Cassandra Voices

Tag: Africa

  • Podcast: A Flawed Consensus: COVID-19 in Africa

    Bonus Episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep8-bonus-flawed-103879168

    Or via apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cassandra-voices-podcast/id1728086643

    In our latest Podcast Frank Armstrong interviews Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at King’s College, London and the author of A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (2019).

    Toby Green also wrote, along with Thomas Fazi, The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality (2023). This latter work engages with the impact of lockdowns on African countries which were, for the most part, unaffected by the disease itself.

    In this podcast, Green discusses the application, more widely, of a form of authoritarian capitalism that lingers to this day, with the onset of perma-crises, continued restrictions on civil rights, and the ascendancy of techno-billionaires.

    He also points to an intellectual failure on the part of many on the left, who failed to recognise there were two versions of accumulation in conflict, one representing traditional forms of small businesses reliant on in-person contact, the other the monopolies which digital capitalism has favoured and whose power is now far, far greater.

    Frank Armstrong previously reviewed The Covid Consensus for Cassandra Voices.

    The track which features in this episode is Kurfewture (2021) by Shakalak:

  • TEXTILE MOUNTAIN: The Hidden Burden of our Fashion Waste

    Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 20th, 2020 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM (IST), Documentary Filmmaker Fellipe Lopes and Producer Catriona Rogerson will host a preview of their new documentary TEXTILE MOUNTAIN: The Hidden Burden of our Fashion Waste

    Below is an abstract of its press release:

    We in Europe throw away 2 million tonnes of textiles each year. But do we know what happens to our clothing when we donate them to charity shops and textile recycling banks?

    Up to 70% of our donated clothing are baled, sold and exported overseas to sub-Saharan Africa for re-sale in local markets. This short documentary looks at the ‘afterlife’ of our clothes, tracing our donated garments from textile recycling banks in Europe to landfills and waterways in the Global South. It encourages us to rethink how we make, wear and reuse our clothes for a more sustainable future for all.
    It’s time to #SlowDownFashion – we need to think before we buy!

    Register to watch!

    Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/eco-week-advance-screening-talk-textile-mountain-tickets-104951033366

    After the screening, join film maker Fellipe Lopes and Caitriona Rogerson to discuss some of the issues raised in the documentary, and explore how YOU can use the medium of film as a powerful tool for change.