Episodes

  • S1 E1: Welcome to the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre Podcast

    S1 E1: Welcome to the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre Podcast
    Dec 11 2023

    Click here to listen to the full Stephen Lawrence Research Centre Podcast Series

    Content warning: May contain examples of extreme racist violence and language.

    To mark the 30th anniversary of the tragic racist murder of Stephen Lawrence on the 22 April 1993, in South East London in the UK, the SLRC have produced a podcast series in collaboration with Weyland Mckenzie-Witter to commemorate the monumental meaning and significance of this anniversary.

    The SLRC opened its doors in 2019 with the intention of being a uniquely positioned physical space in the UKHE landscape to study the politics of race and racisms in its many forms and guises. The SLRC is the current home of the Stephen Lawrence Exhibition and the Stephen Lawrence Archive. The archive was kindly loaned to De Montfort University by Baroness Doreen Lawrence of Clarendon, Stephen’s mother and former Chancellor of DMU and has inspired the conversations in this series in memory of Stephen.

    It is impossible to talk about race and racism in 1990s Britain without reference to the monumental impact of the Lawrence family’s fight for justice for their beloved son, and the publication of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report, often referred to as the Macpherson Report.

    Over the past 30 years, its easy to think that there is nothing more to be said about Stephen, his life and his family’s campaign for justice. However, this series of conversations have been collectively curated by the SLRC team to remind us all there is so much that has been left un-said and so much more for us to understand about the power of Stephen’s ongoing legacy.

     

    Produced by Weyland McKenzie-Witter at Nello and the People’s Production Ltd
    @weylandmck
    weylandmck.com
    nelloandthem.co.uk

    Music by AyChibs 
    @Aychibs

    Image: And Still She Rises by Marcus Dove

    Design: Angy Ebrahim 

    Stay connected with the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre:
    www.dmu.ac.uk/slrc
    Twitter/X @SLRC_DMU

    Join the mailing list by emailing slrc@dmu.ac.uk

    © 2023, Stephen Lawrence Research Centre

     
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    4 mins
  • S2 E1: The Imperial Typewriters Strike of 1974: The South Asian Diaspora in the UK, Trade Unionism, and the Struggle for Social Justice

    S2 E1: The Imperial Typewriters Strike of 1974: The South Asian Diaspora in the UK, Trade Unionism, and the Struggle for Social Justice
    May 23 2024
    This episode is dedicated to the memory of Shardaben Chandarana, the leader of the 1974 Imperial Typewriters Strike. The Imperial Typewriters Strike was a major and iconic event in the history of South Asian Trade Unionism in the United Kingdom. It comes within a broader history of struggle for recognition and social justice, racial discrimination, and attempts towards integration and dialogue. In this episode Dr Fatima Rajina is joined by Amrit Wilson and Professor Sundari Anitha as they discuss the Imperial Typewriters Strike of 1974. More information on the strike, as well as visual documentation, is available from the National Archives: The Imperial Typewriters dispute – The National Archives To place the strike within the history of South Asia political activism and for some first-hand accounts of the events, you can check out the extensive work of Amrit Wilson and Professor Sundari Anitha on the topic: Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain (Wakefield (Quebec, Canada): Daraja Press, 2019 (first edition 1978)); Amrit Wilson, Dreams, Questions, Struggles: South Asian Women in Britain (London: Pluto Press, 2006); Sundari Anitha and her collaborators is a key reference: Linda McDowell, Sundari Anitha and Ruth Pearson, (2014) ‘Striking Narratives: class, gender and ethnicity in the ‘Great Grunwick Strike’, London, UK, 1976–1978,’ Women’s History Review, 23-4 (2014), 595–619; Sundari Anitha and Ruth Pearson, Striking Women: Struggles & Strategies of South Asian Women Workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2018). This shorter piece by Amrit Wilson can be a good place to start: "We are the lions, Mr. Manager": Revisiting the Great Grunwick Strike | Ceasefire Magazine. For additional resources on South Asian women’s activism in trade unions, the resources made available on https://www.striking-women.org can provide guidance and insight. This comic book represents an excellent introduction to their resources: striking_women_for_download_opt.pdf (striking-women.org). For a history of Western trade unionism within a global and transnational perspective: Ad Knotter, Transformations of Trade Unionism: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on Workers Organizing in Europe and the United States, Eighteenth to Twenty-First Centuries (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018). For a broader picture of the history and current state of South Asian trade union activism in the UK, we signal the activities of the Indian Workers Association of Great Britain: Indian Workers Association (G.B.) - (iwagb.org). Produced by Weyland McKenzie-Witter at Nello and the People’s Production Ltd Twitter/X: @weylandmck Web: weylandmck.com Web: nelloandthem.co.uk Music: AyChibs @Aychibs Image: And Still She Rises by Marcus Dove Stay connected with the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre:www.dmu.ac.uk/slrc Twitter/X: @SLRC_DMUJoin the mailing list by emailing slrc@dmu.ac.uk Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester, LE1 9BH. United Kingdom © 2024, Stephen Lawrence Research Centre
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    1 hr and 3 mins