Undercurrents: Recent Episodes
Steve Brett
A SPACE FOR GENERATING NEW PERSPECTIVES
Undercurrents highlights a diversity of first-principle perspectives, and alternative ways of being and doing. In a globalised world, we recognise the necessity for an ecology of knowledge systems and inclusive moral frameworks, through which to make sense of, and reconstitute our world. We explore these perspectives with creative thinkers, visionaries and culture hackers from around the world.
We were fortunate to meet Kübra Gümüşay at the Realisation Festival in the UK in 2023, as one of the Festival's keynote speakers. We loved her presentation and managed to catch up with her in April 2024 to interview her for 3rd Space. Kübra is an award-winning author, journalist, and activist. She studied political science in Hamburg and at the London School of Oriental and African Studies. She has won awards for her writing and campaigns against racism and sexualised violence. She speaks on issues of social justice around the world and is involved in advocacy and feminist research for 'utopian' and 'desirable futures'. Her book Speaking and Being was one of the most successful non-fiction books in Germany in 2020. She is also a Mercator Senior Fellow at Cambridge University.
Too often seen as mere statistics, the historical context for the dislocation and extreme trauma of young refugees, as well as their necessity for sanctuary and a liveable future, is often forgotten or ignored. Yet, we are the world, and it is a world where more and more refugees will be fleeing the results of war, climate change, and oppressive regimes. Based on her own work and life experience, Renate Keller brings a creative dimensionality and depth to teaching young refugees in Switzerland, and finds in their receptivity and desire to connect, a sensibility for the Heart. This is a rare and insightful glimpse into the challenges and inspiration of working intimately with refugees searching for a life in the West.
We interviewed Manish Jain at Shikshantar, The People's Institute for Re-thinking Education and Development in the ancient city of Udaipur in India. Although born and brought up in India, Manish worked in the US for Morgan Stanley, received a Master's at Harvard University, and worked for UNESCO. He returned to India twenty-five years ago to look after his illiterate grandmother, which began a deep process of Un-learning. In the interview we talk about his discovery of the gift culture in India, its abundance versus scarcity culture, forgiveness, how working with your hands is not extracurricular, and the significance of cow dung.
In the wake of the brutal attack by Hamas and the escalating violence in Gaza by Israeli forces, Mary Adams of 3rd-Space speaks with Yael Treidel from Hadera in Israel. Yael, an activist involved with Women Wage Peace since 2014, currently works for a medical charity, Road for Recovery, responsible for driving hundreds of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza for medical treatment in Israel on a daily basis. Working closely with Palestinian women, Yael and others in WWP, have long pushed for a just political settlement between the two nations.
In this episode, Steve Brett talks with the author Tomiwa Owolade, about his book This is Not America - Why Being Black and British Matters. Tom argues that racial identity is not an abstraction, but is contextual and based on different geographical and historical factors. He writes that many of the ideas we have about what it means to be black have been adopted from America, when in fact what it means to be black and British is different from what it means to be black and American.
Steve Brett interviews Dougald Hine on his new book, At Work in the Ruins - Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics & All the Other Emergencies. They discuss his remarkable journey from his focus on the Climate Crisis, to why he's not talking about the Climate Crisis anymore. They go on to talk about the impact of the Dark Mountain Project, the work of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, and how "the end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. The end of the world as we know it is also the end of a way of knowing the world.” For further references recommended by Dougald, please note, The Myth of Modernity by Michael Greer, and A Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje.
Leadership Developer and social entrepreneur Dave Pendle, in conversation with Steve Brett about Eldership. They discuss the value of eldership, and if it is something that can be both restored and developed in modern culture.
In this podcast Mary Adams explores the embodied intelligence of Contact Dance Improvisation with the leading dance teacher/performer Kirstie Simson. Described as a “force of nature” by the New York Times, Simson shares her experience and insights into the relevance of our relationship to the body, and how this can transform the deep cultural attitudes of separation and dissociation which underlie the global meta crisis.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is a distinguished legal scholar and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. He is one of the founders of the World Social Forum. He has written and published widely on issues of global justice and its relationship to the necessity for an ecology of knowledge systems. As well as being a brilliant scholar he has worked for social justice in social movements around the world, including amongst the favelas of Brazil and with indigenous and peasant communities in different parts of the world.
An interview with the British/Chinese writer, diarist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo. From her upbringing in a small fishing village on the East China Sea to becoming the celebrated writer and filmmaker she is living in Britain today, we explore the extraordinary life and work of an east/west cultural pioneer.
Gabriel Meyer Halevy is a musician and storyteller from Argentina. His book, “On the Verge of the Verb” is shortly to be published in the US. Gabriel is a cross-cultural bridge builder—even across enemy lines—through music, humour and story. We met up with Gabriel at Brave Earth earlier this year, a community founded by Alnoor Ladha in the jungle of Costa Rica. In this podcast Gabriel talks about his travels and meetings with extraordinary people, his celebration of the prophetic nature of his spiritual lineage, and his love of the human spirit.
In this episode recorded at Alnoor Ladha's home in the jungle of Costa Rica, Steve Brett talks with Alnoor about how we should be responding to the Climate Emergency and the possibility that we might be one of the last generations of human life on earth. For Alnoor, it’s not just about social and political action. We need to understand and dis-identify from the dominant culture, and make an ontological shift that is in deep relationality to the living planet.
In this episode of Undercurrents, Mary Adams speaks with Esther Stanford-Xosei about her work with inter-generational movements to repair the damage of colonial legacies and create a new holistic paradigm.
In this episode, Steve Brett talks with Irish artist Patrick Bryson about art, meditation and freedom. The conversation follows Patrick's own journey as an artist - a journey he says, that never ends.
Jamie Bristow is the director of the Mindfulness Initiative, a think tank which has been instrumental in bringing Mindfulness into the political mainstream and affecting public policy. Last year the Mindfulness Initiative took the step of examining the evidence for the positive effects of mindfulness beyond its familiar Wellness application, by producing a paper called, “Mindfulness: Developing Agency in Urgent Times” which looks at qualities that can be cultivated through mindfulness, that might be foundational toward creating social and societal change. In this podcast I'll be speaking with Jamie about his new paper, and how our understanding of Mindfulness is developing.
In this episode of Undercurrents, Steve Brett discusses awareness, journalism, and activism with Anthea Lawson.