Let's Step Outside

In this first episode of LSO's spring season, we welcome the Lab's very own Dr Vanessa Schofield, who is presently a lecturer in Geography at the University of St Andrews. Throughout her academic career, Ness has looked at different aspects of risk governance and policing. Her participation in protests and her archival work around riots have been motivated by the overarching question of 'What counts as a riot?' in different legal contexts. In this episode, we discuss the policing of the 2001 'race riots', challenge violent riot iconography, and address the theme of (in)visibility around riot politics.

LSO's fourth episode introduces Housmans, 'the longest continuous-running radical bookshop in Britain, established in 1945 and based in London’s Kings Cross since 1959'. Having become a local favourite, Housmans is known for selling 'books, magazines, and periodicals of radical interest and progressive politics, such as feminism, pacifism, Black politics, LGBTQIA+ politics, environmental justice and anarchism'.

As Housmans' co-manager, this episode's guest Nik Gorecki brings a unique insight into what running a radical bookshop entails in this day and age. We talk about the term 'radical', Housmans' unique history within the city of London, as well as about creating a safe space for political conversations and a sense of community through a politically framed bookstore.

This episode was recorded in May 2023.

LSO's third episode is a conversation with Kinan Alajak, recorded at the end of March. Kinan is the founder of the Refugee Wellbeing & Integration Initiative, the co-founder of the English Academy for Newcomers (EAN), and a Syrian-Dutch migration researcher affiliated with the Utrecht University in the Netherlands. In this episode, we discuss the ecosystem that surrounds the integration of newcomers in the Netherlands, as well as Kinan's latest study on public interventions available to refugees in the city of Utrecht.

The second episode of Let’s Step Outside recorded back in February introduces the work of Dr Christina Verousi, who is joined by podcast hosts Nerina and Julia. Christina is a social sciences lecturer at Northumbria University researching gendered islamophobia and religiously motivated hatecrime in Greece. Situating our discussion in the context of Athens and Western Thrace, we delve into how research on this kind of discrimination looks in practice and into islamophobia's everyday manifestations for Muslim women in particular.

In this first episode of Let’s Step Outside, Nerina and Julia joined by guests Ellie Bouton and Lily von Geyer from the Campaign for Affordable Student Housing (CASH) discuss the precarious living situation in St Andrews. We explore the specifics of the St Andrew's 'housing crisis' and delve into what it is like to be a student activist for affordable housing in a rich student town on the east coast of Scotland.