Material Crimes

About Material Crimes

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 (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Material Crimes

Category

history · news · true crime

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Jul 2026

Latest episode

24 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

15 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   24 Sept 2026

   [S2: E6 Re-release] Night Terror (Namir Shabibi) with Surviving Society Productions

   *TW: This episode contains discussions of extrajudicial killing that some listeners may find distressing* During a deadly dawn raid by a Kenyan paramilitary squad, an innocent Muslim man, Omar Faraj, was brutally murdered. In this episode Namir Shabibi sets out to find those responsible for this extrajudicial killing. The paramilitary squad is, we discover, part of America’s post-9/11 covert War on Terror infrastructure. Following the death squad from Mombasa’s Muslim neighbourhoods to the ‘secret’ Recce military complex miles away in rural Ruiru all the way to the CIA’s headquarters in Virginia, we hear how it was developed, funded, equipped and supported by the United States. Across conversations with former Kenyan parliamentarians, ex-American security forces personnel, academic experts and local activists, including the Chair of ‘Muslims for Human Rights,’ Khelef Khalifa, Shabibi exposes the global War on Terror’s brutal underbelly: a project designed to evade accountability, while terrorising Muslim populations in Kenya and beyond.* *This episode first aired in 2024. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis.** Useful Links: Center for Constitutional Rights (USA): www.ccrjustice.org (https://ccrjustice.org/) Muslims for Human Rights (Kenya): www.facebook.com/UTETEZI (https://www.facebook.com/UTETEZI/) UNREDACTED (UK): www.unredacted.uk (https://unredacted.uk/) Further Reading: William Daugherty. Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency (Lexington: Kentucky UP, 2004). Loch K. Johnson. The Third Option: Covert Action and American Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2022). Namir Shabibi. “Revealed: The CIA and MI6’s secret war in Kenya,” Declassified UK, 28 August 2020, https://declassifieduk.org/revealed-the-cia-and-mi6s-secret-war-in-kenya/ (https://declassifieduk.org/revealed-the-cia-and-mi6s-secret-war-in-kenya/). Namir Shabibi & Jack Watling. “Britain’s Covert War in Yemen: A VICE News Investigation,” 7 April 2016, https://www.vice.com/en/article/8x3enb/britains-covert-war-in-yemen-a-vice-news-investigation (https://www.vice.com/en/article/8x3enb/britains-covert-war-in-yemen-a-vice-news-investigation). This episode was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   17 Sept 2026

   [S2: E5 Re-release] Shelter on the Hill (Benedetta Zocchi) with Surviving Society Productions

   Sitting at the edge of the notorious ‘Western Balkan Route,’ Bihac’s Borici Temporary Reception Centre is witness to some of Europe’s worst border violence. Only a few kilometres from the Bosnian-Croatian border that separates the Western Balkans from the European Union, migrants find themselves stuck; arrested, tortured and pushed back over and over again by Croatian police. But within Borici, they also find themselves part of this building’s 75-year history. Borici is a place where communities have always found shelter: against fascism, against civil war and siege, against post-war abandonment, and now against fortress Europe. Benedetta Zocchi is guided through Borici’s many incarnations by local historians, Asmir Piralic and Almir Kurtovic, human rights activist, Silvia Maraone, and local volunteer, artist and activist, Adem Hajdarevic.* *This episode first aired in 2024. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis.** Useful Links: Border Violence Monitoring Network: www.borderviolence.eu (https://borderviolence.eu/) IPSIA (Institute for Peace, Development and Innovation ACLI) Bihac: www.ipsia-acli.it (https://www.ipsia-acli.it/notizie/itemlist/tag/bihac.html) Radio Elsewhere: www.radioelsewheres.net (https://www.radioelsewheres.net/) Further Reading: Barbara Beznec & Andrej Kurnik. “Old Routes, New Perspectives: A Postcolonial Reading of the Balkan Route,” movements 5:1 (2020), pp. 34-54. Marta Mitrovic et al. (eds). The Dark Sides of Europeanisation. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the EUropean Border Regime (Belgrade: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2020). Bene Zocchi. “The Game: Ritualized Exhaustion and Subversion on the Western Balkan Route,” Journal of Borderlands Studies (2023), pp. 1-21. Bene Zocchi. “Contesting the EU Border: Lessons and Challenges from the Bosnian Frontier,” Postcolonial Studies 26:1 (2023), pp. 165-182. This episode was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   10 Sept 2026

   [S2: E4 Re-release] Underwater (Eray Çaylı) with Surviving Society Productions

   When a dam on the Tigris burst in 2018, waters rushed towards Amed, Turkey’s largest predominantly Kurdish city. In its aftermath, the Turkish state claimed there were no casualties. Speaking with environmental justice campaigners and farmers (Samed Uçaman, Doğan Hatun and Zeki Kanay), Eray Çaylı reveals how this claim was based on dodgy accounting. Delving into the depths of this case, he explores Turkey’s long history of using water as a tool of war and treating Kurdistan as a laboratory for resource extraction. But, as we’ll hear from conversations with Amed residents like Berivan Arslan, these riverbanks are also fertile sites of struggle against the tide of Turkish state violence.* *This episode first aired in 2024. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis.** Useful Links: Coordination Council of Amed-based Professional Organizations: @Amedikk (https://x.com/Amedikk?t=UwLb2R72f0soPzMpJntY8g&s=09) A short documentary on the "commune field" mentioned in the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=vWYSphqOfTb6_o9A&v=v11PuSvpaUY&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=vWYSphqOfTb6_o9A&v=v11PuSvpaUY&feature=youtu.be) Amed Ecology Association: @Ekolojidernek (https://x.com/Ekolojidernek?t=Epz5LkL0-yvwYUmUH5kbzQ&s=09) Further Reading: Zeynep S. Akıncı, Arda Bilgen, Antònia Casellas, & Joost Jongerden. “Development Through Design: Knowledge, Power, and Absences in the Making of Southeastern Turkey,” Geoforum 114 (2020), pp. 181–188. Eray Çaylı. “The Aesthetics of Extractivism: Violence, Ecology, and Sensibility in Turkey’s Kurdistan,” Antipode 53:5 (2021), pp. 1377–1399. Eray Çaylı. “Contemporary art and the geopolitics of extractivism in Turkey's Kurdistan,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 46:4 (2021), pp. 929–943. Anıl Olcan & Zozan Pehlivan. “Wildfires in Mount Cudi and the Ecological, Ideological, Political, and Historical Dimensions of Forest Fires: Turkey's Destruction of the Kurdish Environment,” Jadaliyya, 30 September 2020 https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41791/Turkey’s-destruction-of-the-Kurdish-Environment-WILDFIRES-IN-MOUNT-CUDI-AND-THE-ECOLOGICAL,-IDEOLOGICAL,-POLITICAL-AND-HISTORICAL-DIMENSIONS-OF-FOREST-FIRES (https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41791/Turkey%E2%80%99s-destruction-of-the-Kurdish-Environment-WILDFIRES-IN-MOUNT-CUDI-AND-THE-ECOLOGICAL,-IDEOLOGICAL,-POLITICAL-AND-HISTORICAL-DIMENSIONS-OF-FOREST-FIRES). This episode was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

4. 

   3 Sept 2026

   [S2: E3 Re-release] Gaslighting Tengratila (Paul Gilbert) with Surviving Society Productions

   In 2005 blowouts occurred at Bangladesh’s Tengratila gas field operated by Canada’s Niko Resources Ltd. Toxins leached into the surrounding environment, devastating local habitats. Niko pled guilty to bribery charges related to Tengratila in 2011, but it had already sued Bangladesh’s government for losses at an international arbitration tribunal. What the hell is international corporate arbitration? The opaque legal wranglings of this case reveal the invisible infrastructure of international investment law, its colonial inheritances, and how companies shirk criminal liability for corporate negligence and corruption. Paul Gilbert, this episode’s host, speaks to leading Global South arbitrator and academic Muthucumuraswamy Sornarajah, legal scholar Gus van Harten and Catherine Coumans from Mining Watch Canada.* *This episode first aired in 2024. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis.** Useful Links: Bangladesh Working Group on Ecology and Development: www.bwged.blogspot.com (https://bwged.blogspot.com/) ISDS Platform: Resources for Movements: www.isds.bilaterals.org (https://isds.bilaterals.org/) National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports: www.ncbd.org (https://ncbd.org/) Further Reading: Paul Robert Gilbert. “National Resources, Resistance, and the Afterlives of the New International Economic Order in Bangladesh,” International Development Policy, 12 June 2023. Kamal Hossain. “Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources,” in Legal Aspects of the New International Economic Order, pp. 33-43 (London: Bloomsbury Academic Collections, 1980). Frederico Ortino. “The Public Interest as Part of Legitimate Expectations in Investment Arbitration: Missing in Action?” in Charles Brower et al. (eds), By Peaceful Means: International Adjudication And Arbitration (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2022). Muthucumuraswamy Sornarajah. “On Fighting for Global Justice: The role of a Third World International Lawyer,” Third World Quarterly 37:11 (2016), pp. 1972–1989. This episode was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

5. 

   27 Aug 2026

   [S2: E2 Re-release] Death by Welfare (China Mills) with Surviving Society Productions

   *TW: This episode contains discussions of suicide which some listeners may find distressing* On Tothill Street, in the heart of London’s Whitehall, sits Caxton House, home to the Department for Work and Pensions. The DWP administers the UK’s welfare system, a key infrastructure of everyday life. For many, the DWP determines if they have enough money to eat, stay warm, power medical equipment - to live. For many, it has also become synonymous with suicide. In collaboration with activists and scholars Stella Dadzie, Imogen Day, John Pring, and Rick Burgess, in this episode, China Mills (from Healing Justice London) describes the grinding bureaucratic crimes committed as the DWP has sought to force disabled people into work. This painful story is also one of power. We’ll hear how disabled people and people of colour have fought tirelessly to expose the true scale of this crime - and get justice.* *This episode first aired in 2024. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis. Voiceovers by Claire Lauterbach and Chris Alger.** Useful Links: *Caring for ourselves and each other when the state tells us that we don’t matter is a radical act. We hope you find these resources useful.* Deaths by Welfare Project podcast (including BSL interpretation and captions): www.healingjusticeldn.org (https://healingjusticeldn.org/deaths-by-welfare-project/) Disability News Service: www.disabilitynewsservice.com (https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/advice-and-information/) DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts): www.dpac.uk.net (https://dpac.uk.net/) Welfare State violence: a feature, not a bug with Stella Dadzie, Tumu Johnson, Derica Shields & China Mills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nJNJzm53pg&t=1564s Grief toolkit (by Camille Barton) www.global-diversity.org/grief-toolkit (https://global-diversity.org/grief-toolkit/) Further Reading: Ellen Clifford. The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). Deaths by Welfare Project timeline of evidence www.deathsbywelfare.org (https://deathsbywelfare.org/). China Mills and John Pring. “Weaponising Time in the War on Welfare: Slow Violence and Deaths of Disabled People within the UK's Social Security System,” Critical Social Policy 44:1 (2024), pp. 129-149. John Pring. The Department How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence. (London: Pluto Press, 2024). This episode was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

6. 

   20 Aug 2026

   [S2: E1 Re-release] Murder in Melville (Nicky Falkof) with Surviving Society Productions

   On New Year’s Eve 2019, a drive-by shooting took place in the popular Johannesburg suburb of Melville. Two people were killed and six injured in this shocking and as-yet-unsolved case. Almost unheard-of in this crime-ridden city, the drive-by horrified local communities, provoking surging anxiety in everyone from middle class home- and business owners to student renters and informal workers. To unravel the “true crime” beneath the sensational headlines, Nicky Falkof speaks with Antonette Gouws, who was present at the drive-by, as well as local “character,” Danny Nunes, and filmmaker and academic, Dylan Vally. As we’ll hear in this episode, these unsolved murders expose the convenient fictions of Melville’s multilateral security infrastructure. Local sleuthing about the drive-by also unveils long-held beliefs about race, corruption, violence, insecurity and belonging in this complicated city.* *This episode first aired in 2024. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis. Additional voicework by Nkululeko Sibiya.** Useful Links: Sophiatown Arts Akademy: @sophiatownartsakademy Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa: www.seri-sa.org (http://www.seri-sa.org) Sticky Situations:www.stickysituations.org (http://www.stickysituations.org) Dlala Nje: www.dlalanje.org Further Reading: Zimitri Erasmus. Race Otherwise: Forging a New Humanism for South Africa (Johannesburg: Wits Press, 2017). Nicky Falkof and Cobus van Staden (eds). Anxious Joburg: The Inner Lives of a Global South City (Johannesburg: Wits Press, 2020). Martin J. Murray. City of Extremes: The Spatial Politics of Johannesburg (Durham: Duke UP, 2011). Tanya Zack and Mark Lewis, Wake Up, This is Joburg! (Durham: Duke UP, 2023). This episode was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

7. 

   13 Aug 2026

   [S1: E4 Re-release] The White Elephant (Mor Cohen) with Surviving Society Productions

   *This episode first aired in 2022 before the Israeli state began committing genocide against the Palestinian people.* What on earth can a central bus station have to do with racial capitalism and settler-colonialism? This week’s host, Mor Cohen, tells the story of the Central Bus Station (CBS) in the Tel Aviv neighbourhood Neve Sha’anan. Talking to activist Shula Keshet and academic Sharon Rotbart, Mor learns how the CBS’ fortunes show how Israel concretises its colour lines in the urban environment. These racial divisions pit the wellbeing of Israel’s different precarious communities against one another - in this case, Neve Sha’anan’s largely Mizrahi Jewish residents resisting the station’s polluting effect on their neighbourhood, and Israel’s migrant communities who have eked out precarious ecosystems within the CBS. And, as we’ll learn with Mor, underlying all of this, is the spectre of settler-colonialism. Long before the 1948 nakba (catastrophe), peripheral neighbourhoods such as Neve Sha’anan were planned as front line settlements separating Jews and Palestinians. Still used as a buffer between Jewish cities and Israel’s dwindling Palestinian urban areas, Mor tries to understand the significance of Neve Sha’anan today as an expression of Israel’s settler-colonial violence in the present.* **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Bronte Dow and Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis, alongside Tissot Regis.** Useful Links: Hotline for Refugees and Migrants (in Israel): hotline.org.il (https://hotline.org.il/en/about-us/) Further Reading: Rotbart Sharon. "White City, Black City: Architecture and War in Tel Aviv and Jaffa,” (London: PlutoPress, 2018). Tali Hatuka. “Violent Acts and Urban Space in Contemporary Tel Aviv,” (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010). Yara Sa'di-Ibraheem. “Jaffa’s Times: Temporalities of Dispossession and the Advent of Natives' Reclaimed Time,” Time and Society 29:2 (2020), pp.340-361. Shula Keshet. “Israel's "Backyard": First South Tel Aviv then Holot,” +972 magazine, November 11, 2014 https://www.972mag.com/israels-backyards-first-south-tel-aviv-then-holot/ (https://www.972mag.com/israels-backyards-first-south-tel-aviv-then-holot/). This episode was supported by the Economics and Social Research Council and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

8. 

   10 Aug 2026

   “He Fell from a Piece of Soap”* (Robyn Gill-Leslie)

   *TW: This episode contains descriptions of state torture and murder that some listeners may find disturbing* On 27th September 1969, a healthy man supposedly falls down a set of stairs in police custody, and dies a few days later. But these aren’t just any stairs, and this isn’t just any man. Imam Abdullah Haron was an anti-apartheid activist, arrested by South Africa’s notorious security services for campaigning against apartheid. It took over 50 years to reopen the inquest into Imam Haron’s death, and for his family to hear a judge admit he was murdered. In this episode, Robyn Gill-Leslie investigates the cover-up of Imam Haron’s death. Speaking to Zaid Kimmmie, Steve Naidoo, Enver Samuel and Gina Snyman, she uncovers the infrastructures that shielded apartheid systems of torture and abuse – and those inflicting it - from justice. But along the way, she learns that justice doesn’t live in stuffy courtrooms, and discovers uncomfortable truths about how apartheid endures in the absence of criminal accountability in the decades since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission closed its doors. *The title of this episode is an excerpt from Chris Van Wyk’s poem “In Detention” (1979). Useful Links The Imam Haron Foundation: https://www.imamharon.com/ (https://www.imamharon.com/) Enver Samuel’s documentaries: www.thetruthbetold.co.za (http://www.thetruthbetold.co.za/) The Imam’s Re-opened Inquest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2orld22Mhw&pp=ygUSaW1hbSBoYXJvbiBpbnF1ZXN0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2orld22Mhw&pp=ygUSaW1hbSBoYXJvbiBpbnF1ZXN0) The Foundation for Human Rights: https://unfinishedtrc.co.za/ (https://unfinishedtrc.co.za/) Further Reading Barney Desai and Gardiff Marney. The Killing of the Imam: South African Tyranny Defied by Courage and Faith (Quartet Books: 1978). Robyn Gill-Leslie. ‘A Substantial Part of the Trauma was Caused by an Accidental Fall’: Liminal Spaces and Post-Apartheid Accountability in South Africa,” The International Journal of Human Rights 30:1 (2026), pp.84-101. Adam Sitze. The Impossible Machine: A Genealogy of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation (University of Michigan: 2013). This episode was supported by the Independent Social Research Fund, Leverhulme Trust, the Norwegian Research Council’s Bodies of Evidence project and the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

9. 

   6 Aug 2026

   [S1: E3 Re-release] Leaking Guantanamo (Shereen Fernandez) with Surviving Society Productions

   *TW: This episode contains discussions of torture that some listeners may find disturbing* Guantanamo Bay prison leaks. Parts of it are overgrown with weeds. And yet, as of today, 36 detainees still remain imprisoned within its leaking walls.* How did the United States of America come to erect this gruesome, derelict prison on Cuban soil? In this episode, Shereen Fernandez, tells the story of how the crimes of Guantanamo Bay prison are part of a longer history of American imperialism and racial exclusion. As we’ll hear, it is also a story of the true crimes of capitalism and privatisation. We’ll learn how big corporations like Kellogg Brown & Root and Mitchell Jessen and Associates have raked in profits off of the detainees' suffering, sustaining GTMO in a state of total disrepair and piloting enhanced interrogation techniques on its prisoners’ bodies. The former detainee Moazzem Begg and the academic Lisa Hajjar paint Shereen a vivid portrait of what it is like to be within Guantanamo, making an irrefutable case for why this criminal prison must be shut down. *This episode first aired in 2022. As of 2026, the number of detainees still held in Guantanamo is 15. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Bronte Dow and Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis, alongside Tissot Regis.** Useful Links: CAGE: www.cage.ngo (https://www.cage.ngo/) Further Reading: Mohamedou Ould Slahi. “The Mauritanian” (originally published as Guantánamo Diary), (London: Little, Brown, 2015). Mansoor Adayfi. “Don't Forget Us Here,” (London: Hachette Books, 2021). Nikòl Payen. “Lavalas: The Flood after the Flood,” Calaloo 25: 3 (2000), pp. 759-771. Joseph Hickman. “Murder at Camp Delta,” (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016). This episode was supported by the Economics and Social Research Council and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

10. 

    3 Aug 2026

    Ghosts of a Military Road (Evelina Gambino and Elisabed Gedevanishvili)

    There is a road that crosses the Caucasus Mountains at an altitude of 2,379 metres. This road connects Georgia's capital Tbilisi to Vladikavkaz in the Russian Federation. Built in the 18th century, it pushed the Russian Empire’s boundaries southward. Over two centuries, it has been endlessly remade: extended, widened, cut and diverted. Today it forms a key artery of the North-South Corridor linking Iran to Russia. But beneath its geopolitical function lies something more intimate. This road has haunted the lives of everyone who lives and works along it, weaving together warfare and trade, hope and fear, and in some cases, death. In this episode, Evelina Gambino and Elisabed Gedevanishvili delve into the hauntings along this road by speaking with workers, residents, activists and researchers. The episode features conversations with Manana Kochladze, chair of environmental NGO Green Alternative, Irine Burduli, and academics Paul Manning, Hannah Knox and Manuel Moser. Special thanks to Jay Bernard for reading excerpts from "The Elder of Khevi" by Aleksandre Kazbegi and "Notes from a Traveler" by Urbneli" Additional voice-work by: Simone Coroma, Misho Gedevanishvili, Sophie Harman, Rosie Jackman, Colm Murphy, Ksenia Northmore-Ball and Charlie Thomas. Useful Links Green Alternative: https://greenalt.org/en/ (https://greenalt.org/en/) Mautskebeli: https://mautskebeli.ge/ (https://mautskebeli.ge/) JamNews Video on the Military Road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSxpH271l08 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSxpH271l08) Protests in Independent Georgia. https://www.geoprotests.org/en (https://www.geoprotests.org/en) Further Reading Penny Harvey & Hannah Knox. Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise (Cornell UP, 2015). Paul Manning. Imperial and Colonial Sublime: The Aesthetics of Infrastructure. In Strangers in a Strange Land (Academic Studies Press, 2012). Manuel Moser. “East to West to South to North—and Back,” Transfers, 12:1 (2022), pp. 20-32. Lela Rekhviashvili, Luka Nakhutsrishvili, Konstantine Eristavi, Alexandra Aroshvili & Ia Eradze. “There’s more at stake in the fight against the Foreign Agents Law than liberal NGOs: Why the left should show solidarity with the protests in Georgia (https://lefteast.org/theres-more-at-stake-in-the-fight-against-the-foreign-agents-law-than-liberal-ngos-why-the-left-should-show-solidarity-with-the-protests-in-georgia/),” Lefteast, 28 May 2024. This episode was supported by the Independent Social Research Fund, Leverhulme Trust and Cambridge Humanities Research Grants. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

11. 

    30 Jul 2026

    [S1: E2 Re-release] A Train to Nowhere (Sharri Plonski) with Surviving Society Productions

    *This episode first aired in 2022 before the Israeli state began committing genocide against the Palestinian people.* When Israel’s HaEmek railway reopened in 2016, it served only nine stations and stopped 4km shy of the Jordanian border. Far from more spectacular sites of violence, the train’s inauguration fell below most people’s radar. In this week’s episode, Sharri Plonski tells the story of this “train to nowhere” - of its colonial history, how its logistical future would rewrite the map of the Middle East, and how increased Israeli mobility entails increased Palestinian fragmentation and containment. But, as we’ll hear, Palestinians are powerfully resisting efforts to make their lives unliveable. On the trail of this train, Sharri speaks with Palestinian academics and activists Yara Hawari, Omar Jabary-Salamanca, and Hanna Swaid; as well as Laleh Khalili, Manu Karuka, and Katy Fox-Hoddess. Talking to them, she learns that, though logistical infrastructures are vehicles of state or corporate power, they also make possible forms of international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom. They also tell her that to fully understand Israel’s normalisation project it is essential to look at these less visible, but no less violent, material crimes.* *This episode first aired in 2022. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Bronte Dow and Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis, alongside Tissot Regis.** Useful Links: Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network: al-shabaka.org (https://al-shabaka.org/en/) Arab Center for Alternative Planning (AC-AP): www.ac-ap.org (https://www.ac-ap.org/en/) BDS Movement: www.bdsmovement.net (https://bdsmovement.net/) Who Profits: The Israeli Occupation Industry: www.whoprofits.org (https://www.whoprofits.org/) Further Reading: Rana Barakat, 2021. “Ramadan Does Not Come for Free”: Refusal as New and Ongoing in Palestine. Journal of Palestine Studies, 50(4), p. 90-95. Deborah Cowen. “Following the Infrastructures of Empire: Notes on Cities, Settler Colonialism, and Method,” Urban Geography, 41:4 (2020), pp. 469-486. Manu Karuka. “Empire's Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad,” (Berkeley: California University Press, 2019). Laleh Khalili. “Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula,” (London: Verso, 2020). This episode was supported by the Economics and Social Research Council and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

12. 

    27 Jul 2026

    Location, Location, Location (Ari Jerrems)

    Modular housing units sit among decaying workers’ blocks on a quiet street in the remote town of Port Hedland in Western Australia. The Pilbara region where the town is located is at the centre of Australia’s booming iron ore industry yet sits at a remote edge of its territory. As Ari Jerrems discovers, distance is at the core of what makes this place work. Ari investigates how the violence of immigration detention comes together with the history of mining at this unassuming location overlooking the Indian Ocean. Speaking to Savitri Taylor, Amy Nethery, Peter Mares, Linda Briskman, Bradon Ellem and Brett Neilson, he connects the dots between the crimes of empire, extractive industries and systems of detention, in Australia and beyond. We also hear the voices of those detained who resisted and made visible the overlapping violence they were caught up in. Additional Voice-work: James Eastwood, Sumayah Rahman, Holly Ryan and Keren Weitzberg Useful links Asylum Seeker Resource Centre: https://asrc.org.au/ (https://asrc.org.au/) Australian Human Rights Commission: https://humanrights.gov.au/resource-hub/asylum-seekers-and-refugees-projects-reports/immigration-detention-reports-and-photos (https://humanrights.gov.au/resource-hub/asylum-seekers-and-refugees-projects-reports/immigration-detention-reports-and-photos) Refugee Action Coalition: https://refugeeaction.org.au/ (https://refugeeaction.org.au/) RISE. Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees: https://www.riserefugee.org/ (https://www.riserefugee.org/) Further Reading Behrouz Boochani. No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (Pan Macmillan: 2018). Linda Briskman and Lathan, Susie & Goddard, Chris. Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia (Scribe Publishing: 2008). Peter Mares. Borderline: Australia’s Treatment of Refugees and Asylum Seekers (UNSW Press: 2001). Amy Nethery. “Incarceration, Classification and Control: Administrative Detention in Settler Colonial Australia,” Political Geography 89: 102457 (2021). Archival Materials “An Introduction to the Pilbara Region of Western Australia.” Recorded by the Premier's Department, Government of W.A [video recording] (1970). Held at the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with their permission. Gyzele Osmani and Ann-Mari Jordens. Gyzele Osmani interviewed by Ann-Mari Jordens [sound recording] (2006). Held at the National Library of Australia and reproduced with their permission. This episode was supported by the Independent Social Research Fund and the Leverhulme Trust. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

13. 

    23 Jul 2026

    [S1: E1 Re-release] A Very British Massacre (Daniel Selwyn and the London Mining Network) with Surviving Society Productions

    **TW: This episode contains discussions of state violence that some people might find disturbing** On the 10th anniversary* of the massacre of 34 striking mine workers at Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, our host for this episode, Daniel Selwyn, investigates the transnational complicity of state and corporate actors, while amplifying voices from the ongoing struggles for justice and reparations. For listeners in London and the UK this episode is particularly close to home, as a massacre at a South African mine unravels into a story about the crimes of global capitalism in which we are all implicated. We’ll learn just how entangled Marikana is with the city of London, the suburbs of Germany, and corporate interests that ensnare the most powerful figure in South African politics. During the episode, Daniel speaks to community activists from Sinethemba Women’s Organisation, Thumeka Magwanqwana and Gabisile Khanyile, as well as a Marikana mine worker Bongisisa Gwiliza. He also speaks with the attorney for hundreds of incarcerated mineworkers, Andries Nkome, and Maren Grimm, who is part of the international solidarity movement with the communities in Marikana. *This episode first aired in 2022. 4 years later the families of the murdered mineworkers are still awaiting criminal accountability. **This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Bronte Dow and Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis, alongside Tissot Regis.** Useful Links: London Mining Network: www.londonminingnetwork.org (https://londonminingnetwork.org/) Marikana Solidarity Collective: www.facebook.com/MarikanaSolidarity (https://www.facebook.com/MarikanaSolidarity) Plough Back the Fruits: www.basflonmin.com (http://basflonmin.com/home/who-we-are/) Lonmin’s Wall of Shame: https://londonminingnetwork.org/lonmin-wall-of-shame/ (https://londonminingnetwork.org/lonmin-wall-of-shame/) Further Reading: Kerima Modideen and Richard Harkinson. “London’s Mining History, From Colonialism to Apartheid: Why Rhodes Must Fall,” 10 February 2016, https://londonminingnetwork.org/2016/02/londons-mining-history-from-colonialism-to-apartheid-why-rhodes-must-fall/ (https://londonminingnetwork.org/2016/02/londons-mining-history-from-colonialism-to-apartheid-why-rhodes-must-fall/). Hennie van Vuuren. “Apartheid, Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit,” (London: Hurst, 2018). Marinovich, Greg. “Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre,” (London: Penguin Random House, 2016). Maren Grimm, Britta Becker and Jakob Krameritsch. “Business as Usual after Marikana: Corporate Power and Human Rights,” (South Africa: Jacana Media, 2018). This episode was supported by the Economics and Social Research Council and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

14. 

    20 Jul 2026

    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. Additional Voice-work: Elleke Boehmer, Nic Coetzer, Simon Davies and Rodwell Makombe Useful Links Global History of Capitalism Project, Case Study #31: Rhodes Must Fall: https://globalcapitalism.history.ox.ac.uk/files/case31-rhodesmustfallpdf (https://globalcapitalism.history.ox.ac.uk/files/case31-rhodesmustfallpdf) The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes: https://info.publicintelligence.net/RhodesLastWill.pdf (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 (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 (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

15. 

    8 Jul 2026

    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 (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

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