In this episode, with Rosalba Icaza, we discuss learning to unlearn, mentorship or the undoing of mentorship and the importance of questioning. In doing so we show what unlearning looks like during a PhD  and why you cannot do it alone. Books become doorways to unlearning our fears and coming to voice. We discuss how we came to the reorientation toward life-affirming practices in research and how this space lies beyond the reach of colonial logics.

Compañera, mentor and sister, Rosalba Icaza is also an Associate Professor of Global Politics, Gender and Diversity at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Rosalba is a decolonial feminist-teacher-researcher-activist, member of the Transnational Network OtherKnowledges (RETOS), and the Collective Suumil in the Maya Peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico. https://www.eur.nl/en/people/rosalba-icaza-garza

Music for the podcast is produced and performed by Ntomb'Yelanga, whose work is aimed at the preservation, promotion and creation of indigenous instruments and music in South Africa. Her current project, Songs of our Ancestors, explores how ancient sounds ingoma is a language, a memory and a dream we bring to life through intergenerational connections and sound dialogue, where the body is seen as a living archive of these sounds. Makwande sibamba ngazo zombili. http://www.mmaletsatsipro.co.za/ 

This episode is brought to you by the Civic Innovation Research Initiative, a group of scholar-activists committed to social justice based at the International Institute of Social Studies, in The Hague, Netherlands. https://www.iss.nl/en/research/research-groups/civic-innovation