Maria Pisani PhD is a Maltese citizen, lecturer, former head of office for the International Organization for Migration on Malta, and co-founder and director of Integra Foundation . As the EU’s smallest and southern-most member state Malta has long been on the front lines of one of the busiest and the deadliest migratory path on earth, where more than 14,000 people have lost their lives since 2014, attempting the crossing from North African shores to the EU. We discuss Malta’s role in this discu...
Mar 31, 2019•43 min•Season 1Ep. 29
The DRC remains an enigma to many in the West, and for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s the lack of coverage, the singular focus on violence and poverty, or the silent bigotry that informs many Western attitudes towards the fortunes of Africans more generally, many of the roots causes of the people’s suffering continues to go ignored while aid money pours in, resources pour out, and little changes to improve the lives of the people. Murhula Zigabe is one example of many stories that we don’t h...
Mar 23, 2019•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 28
This month marks the 8th anniversary of the popular demonstrations in Syria that ultimately led to the war. Assil Alnaser's story takes us from the early days of those protests to her harrowing experiences as a prisoner, and then her escape and her struggles to find a home and a future in Jordan and Turkey, and later in the US, where she was subjected to the "Muslim Ban" twice after winning a scholarship. Assil's story provides a needed reminder of how the conflict in Syria started, it forces us...
Mar 11, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Western Sahara is one of the world's forgotten occupations. In 1975 Spain ended its nearly century-long colonization of Spanish Sahara, leaving the territory to be overtaken by Moroccan and Mauritanian forces. Under the leadership of the POLISARIO front the Sahrawis continued their guerilla war for self determination. In 1979 Mauritania withdrew and Morocco moved in to claim the rest of the territory now known as Western Sahara. The war continued until 1991, until a UN-brokered ceasefire with th...
Mar 01, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Kimberly Walters completed her PhD research in India, and her current project focuses on humanitarian interventions into the lives of women who sell sex in South India. We examine the competing narratives, political interests, and funding priorities that distinguish campaigns for the rights of sex workers from those that focus on abolition and rehabilitation. And we discuss how the very institutions which are supposed to be rescuing women from trafficking end up incarcerating, exploiting, and op...
Feb 19, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Isra Chaker is a force of nature, and we were lucky to get a few minutes to interrupt her whirlwind of advocacy, public speaking, and campaign organizing on issues ranging from Islamophobia and bullying, to refugees and asylum seekers, to the so-called “Muslim Ban” imposed by the current US administration. We talk about her experiences growing up as a Muslim in the US in the aftermath of September 11, and how she confronted the bullying she faced in school and the role this played in setting her...
Feb 14, 2019•36 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Meena Menon is the author of three books, and her reporting career has seen her covering a broad range of topics in India, and also took her to Islamabad, Pakistan as the correspondent for The Hindu. We discuss her experiences as an Indian reporting from Pakistan as well as India-Pakistan relations, the suicides of tens of thousands of Indian farmers since the 1980’s and the colonial legacy of the cotton industry, the 1992-93 sectarian riots in Mumbai, and her thoughts on the upcoming general el...
Feb 07, 2019•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 23
“Know more. Carry less.” That’s the philosophy behind the Boulder Outdoor Survival School where Eli Loomis teaches traditional and primitive survival skills (the knowledge and techniques used by indigenous peoples as opposed to military training). For its most intense course, BOSS takes students out on a 28-day trek through the Utah desert, where they learn to forage and survive with little more than a knife and a blanket. Eli also spent two seasons conducting marine biology research in Antarcti...
Jan 30, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 22
We hear a lot about Iran in the Western press and from Western politicians, but we rarely seem to hear from the Iranian people themselves. This week’s episode is the first of what we hope are many efforts to try and correct that omission. Our guest is a young woman who is a documentary photographer from Tehran. Be sure to check the post for this episode on the Latitude Adjustment website for more resources. You'll also find instructions for how you can answer her question from the end of the sho...
Jan 22, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Txell Donyate is an Italian, French, English, Spanish, Catalan and Finnish linguist. And while she’s lived in Barcelona since 2014, she’s originally from the Comunidad Valenciana just to the south of Catalonia. She offers a unique outsider/ insider perspective on the independence movement in Catalonia. In October of 2017 the regional government of Catalonia held a referendum and then declared independence from Spain. This measure was quickly stopped by the central government in Madrid which invo...
Jan 14, 2019•1 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Bruno Morán is from Asturias, Spain, and is a co-founder of No Name Kitchen , an NGO that provides food, sleeping bags, basic necessities, and a community space for refugees in transit along the Serbian and Bosnian borders with Croatia. In addition to providing basic services, No Name Kitchen has also become a primary point of contact for those who have been pushed back from the Croatian border, and as a result the organization has found itself involved in documenting and sharing the growing num...
Jan 05, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Abdul Saboor worked with the US military in Afghanistan before having to flee the country after receiving death threats and having several friends and family members killed by the Taliban. What followed was an overland odyssey across Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Balkans, and back and forth across the EU, until he was able to claim asylum in France, where he currently lives. Along the way he endured prison, forced labor, beatings, deportations, and kidnapping. His is one of the more remarkable sto...
Dec 25, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Rosine Hounakey is from Togo, but was trafficked to the US at 13 years old and forced to work for free on both coasts of the US, and later into a coerced marriage, until she was freed with her two young sons as the result of an ICE raid when she was 17 years old. Rosine then had to go through foster care in various American cities, waking up at 5am every day to take her kids to school before completing high school herself, after years with no formal education, having taught herself English along...
Dec 16, 2018•2 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Yaari Walker is a member of the Yupik tribe, and originally from the town of Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. She now resides in Anchorage, Alaska, where, in addition to being an activist, author, and entrepreneur, she works at the Alaska Native Heritage Center . Yaari has been on a journey, as a survivor of physical abuse, substance abuse, and incarceration, to recovery, writing a book, starting a business in Native Medicinals , activism, and going back to college to study Psychology. W...
Dec 07, 2018•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Cory Lee started Curb Free With Cory Lee , a travel blog for people who use wheelchairs and with accessibility needs. So far he's been to 6 continents and also tours as a public speaker. Aside from accessible travel we talk about Spinal Muscular Atrophy, the importance of self-advocacy, educating the public about wheelchair access, working for Obama's inaugural committee, navigating the complex relationships with caregivers, college life, riding a specially adapted camel, why Washington, DC is g...
Nov 28, 2018•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 15
April Reese is an environmental journalist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though her reporting has taken her all over the US, and around Australia where she drove clear around the continent. April explains the challenges of maintaining professional distance from subjects that impact all life on earth, and we discuss why it seems to be so difficult to get people to care about the one issue that matters more than anything else... the environment. Be sure to check out April's recent piece in Popula...
Nov 22, 2018•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 14
I caught up with David Vrabo in Tijuana after his vehicle was taken away by the Mexican authorities upon crossing the border from California. We talk about pretty much everything you’d want to know about Mexico, from the stories he heard from migrant laborers while he was working as a press translator, the disappearances and mass graves scattered throughout Mexico, the complex realities of narco-trafficking and corruption in Mexican politics and law enforcement, and his 4,000 km bike ride from M...
Nov 12, 2018•3 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Matthew Derrick is the founder of Squat the Planet , an "online community for misfit travelers". Starting out as a personal travel journal StP has evolved into an online community of anarchists, travel punks, train hoppers, and people from all walks of life connected by a commitment to "travel by any means necessary". Matt and I talk about his travels and what he envisions for the future of StP. Also be sure to check out my appearance on the Squat the Planet Podcast ....
Oct 28, 2018•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 12
In the second half of our conversation Jade and I talk about the politics around being a "passport baby" in Canada, and the framing of immigration and citizenship in Canadian politics. Then we dive into political philosophy, discussing classical liberalism, various forms of communism, class consciousness, fascism, and some of the common distortions and misperceptions around these concepts. And Jade provides a reading list. Be sure to check out his TED talk on the post for this episode at Latitud...
Oct 21, 2018•1 hr 57 min•Season 1Ep. 11
I speak with Lebanese political writer, Jade Saab , about growing up in Lebanon, the country's struggle to balance institutionalized sectarianism with democracy, post colonial history, the Civil War, the 2015 garbage crisis, notions of direct democracy, and more. In the second half of our interview (episode 11) we'll discuss Jade's recent move to Canada, the framing of immigration in Canadian political discourse, and I try to understand how Communism and Fascism work. Jade Saab's Writing Eric Ma...
Oct 14, 2018•1 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Cornelius Vango , is a traveler, musician, artist, and the genderqueer anarchist librarian of Slab City. Cornelius recently finished hitchhiking across Alaska with their dog Satan, and I caught up with them in Fresno, during the last segment of their long bus drive back to the Southern California desert. Latitude Adjustment website (with links to podcast platforms) Cornelius Vango YouTube channel Squat the Planet...
Oct 06, 2018•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Born in Sri Lanka to Sri Lankan parents, Shanil Samarakoon spent his early childhood in Malawi, before moving to Sri Lanka as an adolescent. He’s currently pursuing his PhD in Energy Justice in Australia, while bouncing between Malawi and Sri Lanka for his nonprofit work with Empower, an organization that helps local communities form cooperatives to take the lead in determining their development priorities, especially around sustainable energy use and solar power. We also discuss the legacy of S...
Sep 30, 2018•1 hr 34 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Ndeye Ndao and I cover a lot of ground in this episode, from her initial impressions of American culture as a 19-year-old international student, changes in Senegal since she left to pursue her education, civil rights in the US and Senegal, religion in her life and in Senegalese culture, why she wants more African Americans to visit and connect to Africa, the differences between racism, bias, and passive support for racist systems, her feelings about being a woman of color and an immigrant in Ame...
Sep 23, 2018•2 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 7
In this second of a two-part interview, Aram & I discuss the process of his arrival in Germany, his family back in Syria, his thoughts about the use and abuse of the term "refugee" and his complex relationship to this word, and the differences in how religious identity is discussed and inhabited in Syria and in Germany. And some thoughts on the role of religion in contemporary political culture around the world. https://www.latitudeadjustmentpod.com/ https://medium.com/@AreYouSyrious...
Sep 15, 2018•48 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Aram AlSaed was a paramedic and a student of fine arts before he left Syria in 2015, traveling by bus, plane, boat, and by foot to reach Germany, stopping along the way to provide medical and translation support for other refugees. In this first of a two-part interview, I speak with him about life in Syria before the war, when things began to change, his work as a paramedic in Syria, when he realized that it was time for he and his brother to leave, and his journey up to the German border. Be su...
Sep 09, 2018•1 hr 54 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Clara is one of those people who just seem programmed from birth to dive into life with both feet and to experience as many things as possible along the way. And aside from stints as a professional boxer and a wilderness firefighter, she's seen a lot of the world from some unusual vantage points. I met Clara in New Mexico about 9 years ago, before I started my own long stretch of solo travel. Aside from discussing her travel and her career paths, we also talk about growing up as hyper religious ...
Sep 01, 2018•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Check out the supplemental videos and reading suggestions for this episode at LatitideAdjustmentPod.com/podcast Yousef Aljamal and I met in Gaza in 2013. In this long-format episode we discuss life in Gaza under 11 years of siege imposed by Israel and Egypt, his travels and his personal losses, the ongoing Great March of Return Protests, solidarity with indigenous communities and movements, and we take a critical look at internal Palestinian politics, the stigmatization of mental health treatmen...
Aug 25, 2018•3 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 3
I met Tara in Cairo in 2012, and then again in Washington DC. She's been on the move for a long time, both as a veteran Middle East photojournalist with Reuters and AP and now with her own production company which helps humanitarian nonprofits tell their stories through mixed media. We discuss her intense first day on the job in Beirut, how she got into photojournalism, the challenges and advantages of being a woman in her field, work-life balance in a notoriously demanding profession, and the r...
Aug 25, 2018•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 2
For this first episode I talk to my buddy Andrius in Vilnius, Lithuania. We met each other in Istanbul in 2015 and hit it off over beers and politics. He shares his experiences growing up after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, his experiences traveling in Western Europe as an Eastern European, learning to let go of certain things in Asia, Lithuanian Reggae, and reflections on culture and politics from his years living in Turkey. There's some naughty language at the end.
Aug 25, 2018•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Welcome to Latitude Adjustment and to your journey around the world through conversation! This will be an interview-format show, but for this initial teaser episode I'll be introducing myself and offering some reflections from my years of solo travel across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Europe, and the US-Mexico borderlands. Also, why it's our moral and civic duty to be curious, the formula that is used to manipulate populations into committing acts of violence, and an invitation to...
Aug 25, 2018•22 min
