Pedagogies of Liberation, Gender and the Syrian Revolution w/ Banah Ghadbian (E78)

This is a conversation with Banah Ghadbian. She’s a Syrian activist  whose dissertation “Ululating from the Underground: Syrian Women’s  Protests, Performances, and Pedagogies under Siege” was the subject of our conversation. As usual, we ended up talking about a lot of other things as well.Topics Discussed:Banah’s story growing up in a Syrian revolutionary family and being targeted by the regime as a resultThe video that Banah released on YouTube in 2011, which the Syrian regime played on state tvHer dissertation: Ululating from the Underground: Syrian Women’s Protests, Performances and Pedagogies under Siege (video summary)“How  do Syrian women and youth heal from violence? How can our communities  be embodied when displaced from our lands and spirits?”What is often missing from a lot of discourse regarding Syria?The chronicles of Enab Baladi + An idea called DarayaHow does Banah think about the Syrian story and how it’s often misrepresented online?What the Syrian revolution already achievedMultiplicities and the entrenched ‘manliness’ of war analyses (reference to episode with Aida Hozic)Undoing the diaspora/local binaryPedagogies of liberation vs refugee/NGO industrial complexBeing friends with Hala Barakat, who was murdered in September of 2017 alongside her mother OroubaScarcity idea coming from an inherently capitalist logicThe Syrian revolution and anti-blackness; intersectionalityThe misleading debates around ‘integration’, Alan KurdiTalking about sectarianismBeing in the dominant group at home, and in the minority in the diasporaRecommended BooksSyria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline Paperback – November 18, 2014 by Malu Halasa, Zaher Omareen by Nawara MahfoudZaatardiva by Suheir HammadHomegirls and Handgrenades by Sonia SanchezMusic by Tarabeat.