Debating Ideas reflects the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. It is edited and managed by the International African Institute, hosted at SOAS University of London, the owners of the book series of the same name.
The podcast Some Subjective Narratives of Ethiopian and Eritrean Refugees in Sudan was made for the peaceofSudan.space. It was diffused on this website on 4 August 2023. The website seeks to weave together the collective narratives, perspective, views, feelings and reflections of people who have lived the war that erupted in Sudan on 15 April 2023.
The podcast conveys real voices emanating from populations who are connected to Sudan in profound ways but who risk being forgotten due to orders that classify humans according to the legal documents they carry. The stories that emerge here tell a human story about how attachments to places and territories transcend legal statuses. The protagonists of this podcast are part and parcel of Sudan even if they are not citizens of the country which they have called home in different ways.
A few notes on the communication medium follows in this paragraph. In Debating Ideas' standing tradition of supporting a multilingual platform, the podcast includes narratives spoken in both English and Arabic. We opted to not intervene in language timeline and its construction, it too portraying a story of refugee subjectivities and their preferred mode of communication. The initial segment is narrated by the first protagonist in English, the following in Arabic.
You can listen to the podcast here:
Protagonists
Rista Faniel Sagai was formerly a personal assistant in Sudan where she spent five years as a refugee before resettling in British Columbia, Canada after the war broke out in Sudan. She is currently training to become a healthcare assistant driven by a desire to make a difference in people's lives through empathy and dedication.
Roda Yohannes was born in Sudan to Eritrean parents who were refugees there. She grew up in Sudan and was 17 years of age when the war broke out and forced her to flee her home in Khartoum. While Roda's dreams of joining university in Sudan were shattered by the war, now in Kampala, Uganda she is learning baking and selling her creations to support herself in her new life.
Sami Aschalew grew up in Khartoum, Sudan. His parents were Ethiopian refugees. He was active within his community and advocated for its rights within the Sudanese landscape. His fluency in Arabic and Amharic facilitated this role and he possesses the keys to both Sudanese and Ethiopian cultures.
Podcast Mediators
Azza Ahmed Abdel Aziz, Social Anthropologist/Podcast compilation facilitator
Azza's work focuses how individuals and groups access health and understand well-being on a continuum ranging from therapeutics based on cultural beliefs, sensory experience, bodily memory and those based on scientific epistemologies and biomedicine. She has explored these issues among people whose lives have been subject to experiences of movement/migration/forced migration both in Sudan and Britain. She has equally focused on the problematic of the diversity of Sudanese identities from the vantage point of the social and the political elucidating how it impacts processes of marginalisation, difference and belonging. She has worked on the role of women in the Sudanese revolution of 2018 and their political participation during the period of transitional governance before the outbreak of the war in April 2023. She has explored how music and art are pathways in the quest for the construction of healthier modes of national identities.
Anab Mohammed, International Development consultant/Design layout
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Anab has a background in clinical sciences. She uses her qualifications and activist work to raise awareness about disparities in development within the global North and the global South. Her interests lie in pushing for localisation at the level of development practices as well as humanitarian aid delivery to ensure that people can flourish and thrive.
Azza's work focuses how individuals and groups access health and understand well-being on a continuum ranging from therapeutics based on cultural beliefs, sensory experience, bodily memory and those based on scientific epistemologies and biomedicine. She has explored these issues among people whose lives have been subject to experiences of movement/migration/forced migration both in Sudan and Britain. Anab has a background in clinical sciences. She uses her qualifications and activist work to raise awareness about disparities in development within the global North and the global South. Her interests lie in pushing for localization at the level of development practices as well as humanitarian aid delivery to ensure that people can flourish and thrive.
