Brainfood!
Listen to our range of podcasts, created by the UNESCO Chair team and our affiliate podcasters. Guaranteed to get you thinking!
UNESCO RIELA: the sounds of integration
Welcome to the podcast channel UNESCO RIELA: The sounds of integration.
Here you will find all the episodes created by the team and by invited guest podcasters (latest episode first). This podcast is about integration, about the sounds it makes and about the feelings, thoughts and ripples it causes. In short: an eclectic mix, just like integration itself. New episodes are released roughly every fortnight.
If you are interested in featuring in one of our episodes, please send an email to Bella at unesco-riela@glasgow.ac.uk outlining what you would like to talk about.
Our podcast can be found on all the major channels, including Google Podcasts, Spotify, Castbox, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Deezer, PocketCasts and many more. Just search for UNESCO RILA or click on the logos below. Why not add us to your favourites in your preferred podcast app?
We are hosted on Soundcloud, you can find us through this link: 
Main series: The Sounds of Integration
This is our main strand and features episodes by core team members and partners. A mixed bunch, with a focus on refugee integration through languages and the arts, but also episodes that are more sideways connected to our work.
Episode 76: Exploring the Drawing Together project (pt2) (14/11/2024)
Episode 75: Exploring the Drawing Together project (pt1) (30/10/2024)
Episode 69: Reimagining the Refugee Condition (26/06/2024)
Episode 67: Власними словами | In Our Own Words: Multilingual Translation Workshops (23/04/2024)
Episode 66: Sawsan Abdelghany on ESOL and the New Scots Refugee Strategy (13/03/2024)
Episode 65: Adam Williamson on interpretation in the UK asylum system (14/02/2024)
Episode 64: Afamba Apoto - radioplay by Tawona Sitholé (09/02/2024)
Episode 53: The Sounds of Camas (Outdoor Centre on Mull) (26/07/2023)
Episode 49: Voices for Change (14/06/2023)
Episode 48: Quilting for manifesting anti-colonial futures with Lisa and Mindy (02/06/2023)
Episode 38: Alison Phipps on the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy (part 2) (13/09/2022)
Episode 35: Alison Phipps on the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy (part 1) (02/08/2022)
Episode 30: Poetry with Sawsan Al-Areeqe (10/05/2022)
Episode 29: Jason Oliver on binary structures and the post-covid society (26/04/2022)
Episode 24: Sensation of Blackness (21/12/2021)
Episode 20: By the fire at The Scottish Crannog Centre part 2 (26/10/2021)
Episode 19: By the fire at The Scottish Crannog Centre part 1 (18/10/2021)
Episode 9: The sounds of 2017-2020 part 2 (24/05/2021)
Episode 8: The sounds of 2017-2020 part 1 (10/05/2021)
Episode 2 - Tawona Sitholé introduces his poem Cape Coast Caper (22/08/2020)
Episode 1 - Professor Alison Phipps' intro to the UNESCO Chair programme (23/01/2018)
The Sounds of our Affiliates
In this series we talk to visiting scholars, affiliate artists and other members of the wider UNESCO RIELA team. You will hear more about their work and their views on current (geopolitical) developments.
Episode 63: Mukuka Kasonde and Brice Catherin's storytelling project in Zambia (25/01/2023)
Episode 62: Narjes Hashemi on Afghan Refugees in Canada (20/12/2023)
Episode 61: The Strengths Approach in Practice (06/12/2023)
Episode 55 - APF Fellow Bertony Louis sur la poésie, Haïti et la vie a Glasgow (09/08/2023)
Episode 41 - Let's talk about access to education for refugees with Arianne Maraj (26/10/2022)
Episode 40 - Let's talk about theatre with Zoe Hogan (11/10/2022)
The Sounds of the Spring School
This series is a collection of recordings from our annual Spring School: The Arts of Integrating. This event brings together academics, artists, New Scots, policy makers, students, third sector organisations and anyone else with an interest in integration and community building.
Episode 74: Poetry by the keynote poets of the Spring School 2024 (23/10/2024)
Episode 73: Molly Gilmour on cross-cultural research collaboration in Lebanon (25/09/2024)
Episode 72: "The Language of the Law" with Pinar Aksu (11/09/2024)
Episode 71: Michael Quinn: The Land Owns Us (21/08/2024)
Episode 70: Gaelic and the refugee experience (14/08/2024)
Episode 69: Reimagining the refugee condition (26/06/2024)
Episode 68: Who are we now? An exploration of modern Highland identity (11/05/2024)
Episode 60: Third Culture Dialoguing (29/11/2023)
Episode 57: Poetry by the keynote poets of the Spring School 2023 (06/09/2023)
Episode 54: Music fighting labour exploitation with Isabella Corvino (02/08/2023)
Episode 39: Immersive Soundscape: From Alba To Aotearoa (27/09/2022)
Episode 34: Poetry by our Keynote Poets (19/07/2022)
Episode 32: Christian Hanser about his Tiny Campus and pop-up hospitalities (20/06/2022)
Episode 28: Collaborative Keynote Listener Poem 2021 (12/04/2022)
Episode 18: World Words (28/09/2021)
Episode 17: Dar to Dunoon - a closer look (13/09/2021)
Episode 16: Artists on Conflict (30/08/2021)
Episode 15: Poetry from the Spring School (16/08/2021)
Episode 14: To Build a Home (02/08/2021)
Episode 13: The Art of Integration: M'Aidez, May Day and MacIntyre (19/07/2021)
Episode 12: Interview with Nazek Ramadan (05/07/2021)
Episode 11: Reciprocity and the senses: a reply to mayday (21/06/2021)
Episode 10: Comforting Sounds - Tawona Sitholé (07/06/2021)
The sounds of good books
In this series we discuss book we think are worth reading, with people we think are worth knowing.
Episode 78: Jo Beall on her debut novel Meadowlands Dawn (12/03/2025)
Episode 58: The Routledge Handbook of Refugee Naratives (04/10/2023)
Episode 52: Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage (12/07/2023)
Episode 44: The Raven's Nest post-recording discussion (11/01/2023)
Episode 43: Sarah Thomas' The Raven's Nest (07/12/2022)
Episode 42: Free to Go with Esa Aldegheri (09/11/2022)
Episode 33: Robert McNeil's Grave Faces (04/07/2022)
Episode 26: Language in a Globalised World with Khawla Badwan (01/02/2022)
Episode 25: The Invention of Multilingualism with David Gramling (part 2) (17/01/2022)
Episode 23: The Invention of Multilingualism with David Gramling (part 1) (07/12/2021)
Guest series: What Community Means to You
This guest series was made by Sadie Ryan, who makes the podcast Accentricity, and Ken Gordon, who makes the podcast Refugee Voices Scotland. This series was commissioned by UNESCO RIELA and was designed to explore refugee integration through languages and the arts, focusing on themes of community, solidarity and friendship during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is set in Glasgow, and Glasgow features prominently, but interviewees are also invited to talk about communities they have been part of in different places during their lifetimes.
Episode 7: "People aren’t as bad as you think they are" (26/04/2021)
Episode 6 - "Love... was the most important thing" (11/04/2021)
Episode 5 - "It's a place where you can feel safe" (29/03/2021)
Episode 4 - "What does community mean to you?" (15/03/2021)
Episode 3 - "We're all allowed to be who we are" (01/03/2021)
The Sounds of Unsettled Objects
The episodes in this series were recorded in September 2021 during Unsettled objects: post-colonial perceptions of belonging, exile and home, a collaboration with Glasgow Museums in which we sought to gain more knowledge about place, relationships, fragmentation and dispersal of objects.
Episode 27: A Settler View from Ongoing Colonized Lands (08/03/2022)
Episode 22: Caring and Sharing (23/11/2021)
Episode 21: Unsettled Objects opening discussion (09/11/2021)
The Sounds of the UNESCO Trail
This series is an overview of work created in response to the world's first UNESCO Trail, developed through a unique partnership between VisitScotland, the Scottish Government, the UK National Commission for UNESCO, Historic Environment Scotland, NatureScot, the National Trust for Scotland and Scotland’s then 13 UNESCO designations, launched in October 2021. UNESCO RIELA works alongside this trail on the Sites Unseen project, which is creating 14 digital learning packs for use in schools and community education settings and which explore Scotland’s cultural and linguistic diversity, as well as help learners develop a more nuanced and reflective understanding of the place they live in. We are also creating and collecting creative responses to the designations of the trail, in an effort to increase understanding of these places, of their significance in both past and present, through artistic means, place-based learning and discussions with those who live and work on and near those sites.
Episode 59: Annie's Utopia: Weaving Dreams and Creating Change in New Lanark (18/10/2023)
Affiliate podcast: Refugee Voices Scotland
From 17 March 2020 we are suspending all LIVE in person podcast recordings due to Coronavirus - however they will all be done online and will be available in due course.
Thanks to Refuweegee for hosting us at their headquarters on Byres Road up til now.
Previous interviews in this series:
- Olivia Ndoti, Community Activist and student at the University of Glasgow
- Ngqabutho Mpofu, DJ and Chair of Ignite Theatre
- Nihaya Jaber, from Gaza, PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow
About Refugee Voices Scotland
We make podcasts that capture refugee stories.
Refugee Voices Scotland podcasts amplify refugee stories to counteract distortion of their situation in the media. We give refugees and refugee support organisations a voice.
We aim to make a difference to public attitudes to refugees in Scotland and the UK. Our podcasts are a way for refugees and refugee support organisations to tell their story. We support all efforts to make refugees feel safe, secure and welcome in Scotland.
Affiliate podcast: Accentricity
Accentricity is a podcast about language and identity: how the way we speak connects with who we are.
The podcasts are made by Sadie Durkacz Ryan, with production support from John McDiarmid and music by Seb Philp.
Sadie is a lecturer in sociolinguistics at Glasgow University. She recently finished a PhD, where she worked with Polish teenagers who live in the East End of Glasgow, and found out about the links between language use and identity for them. To find out more about her academic work, follow @sadie_d_ryan on X/Twitter.
John is a freelance radio producer, cameraman, documentarian, broadcaster and journalist. His production company is called Telt Media. To find out more, follow @teltmedia on Instagram. He speaks Gaelic and English. He is interested in the stories behind people's accents.
Episodes 5 and episode 6 are a 2-parter about multilingualism, featuring Professor Alison Phipps discussing the concept of linguistic hygiene, and how we can question and disrupt our linguistic hygiene practices.
Affiliate podcast: The Art of Bridging
The Art of Bridging is a podcast from the Distant Voices project. Over the last four years, we‘ve been bringing people together to write songs in and around the Scottish criminal justice system. We set out to learn more about what it‘s like to come home after prison, and to try to build bridges through songwriting and creative practice. In the Art of Bridging, the community of people around Distant Voices - all of whom are connected to the criminal justice system in different ways - share some of what we‘ve made and learned along the way. Whether you‘re a music-lover, a community organiser or a system changer, we hope you‘ll enjoy this mix of thought-provoking conversations and compelling, challenging and beautiful tunes.
Distant Voices is a collaboration between arts organisation Vox Liminis, the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of the West of Scotland, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Award No: ES/P002536/1)
Pick your preferred link below to listen to the podcast.
The RIELA team on other podcasts
Here you'll find episodes from other podcast channels that the team have been involved in. If you host a postcast series and are interested in talking to our team about a collaboration or contribution from our team, please contact Bella on unesco-riela@glasgow.ac.uk.
Who Owns the Clyde episode 4: Run River Run
Who owns the Clyde is a citizen investigation into ownership of Glasgow’s iconic River, explored through a kaleidoscope of diverse voices, soundscapes, and poetry. Co-hosts writer Louise Welsh and architect Jude Barber are joined by a range of contributors, as they dive deep into the murky waters of river ownership and untapped potential. From its banks, the riverbed, the water and the sky above. Exploring privatisation to public access, from historical legacy to hopes and dreams for the River.
In episode 4 you'll hear the, by now familiar, voice of Tawona Sitholé, Lecturer in Creative Practice Education with the UNESCO Chair.
Intercultural Futures Podcast - Alison Phipps in conversation with Cristina Ros i Sole (04/12/2024)
Listen to the following podcasts where Professor Alison Phipps discusses how governments should approach the ‘integration’ of refugees, how multilingualism is the elephant in the room in Higher Education, and how educational practices are at the centre of the new remit of the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration at Glasgow University.
Intercultural Futures Podcast Series
Part 1 – Restorative understandings of refugee integration [2.57 minutes]
Part 2 – Integration as an educational practice [3.23 minutes]
Part 3 – Multilingual Refugee integration policy – the Scottish example [18.33 minutes]
Part 4 – Artistic practice, life performing arts and interculturality [6.20 minutes]
Part 5 – Disrupting HE monolingual spaces [10.46 minutes]
Part 6 – Alison Phipps uncovered [5.53 minutes]
The Teaching and Scholarship Podcast - Dr Sadie Ryan (04/03/2024)
In episode 62 we chat with Sadie Ryan, who completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Glasgow, graduating in English Literature and Creative Writing with first class honours. After completing her PhD, she became a Research Associate on the Manchester Voices project at Manchester Metropolitan University, before returning to the University of Glasgow’s School of Education as Lecturer in Languages and Intercultural Studies in 2022. Sadie also specialises in public engagement, and makes the award-winning linguistics podcast Accentricity [www.accentricity-podcast.com], which is aimed at a public, non-specialist audience, and aims to narrow the gap between academic knowledge about language and people’s everyday linguistic experiences. She leads the University of Glasgow Podcasting Collective, and is a member of the Young Academy of Scotland.
The Common Weal Policy Podcast #196 - Failure to prevent: Alison Phipps on the devastation of Gaza (31/01/2024)
Craig talks to Prof Alison Phipps, Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow and UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts, about the devastation of Gaza, the recent ruling by the ICJ that there was a plausible risk of genocide as a result of Israel’s actions and on the defunding of UNRWA by many states in the immediate aftermath of that ruling.
If, after listening to this podcast, you wish to donate to aid organisations working in Gaza then please consider UNRWA, MSF, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society or another aid organisation of your choosing.
Common Weal’s work is only possible thanks to our generous supporters who regularly donate an average of £10 per month. If you would like to help us build our vision of an All of Us First Scotland, you can do so here: https://commonweal.scot/donate/
The Policy Podcast would like to discuss all of Common Weal’s policy papers in detail as well as other major policy stories in and around Scotland so if there are any topics that you would like to see covered or if you have an interesting policy story to tell and would like to be a guest on the show, please contact Craig at craig@common.scot
University of Oxford's Translation and Medical Humanities podcast - I shiver a little, I shudder a little:” Gist Translation and Uncanny Bodily Knowledges (04/01/2024)
A moving scholarly exploration and poetic performance by Alison Phipps and Tawona Sitholé.
Appearing from distinct cultural traditions, but coalescing in the tradition of scholarship, we not only recognise but rely on gist to navigate the often-opaque waters of intercultural flows. A moving scholarly exploration and poetic performance.
Arts Educator Interview #24 – Special Guest, Tawona Sitholé (18/12/2023)
Better known as Ganyamatopé Dzapasi, Tawona Sitholé’s ancestral family name inspires him to connect with other people through creativity and the anticipation to learn. A poet, mbira player, storyteller and playwright, Tawona is a co-founder of non-profit arts group Seeds of Thought, a Research Associate for MIDEQ Global Migration Hub and UNESCO RILA artist-in-residence at the University of Glasgow.
As he continues to write, teach and perform, mostly he appreciates his work for the many inspiring people it allows him to meet.
In this podcast Tawona discusses the following values:
- Kuwanda huuya – the more we are the more we have
- Kudzidza hakuperi – learning is never exhausted
- Dzinonzwa hadzirimi – ears don’t farm the field but they are working
Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts with Alison Phipps (22/03/2023)
This episode is part of the Visualising War and Peace podcast, part of the Visualising War project at St Andrew's University, Principal Investigator Alice König. Original release date: 22 March 2023.
This episode is part of a mini series exploring forced displacement as one of the many legacies of conflict. Alice interviews Prof. Alison Phipps, Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow and UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Language and the Arts. In the podcast, we talk about contemporary discourses of migration, in particular the dehumanising tropes that are used to generate fear and a sense of threat ('swarms', 'invasion', 'floods', etc). This leads to discussion of the impact that language learning can have on refugee integration. Along the way, we discuss the role that the arts more broadly can play in deepening understanding, reducing fear and defusing hostile rhetoric around forced migration. Alison has a wealth of expertise of working through drama, film and other art forms, and she reflects on what it takes to amplify indigenous voices and empower people with lived experience of forced migration to take charge of the discourse themselves.
For the full shownotes, please visit this page.
Who do we think we are? - Beyond the headlines... with Alison Phipps and Tawona Sitholé (05/08/2022)
The story of how British citizenship developed and why this matters for questions of race, migration and belonging in 'Global Britain'
In June 2022, the headlines in the UK were full of news about the Rwanda plan. As an ECHR ruling halted the first deportation flight scheduled to depart from Rwanda, from the Prince of Wales to the Archbishop of Canterbury it was the high-profile opponents of the scheme to offshore the UK’s responsibilities to those seeking asylum that caught the attention of the press. But this public outpouring of resistance to bordering did not emerge from nowhere. It sits on years of resistance and protest from the grassroots and within local communities. Professor Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the University of Glasgow, and Tawona Sitholé (AKA Ganyamatope), Poet-in-Residence for the Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network join Michaela and Ala to go beyond the headlines to look into the roles of local communities in resistance to bordering. Taking local community action in Glasgow as a starting point, they explore everyday acts of resistance, the connections between solidarities movements around the UK, and the political potential of poetry and storytelling.
For the full shownotes, please visit the Who Do We Think We Are website.
Scots Whay Hae! Bella Caledonia - An Anthology of Writing (04/04/2022)
The latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast is all about Bella Caledonia and the new Anthology of writing from the years 2007 - 2021. To discuss all things Bella, Ali is joined by founder and editor Mike Small as well as contributors, writer Neil Cooper, writer and performer Dougie Strang, and academic Alison Phipps.
They talk about the beginnings of Bella Caledonia, the aims and ideas behind it, each person's initial involvement, how time can change the context of the chosen essays, the importance of, and dangers in, having a wide and inclusive brief, and so much more.
Hope Against Hope: Spirituality & Climate Change Vodcasts for COP26 - Episode 2: Hope in the making (01/11/2021)
Spiritual reflections on art and hope in the context of deepest loss hosted by UNESCO Professor Alison Phipps with the UNESCO artists and scholars Hannah Thomas and Hyab Yohannes.
Beginning on 31 October 2021 and continuing throughout COP26, this series of vodcasts features contributions from leading scholars, representatives of faith movements, creative artists, and climate activists, who will reflect upon the spiritual challenges of the climate crisis.
See the full list of episodes here.
UofG Spotlight - Episode 17 (30/09/2021)
On this week’s episode we speak to Professor Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts, and Hyab Yohannes, UofG PhD scholar, about their work on refugees and their integration into the societies that they have come to.
We also talk to Dr Ali Fraser, Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, about his research on public health, youth and violence reduction, including work on the ‘Changing Violence’ project.
Timestamps 01:03 Dr Ali Fraser 21:52 Professor Alison Phipps and Hyab Yohannes
"Integrating asylum seekers and refugees to build a more inclusive, equal society" (19/08/2021)
In S03E05 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Tea and Talk Podcast, Dr Rebekah Widdowfield discusses the issues asylum seekers and refugees face in a post-Brexit Britain with RSE Fellow, Professor Alison Phipps, Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow and UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts.
Modern African Art for Schools (10/02/21)
In May 2021, Dunoon Burgh Hall hosted an exhibition of twelve works of modern art from East and Southern Africa from the Argyll Collection. The works were the subject of a two year research project (Dar to Dunoon) to document them, track down their makers and trace their journeys from the African continent to Argyll. This podcast is a conversation about making the exhibition and the future potential for African modern art as educational resources. With:
- Tawona Sitholé, UNESCO Artist in Residence, University of Glasgow, UK
- Madeleine Conn, Cultural Coordinator, Argyll and Bute Council
- Meredith Loper and Elikem Logan, Dar to Dunoon research assistants
"The Importance of Connecting to the Land for Refugees" (10/02/2021)
Prof Alison Phipps is featured in the BBC Radio Scotland Scotland Outdoors podcast discussing with Mark and Euan the importance of connecting to the land for refugees.
Book launch Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being by Alastair McIntosh (27/08/2020)
In August 2020, Professor Alison Phipps chaired the book launch of Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being by Alistair McIntosh. The launch was hosted in partnership with Climate Fringe and the Centre for Human Ecology, who recorded the event and turned it into a podcast.
The North's inhospitable hospitality towards refugees (16/02/2020)
The University of Glasgow's Professor Alison Phipps is an activist for an end to the awful and lengthy detainment and the inhumane treatment that refugees are put through when they turn up on borders seeking refuge. The UNESCO chair shares her views on how New Zealand is managing with the resettling its refugees.
From Sunday Morning - Copyright held by Radio New Zealand Limited.
Cultures for Sustainable and Inclusive Peace (CUSP) Network + Podcast
UNESCO Chair Prof Alison Phipps also leads the CUSP N+ project. The CUSP N+ team have their own podcast series looking at different aspects peacebuilding and conflict transformation.
Listen to the CUSP Podcast here
Podcast recommendations
Here you'll find other podcasts recommended by the RIELA team.
The Migration Podcast
Supported by IMISCOE (International Migration Research Network), this podcast provides a global platform for migration scholars to speak about their projects, ideas, and insights.