Summer Salutations! 😎

Rest is not a reward. It’s a neurobiological imperative. Our brain needs downtime. We don’t have to earn it.

         Dr. Jennifer R. Wolkin, neuropsychologist 

And I was just telling people, like, 'Yeah, this is what my life kinda looks like; this is how much content I create.' And they said, "How are you not completely burned out?" And I sort of stopped for a second. I said, "Actually... I’m fried to a crisp."

        Sonia Simone, The Autonomous Creative Podcast 

The end is nigh... for yet another season of MEDIA INDIGENA, that is. And with that season-ender still in the works (much of it touting a new initiative led by a new member of the team you’ll meet shortly), I wanted to pen this note of enduring gratitude to you for helping make it all possible. With this pandemic and its associated economic fallout continually doing a number on so many of us, the faith and fidelity of supporters like you toward our work forms no small part of what's kept me going through it all.

But I'm not gonna lie: this season has seen some days, even weeks, where it's felt like the end truly was nigh. To say my productivity’s taken a hit would be a gross understatement and, without repeating myself too much from last November, there were points where my creative capacity cratered, which meant so did our rate of output. And while I imagine nobody's pandemic plans panned out perfectly, no-one's more disappointed than I that it's taken this long to fulfill our promise of performance. The fact you could and did stick with us while we struggled to catch up means a lot.

But amidst such struggle, there's much to be happy about too: not least, record-setting downloads for many of this season's episodes, proof positive our voices and insights continue to resonate with an ever-growing audience. Something to be proud of as we get set to finally savour summer, a downtime I don't think I've ever looked forward to more. But, as you already know, this pause from all-new content doesn't mean we go silent for the season: our Summer Series features a stellar collection of compilations drawn from our deep archive of nearly 300 (!) episodes.

SUMMER 2022 LINEUP

   ☼ The Battle to Belong: Part I

   ☼ The Battle to Belong: Part II

   ☼ Weaponized Words

   ☼ Freedom of Speech

   ☼ The Brutality of Bureaucracy

   ☼ A Seminar in Settlerology

   ☼ Neech the Vote

   ☼ Settler Election Fever

I’m sure I say this every summer, but this season’s batch is outstanding. I’m always amazed by the breadth of ground we’ve covered over the years, something you only really appreciate once you work to weave the various threads of conversation together. And although they’re coming out much later than I would’ve liked—as with pretty much everything else this season—I’m hopeful you too will find the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts in each case.

Fortunately, I had some great help with this year’s series, thanks to that new addition I alluded to earlier, UBC graduate researcher Courteney Morin! Set to begin a Master’s in Interdisciplinary Studies this September, Courteney will divide the bulk of her time between podcast production and audience development/engagement. The direct result of our new partnership with the UBC School of Journalism, Writing, & Media’s Global Journalism Innovation Lab—a multi-year “explanatory journalism [project] that… investigates how experimental digital journalism forms can impact civic engagement and policy uptake”—Courteney’s role at MI will be to augment and accelerate our journalistic practice via such digital tools and terrains. (We ought to note here that the Lab's work is supported in part by funding from SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.)

And it'll be one such digital tool that makes up the primary focus of our imminent season-ender, featuring both Courteney and roundtable regular Ken Williams, as we introduce and discuss MEDIA INDIGENA's plans for the "free voice, video, and text chat app" known as Discord and the myriad ways we hope it will further connect us to you and the rest of our amazing community of supporters!

In conclusion, I’d like to balance off my initial focus on the more challenging aspects of these past 11 months against the ways we’ve still managed to keep the program fresh and open to new ideas. Our MINI INDIGENAs, for example, not only let us shake things up format-wise, it also allowed us to incorporate more guest voices. And judging by the audience response to both, it’s a shift listeners welcomed, to the point where we opted to boost their frequency, such that every deep dive is now ‘sandwiched’ between two MINIs. (Now, just to make sure you get a chance to share your thoughts on such changes, this is an apt moment to let you know a patrons-only survey is also in the works.) 

With our approach to Discord to be implemented and iterated in much the same spirit, it’ll be just one in a number of new initiatives we hope to roll out next season. All this while managing to put out in the neighbourhood of 36 episodes a year with one of the leanest podcast production teams out there. Which is why it can never be said enough: it's support like yours which enables it all.

Dear patron, I hope your summer has been or gets to be a truly restful one, and that it's spent in the company of those you care about most.

Stay cool and speak with you in October!

Rick