TROUBLEMAKERS2 Huhti 2025

Ep25: Participatory Action Research with Abel Sibanda

In this episode of Troublemakers, we dive into Participatory Action Research (PAR) with Abel Sibanda, exploring how research needn't be divorced from reality but can actually foster social transformation and systems change, especially when it's not separated from our complex realities and the actions of our movements. We discuss the nuances of solidarity when carrying out research together with social movements, and the many perils of academic extraction, including gatekeeping. We explore the idea of non-academics as researchers and knowledge-producers.

We also touch on the knowledge commons, looking at creative ways people are reclaiming access to information—liberated archives, inclusive attribution, or unconventional repurposed platforms like the famous cooperative sandbox game Minecraft where gamers have built a library that provides universal access to banned books.

We also interrogate the relationship between research and AI, AI as mass plagiarism, and the blind spots of AI with the assumption that communities hold and code knowledges that big tech fails to absorb.

Participatory action research is one of the many tools in the Beautiful Trouble toolbox.

Anyone can use this podcast for free, with attribution to Trouble Makers (the podcast). It is held under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License and can be used for radio or any other media.

Our podcast is inspired by the Beautiful Trouble toolbox.

Resources & Links:

Minecraft’s banned book libraries.

Directory of Open Access Journals

Open-access knowledge repositories.

Our episode with Dalit knowledge-producer polymath Sarita Pariyar.

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Ep 57: Seek Safety in Support Networks with Paul Musyimi

Paul Musyimi on what social movements really are, why peaceful organizing wins, and how activists keep each other safe when the work gets dangerous. With Malemi, Paul talks about the principle "Seek S...

2 Loka 22min

Ep 56: Claim that Seat! With Nancy Siatwiko

Youth activist Nancy Siatwiko on why young Zambians are done waiting for permission to lead. Host Malemi talks with her about locked-out candidates, young women in politics, and using social media to ...

25 Syys 37min

Ep 55: Youth, Power & Political Spaces with Tilvas Ngosa

Ep 55: Youth, Power & Political Spaces with Tilvas Ngosa Recorded at the Global Platform studio in Zambia, this episode asks why youth political participation across Africa stays so low, and what it t...

18 Syys 27min

Ep 54: The Battle of Ideas, with Sefu Sanni

Politicians pass laws, but culture shapes belief, and belief shapes everything else. In this episode, Thompson Luzendi sits with Sefu Sanni to unpack the battle of ideas: how culture becomes the real ...

11 Syys 22min

TM Smoke Signals: Given's Feminist Utopia, With Given Kapolyo

What does an ideal world look like? Given Kapolyo answers without hesitation: one where inequality does not exist, and leadership is not a male sport. In this Smoke Signals, she lays out her feminist ...

21 Elo 15min

Ep 53: No One Is Coming to Save You, with Nalishebo Sinyama

What makes someone walk to the utility company with a placard instead of posting complaints online? Nalishebo Sinyama has been answering that since 2019, when a load shedding protest in her Lusaka sub...

7 Elo 42min

TM Smoke Signals: Silence! A poem by Sylvie Baziga

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24 Heinä 2min

Ep52: The Moral Political Economy, with Joe Kobuthi

Host: Thompson Luzendi (Zambia) Guest: Joe Kobuthi - philosopher, public theologian, political analyst, and curator of The Elephant Pan-African magazine. The rules of the house were written by someone...

17 Heinä 32min