Edge Dwellers Café

In this solo episode of the Edge Dwellers Café Podcast, Ben Habib maps out five broad potential scenarios for the future of the Kim regime in North Korea—(1) state failure and collapse; (2) managed systemic reform; (3) popular uprising and revolution; (4) coup d'état; and (5) externally-imposed regime change—critically evaluating the logic and probability of each scenario and consider the probability of each. This podcast is a teas...

Ben Habib is joined in this episode by Dr Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings, Lecturer in Humanitarian Studies at the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership at Deakin University.  We discuss the humanitarian sector, humanitarian aid in North Korea, transitional justice for a post-Kim DPRK, and reflect humorously on the North Korean studies community.  We also muse on living in Melbourne vs Hong Kong and Seoul, mental health in academia, and owning...

In this episode of the Edge Dwellers Cafe, Ben Habib is joined for special panel discussion with Anastasia Kanjere, Emily Foley, and Pan Karanikolas from the La Trobe Casuals Network, a volunteer group of casualised workers at La Trobe University who are dedicated to improving working conditions for casualised and insecure workers. The conversation explores the 'A new NTEU' campaign, the impacts of widespread precarity of workers i...

In this episode of the Edge Dwellers Cafe Podcast, I’m joined in this spirit of Utopia-inspired critical bewilderment by Sarah Houseman to talk about her PhD research into non-hierarchical organisations. We discuss the many functional problems that arise in hierarchical organisations, from power relationships to functional organisational stupidity and leadership cults. We also explore non-hierarchy and decentralisation as alternati...

In this episode, Ben Habib is joined by Toad Dell and Guy Ritani from PermaQueer. PermaQueer is a collaborative project to share ecological sustainability methods through the lens of Permaculture, focusing on accessibility to and building resilience for traditionally marginalised communities. PermaQueer brings a queering, decolonising and trauma-informed approach to community-building. In 2021, PermaQueer won the LUSH Spring Prize ...

In this episode, Ben Habib is joined by James Blackwell, Research Fellow in Indigenous Diplomacy in the College of Asia and the Pacific at Australian National University in Canberra. A proud Wiradjuri man, James is one of Australia’s only practicing Aboriginal international relations academics, writing and speaking about global Indigenous movements, US electoral politics, and defence policy. Outside of international relations James...

In this episode, Ben Habib is joined in conversation by Claire Kearns. Claire is a staunch disability and neurodiversity advocate, writer and social media content creator. in 2021, Claire won the La Trobe University Excellence Academy Inaugural Art Competition for her poem entitled “I Was”, about her experiences as a neurodiverse student at university.  

00:00:00  Introduction

00:03:42  Online teaching during COVID has made learn...

Hyein Ellen Cho is a PhD candidate at Monash University with research interests in the Korean diaspora in Australia, domestic and family violence, and North Korean migration. Prior to commencing her PhD studies, she worked as a project manager in the Cultural and Economic Affairs Section at the Consulate-General of the Republic of Korea in Melbourne.

00:00:00  Introduction

00:03:30  Intersectionality and Hyein's research on domes...

In this episode, Ben Habib is joined by Dr Terry Leahy, Conjoint Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle. Terry’s research explores food security and rural development, environmental politics and global environmental crisis, and the philosophy of the humanist realist perspective in sociological analysis. Terry’s research and consultancy work has taken him from the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, to Sout...

In this episode, Ben Habib is joined by Dr Simin Fadaee, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester in the UK. We discuss our recent co-authored article “Permaculture: A Global Community of Practice”, published in the journal Environmental Values, where we tease out how we can understand permaculture as a transnational movement. We explore the relationship between the permaculture movement and global inequality, F...

In this episode, Ben Habib is joined by Dr Markus Bell, Research Fellow at La Trobe University in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, migration and displacement researcher and freelance journalist. We explore Markus' new book “Outsiders: Memories of migration to and from North Korea”, published by Berghahn Books. We also discuss Markus’ career journey in and out of academia, his observations on labour migration and cl...

Dr Bec Flower, Lecturer and autism researcher in the Department of Psychology and Counselling at La Trobe University, joins us at the Edge Dwellers Cafe. Bec and Ben explore the social model of disability and how we apply this to understanding the lives of autistic people, in contrast to the medical/deficit model of disability that so often dehumanises and disempowers people on the spectrum. We discuss the barriers to the diagnosti...

In this episode Ben Habib is joined in conversation by Ben Walta, program coordinator at the Taungurung Land & Waters Council, social entrepreneur, and global adventurer, who for nearly ten years managed CERES Global, providing short education travel programs in sustainability and international development. In this conversation, the two Bens reflect on their collaboration co-leading environment and sustainability-themed study tours...

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Raul Sanchez-Urribarri, Senior Lecturer in Crime, Justice and Legal Studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne. In this discussion, Raul and I explore populist politics in Venezuela and the United States, and what trends in those countries might portend for politics here in Australia.  We get into Venezuela as a petro-state and discuss environmental vulnerabilities in the Caribbean, in the context...

In this episode I’m joined in conversation by Tessa Zirnsak, PhD researcher at La Trobe University, to discuss coming out as 'mad' in academia. We explore the Madness movement and the field of mad studies, the expertise of lived experience, university study for mad people, and the pitfalls of coming out as “mad” in the university.  We also discuss what it’s like to go through a university restructure process from our perspectives a...