversation, Jessica shares various entry points for decolonial intervention that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, editors, and publishers can explore.

First up, Cathy and Jessica chat about Jessica’s experience switching research topics early in her career. She shares practical tips on how to find the research topics that inspire you and give back to the communities you care about as well as how to think critically about your specific positionality in relation to your research.

They also tackle the writing process. As they discuss, everything from stylistic choices like capitalization and italicization to the citation politics of bibliographies offer opportunities to remake how intellectual labor is exchanged and valued.

Finally, Jessica and Cathy turn to academic publishing itself. This is a field that has seen some encouraging progress lately but still has a long way to go toward equity and inclusion. They chat about what faculty journal editors, professional copyeditors, and authors can do to build a more justice-focused publishing world.

Transcript and show notes: https://ideasonfire.net/139-jessica-bissett-perea