Radio Reversal Podcast

Radio Reversal Collective
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The Radio Reversal collective is a long-standing audio collective based in Meanjin, so-called brisbane. We are committed to using the tools of audio production and storytelling to platform and amplify grassroots community organising, critical theorising, & political art, music, and activism. The radio reversal collective is premised on a shared vision of abolitionist, Indigenist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-ableist, queer feminist political education. Radio Reversal is an ongoing experiment in public pedagogy; in thinking and learning out loud, together, over and over again. Since 2012, we have been producing and presenting a weekly, research- and interview-based live radio show on 4zzz, 102.1fm. Across a variety of formats and timeslots, the live show has continued to anchor the work we do. Live, community radio is at the heart of what we do, and we remain committed to making audio content that is accessible to anyone with a radio and willing ear. For over a decade, we've been building an audio archive of struggles for justice and liberation across this city and beyond; a record of the radical theorising, organising, mistake-making, re-thinking, and community building that happens across this city. Here, we hope to slowly share some of that archive, and the lessons we've learned from building it.

  1. Episode 27 - Radiance in Pain and Resilience with Dr Samah Jabr

    Jun 5

    Episode 27 - Radiance in Pain and Resilience with Dr Samah Jabr

    In this episode, Anna shares an interview from the Radio Reversal archives with the incredible Dr. Samah Jabr - د. سماح جبر, recorded during her 2025 tour of so-called australia. Dr Samah Jabr is a Palestinian Jerusalemite psychiatrist, psychotherapist and writer, and former Head of the Mental Health Unit in the Ministry of Health, Palestine. She has written columns about the psychological consequences of the Israeli occupation in Palestine since the 2000s. Inspired by anticolonial psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, her areas of interest include mental health, colonialism and universal human rights. In this interview, Anna speaks with Dr Jabr about the specific impacts of colonial violence and trauma, the inadequacy of mainstream western psychiatric approaches to understanding those impacts, and the issues in rendering deliberately inflicted collective trauma in the terms of individual illness or pathology. They also discuss what healing from colonial violence can look like, and the importance of agency and collective and community-based processes. Dr Samah Jabr also spoke with Anna a bit about her new book, "Radiance in Pain and Resilience: The global reverberation of Palestinian historical trauma" which you should absolutely check out. This collection of essays draws on Dr Jabr's years of experience working at the intersection of mental health and struggles for liberation. You can find links to the book and further details at radioreversal.org where you can also subscribe to the Radio Reversal podcast to make sure you never miss an episode!

    40 min
  2. Episode 26 - Poetry in times of crisis feat. Maria Van Neerven

    Jun 5

    Episode 26 - Poetry in times of crisis feat. Maria Van Neerven

    In this episode, Anna brings you an interview with Mununjahli poet Maria Van Neerven to discuss her new poetry collection "Two Tongues." We chat to Maria about this collection, and consider some of the questions it asks about the role of language in colonial occupation and anti-colonial resistance. In the face of the ongoing attempts by the queensland state government to prohibit political expression and prevent truth-telling in this moment, we consider the political imperative to make art, to write poetry, to refuse to be silenced. A riveting conversation with a brilliant poet: don't miss it!

    29 min
  3. Episode 25 - Global Sumud Flotilla

    May 25

    Episode 25 - Global Sumud Flotilla

    In this episode, we return to an interview from a few weeks ago with our wonderful friend and comrade Sam Woripa Watson about their decision to join the Global Sumud Flotilla. Sam is are a Birri Gubba and Wangeriburra activist and film-maker who grew up in the Brisbane Black movement here in Magan-djin. Sam is an active organiser and agitator for Indigenous justice and land back (both here in so-called australia, and across the globe). For over a decade, Sam has been a crucial part of Brisbane Black organising for land back and Indigenous justice, and an important part of the Justice for Palestine Magan-djin coalition. Sam also played an important role in local organising against engineering firm Ferra Engineering, who supply parts for the F-35 bombers used by the Israeli Occupation Forces against the people of Gaza. Most recently, Sam joined hundreds of other activists, health care workers, lawyers, human rights activists, writers, film-makers, and community workers on board a flotilla of vessels that set sail from Italy, aiming to deliver both much-needed humanitarian aid and global media attention to the people of Gaza. When Sam recorded their responses to my questions for this interview, they were in Italy waiting to embark on the flotilla mission. In the weeks since this interview first aired, Sam's vessel was intercepted by the Israeli Occupation Forces and Sam and his comrades were taken hostage by the Israeli government. They suffered significant abuse at the hands of the Israeli government, including physical and psychological torture, sexual assault and withholding of food, water, sleep, and adequate shelter. Sam was released after almost 4 days in custody, and spoke to Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist and writer Amy McQuire for Black Justice Journalism about that experience. You can read the full account here: https://www.blackwitness.com/p/this-is-the-most-violent-experience In this episode of the podcast, I take us back to Sam's initial optimism and excitement about participating in the flotilla. We reflect on the role of these kinds of movements and why they are important in continuing to escalate the global movement for Palestinian liberation. In the second part of this podcast I also share a short interview I recorded with Subhi Awad, one of the spokespeople for the Global Sumud Flotilla here in so-called australia. I spoke to Subhi after we heard the news that Sam's vessel had been intercepted by the IOF and that he had been taken into detention. Over the coming weeks we'll continue sharing updates from Sam and his comrades as they return home, so keep your ears open for more on this story!

    42 min
  4. Episode 24 - Human rights & homelessness: challenging the criminalisation of homelessness in Qld

    May 5

    Episode 24 - Human rights & homelessness: challenging the criminalisation of homelessness in Qld

    As most of you probably already know, over the past few years we've seen a sharp increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness across south east queensland as the housing crisis has intensified. This has led, unsurprisingly, to more people living in public spaces. This week on the podcast, Marissa catches up with Sam Tracy, Practice Director at Basic Rights Queensland, a community legal centre that works on human rights, discrimination and poverty-related laws. Marissa and Sam discuss a recent win on behalf of homeless clients in the Supreme Court in the case of Bobeldyk and Anor v Moreton Bay City Council; Eichin & Ors v Moreton Bay City Council [2026] QSC 27. In response to complaints from other residents, city council employees and the police have been directed to enforce evictions, removing people and their property from public parks. In 2025, this led to a number of people (including the claimants in the matter we're discussing in this week's show) being forcibly evicted from Eddie Hyland Park in Moreton Bay. These evictions were incredibly cruel, and led to significant distress and the destruction of priceless belongings (including in one horrific case, the destruction of the claimant's deceased daughter's ashes). This case was brought on behalf of some of the people evicted from Eddie Hyland Park. While the decision sadly does not stop Council’s from enforcing laws to move people on and destroy their belongings, it does set some limits on the way that these evictions can happen. The Supreme Court determined that the way the council "evicted and disposed of property belonging to people experiencing homelessness breached the human rights (and other legal protections) of those affected and was therefore unlawful." While this is not a resounding victory against evictions from public parks, it's a starting point for thinking about the role of lawyers and the legal system in this moment. For people sleeping rough, and for the people organising in solidarity with them, these kinds of legal processes offer a site of potential leverage. Forcing council's to slow down processes like evictions gives people more time to advocate for their own needs; more time to call in support; and importantly, more time for their neighbours and comrades to organise effective anti-eviction actions.

    39 min

  5. Apr 28

    Episode 23 - Geographers for Palestine

    This week we're bringing you a very special double episode of the Radio Reversal podcast, featuring not one but TWO of our wonderful producer Nat's recent radio programs which showcase content from the recent Palestine Calling: Roads to Justice forum hosted by Geographers for Palestine at the University of Tasmania in lutruwita. You'll be hearing in this episode from Dr. Adel Youssef, a Palestinian academic and researcher based in lutruwita, alongside dear friend and comrade of Radio Reversal, Remah Naji. Dr Youssef begins by setting out the linkages between settler colonialism in so-called israel and here in so-called australia, and why the struggle for Palestinian liberation demands a real reckoning with settler colonialism everywhere. He reminds us that we cannot afford to look away from the violence that is required to maintain colonial occupations - nor from the discourses and justifications that are used to normalise, erase, or justify that violence.  We then hear from Remah, who talks a bit about the history of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, skeching out an understanding of this theory of change and how it emerged from the specific conditions of colonial occupation in Palestine. Remah helps to situate BDS as a set of tactics that emerged as a resistance to the fragmentation of Palestinians from their homelands, offering strategies that could help disrupt and challenge Israel’s occupation from beyond its borders. In earlier episodes of this podcast, we've tried to get our heads around what's going on with this legislation here in queensland. But this week on the podcast we're digging a bit deeper by looking at the underlying relationship between settler colonialism in so-called australia and israel. We're considering how the regulation, policing, imagining, representing and controlling of space (and how people use it) operates as a key tactic of colonisation. We're learning about the long history of Indigenous struggle against colonial spatial violence, and how Indigenous peoples across the globe have refused to "disappear". And we're situating some of the contemporary strategies of Palestinian resistance (in particular, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement) within the context of an ongoing and steadfast refusal to be disappeared (as Dr. Amy McQuire puts it). A reminder to head to radioreversal.org to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already, to make sure that you never miss an episode.

    52 min
  6. Episode 22 - Release the footage #justiceforstevielee

    Apr 19

    Episode 22 - Release the footage #justiceforstevielee

    In this week's episode, we're sharing a really special interview with Dr. Raylene Nixon. Dr. Nixon is a Gungarri woman, an academic researcher and writer, and in 2021 her beloved son, Stevie-Lee, was killed in police custody in Toowoomba . Steve had been recently hospitalised with severe asthma, and (as the family later found out) pneumonia, and had been on his way back to his grandmother's house to be cared for by family. As Raylene explains in this interview, he was sitting in a parked car in his Aunty's driveway when police officers arrived, smashed the car windows, and then violently restrained Steve using the widely condemned Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint - or chokehold. This interaction led to Steve's death at the age of 27. His family have been fighting to find out what really happened that night and why. In our interview, Raylene reflects on the violence of the coronial inquest itself, the ways that her family were further silenced through the process of attending the inquest, and how Steve's humanity and dignity were stripped from him at every point in the inquest process. She also reflects on the ongoing fight for justice for Stevie-Lee, and the family's ongoing campaign to put pressure on the Queensland Coroner to accept their request to release the bodyworn camera footage from the police officers whose violent interaction with Steve led to his death. You can support that campaign by signing their petition here: https://www.change.org/p/release-footage-of-killing-by-police-chokehold-now-justice-for-stevie-lee A note to listeners that this week's interview with Dr Nixon includes graphic descriptions of the police interaction that led to Stevie-Lee's death, as well as discussions of racism, the death of a child, and police brutality.

    33 min
  7. Episode 21 Not Our Laws - Understanding queensland's new "prohibited expressions" and "prohibited symbols"

    Apr 13

    Episode 21 Not Our Laws - Understanding queensland's new "prohibited expressions" and "prohibited symbols"

    This week on the Radio Reversal podcast we introduce our new weekly episode structure with a special edition digging into Queensland's new "Fighting Anti-Semitism and Keeping Guns Out of the Hands of Terrorists and Criminals Amendment Act" (spoiler: it's as ridiculous as it sounds). We share a recording from Justice for Palestine Magan-djin's public meeting with Anna Reynolds from Action Ready Queensland and Palestinian lawyer and legal observer Rouba Rayan, where they reflect on some of the state and federal laws introduced ostensibly to combat "anti-semitism" over the past few years, and their impact on pro-Palestinian protest in this state. We explore the new "prohibited expressions" and "prohibited symbols" offences here in Queensland, and how they are being used to target pro-Palestinian voices and censor legitimate political expression. It's a big show and an exciting start to our new weekly podcast. Enjoy!

    53 min
  8. Episode 20 Moral panics and the targeting of trans people w Necho Brocchi and Prof Sandy O'Sullivan

    07/21/2025

    Episode 20 Moral panics and the targeting of trans people w Necho Brocchi and Prof Sandy O'Sullivan

    This episode* of the Radio Reversal podcast brings together two interviews recorded over the last couple of months digging into the targeting of trans people, especially trans kids, and moral panics about gender and transition here and abroad. The first interview is between Anna and Necho Brocchi, proud trans woman and Service Delivery Coordinator at Open Doors Youth Service, and together they discuss the Crisafulli Government’s ban on puberty blockers for trans youth here in so-called queensland, the Albanese Government’s spurious “review” into gender affirming care, moral panics, and the ways the fight for trans justice is intrinsically tied to other struggles for justice, including prison and police abolition, housing and educational justice, and justice for First Nations People, here and everywhere. In the second interview, Han speaks with Wiradjuri transgender and non-binary academic, Professor Sandy O’Sullivan, about the recent wave of attacks on trans people, including the UK Supreme Court decision and how it threatens the rights and safety of trans people, and they unpack the colonial and white supremacist logics at play in anti-trans movements and the enforcement of the gender binary. This is part of our ongoing series on crisis, colonialism and collective futures - this time, we’re considering how the confected “crisis” about trans people, their access to gender affirming care, their ability to make decisions about themselves/their identities/their lives, the spaces they have access to, which bathroom they use, and on and on, uses the tools and techniques of moral panic to justify harmful, discriminatory, oppressive, and violent government actions and policies. This confected “crisis” deflects scrutiny from the actual crises facing trans people, like structural discrimination, violence, over-policing, difficulties accessing gender-affirming care or indeed any medical care, issues relating to housing, employment, education, and more. As we see with other moral panics (e.g. around “youth crime” in so-called queensland), draconinan government actions are authorised by the discourse of “crisis”, and often, these actions are framed in terms of “safety”. Where we’re writing from, so-called queensland, the recent ban on puberty blocking medication for trans youth has been positioned as a matter of safety, as taking precautions, for the kids’ own protection. This is reprehensibly dishonest, given the overwhelming evidence that accessing gender affirming care (including puberty blockers) improves the safety and wellbeing of trans kids. But, for those who don’t know any better, this might seem like a common sense precaution. In other cases, it is cis people whose safety is foregrounded; the recent Supreme Court ruling in the UK (amongst other things) excludes trans people - particularly trans women - from accessing certain single sex segregated spaces, in the name of “protecting” cis women.

    1h 13m
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About

The Radio Reversal collective is a long-standing audio collective based in Meanjin, so-called brisbane. We are committed to using the tools of audio production and storytelling to platform and amplify grassroots community organising, critical theorising, & political art, music, and activism. The radio reversal collective is premised on a shared vision of abolitionist, Indigenist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-ableist, queer feminist political education. Radio Reversal is an ongoing experiment in public pedagogy; in thinking and learning out loud, together, over and over again. Since 2012, we have been producing and presenting a weekly, research- and interview-based live radio show on 4zzz, 102.1fm. Across a variety of formats and timeslots, the live show has continued to anchor the work we do. Live, community radio is at the heart of what we do, and we remain committed to making audio content that is accessible to anyone with a radio and willing ear. For over a decade, we've been building an audio archive of struggles for justice and liberation across this city and beyond; a record of the radical theorising, organising, mistake-making, re-thinking, and community building that happens across this city. Here, we hope to slowly share some of that archive, and the lessons we've learned from building it.

Information

  • Creator
    Radio Reversal Collective
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Radio Reversal Podcast