Material Crimes

Material Crimes
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  • Politics

How can a mine, a road or a prison be criminal? Material Crimes answers this question, investigating the “true crimes” of infrastructure. We explore how the physical sites of everyday life are connected to global histories of conquest, resource extraction, profit-making – and resistance! Check out our website: materialcrimes.com Get in touch: materialcrimespodcast@gmail.com Instagram: instagram.com/materialcrimespodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episodes

  1. 1 day ago

    Stop that Train (Dom Davies)

    “But didn’t colonialism give them railways?” The “Cape-to-Cairo” railway was meant to stretch from Africa’s southern tip to Egypt in the north. It was the unrealised fantasy of an unruly cast of imperial hustlers, including most infamously Cecil Rhodes. As Dom Davies traces the legacy of this unfinished railway across Africa, he finds that tracks of colonial plunder, resource extraction, and white supremacy continue to haunt the continent. Talking to Adam Elliott-Cooper, Megan Jones, Uhuru Portia Phalafala, Sara Salem, and Jonny Steinberg, he explores the violence of the Cape-to-Cairo railway as both a symbolic and material crime. Using songs and poetry of resistance, he also unravels how fantasies of a connected Africa energised successive generations of activists, from Black Consciousness poets to Rhodes Must Fall.  Useful Links Global History of Capitalism Project, Case Study #31: Rhodes Must Fall: https://globalcapitalism.history.ox.ac.uk/files/case31-rhodesmustfallpdf The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes: https://info.publicintelligence.net/RhodesLastWill.pdf UCT Rhodes Must Fall Mission Statement: https://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/assets/documents/events/UCT-Rhodes-Must-Fall-Statement.pdf Further Reading Dominic Davies. The Broken Promise of Infrastructure (Lawrence Wishart, 2023). Megan Jones. "The Train as Motif in Soweto Poetry," Literature, Critique, and Empire Today 53:1 (2018), pp. 21-42. Uhuru Portia Phalafala. Mine Mine Mine (University of Nebraska Press, 2023). Sara Salem. "Cape to Cairo." The Architectural Review (June 2025), pp.50-53. This episode was supported by the Independent Social Research Fund, Leverhulme Trust, and City St. George’s Department of Media, Culture, and Creative Industries.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Stop that Train (Dom Davies)

  2. 8 Jul

    Season 3 Trailer

    This season on Material Crimes...How can infrastructure be criminal? How does a road, a train or even a piece of real estate become a perpetrator of violence? Listen to Season three of material crimes as we try to answer these questions. Out 21st July! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Season 3 Trailer
  • 2 Episodes

About

How can a mine, a road or a prison be criminal? Material Crimes answers this question, investigating the “true crimes” of infrastructure. We explore how the physical sites of everyday life are connected to global histories of conquest, resource extraction, profit-making – and resistance! Check out our website: materialcrimes.com Get in touch: materialcrimespodcast@gmail.com Instagram: instagram.com/materialcrimespodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Material Crimes
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Maia Holtermann Entwistle & Sharri Plonski
  • Show Website
    Material Crimes