In this solo episode, Awa revisits conversations from across Diaspora Diaries to unpack the many meanings diaspora can take. Drawing together voices from across the podcast, she reflects on the ways people live with, challenge, and make sense of a concept that rarely settles into one definition.

REFERENCES

Sow, Awa. “Spoken Word and the Politics of Awareness.” Diaspora Diaries. Podcast audio. December 26, 2025. Transmission Roundhouse.https://audioboom.com/posts/8855831-spoken-word-and-the-politics-of-awareness.

Sow, Awa. “Rethinking Borders: Race and the Politics of Belonging.” Diaspora Diaries. Podcast audio. January 30, 2026. Transmission Roundhouse.https://audioboom.com/posts/8855830-rethinking-borders-race-and-the-politics-of-belonging.

Sow, Awa. “All About Love.” Diaspora Diaries. Podcast audio. February 27, 2026. Transmission Roundhouse.https://audioboom.com/posts/8866522-all-about-love.

Sow, Awa. “The Complexities of ‘Statelessness.’” Diaspora Diaries. Podcast audio. April 24, 2026. Transmission Roundhouse.https://audioboom.com/posts/8894967-the-complexities-of-statelessness.

Sow, Awa. “Inherited Boxes: How We Learned to Divide.” Diaspora Diaries. Podcast audio. June 26, 2026. Transmission Roundhouse.https://audioboom.com/posts/8921209-inherited-boxes-how-we-learned-to-divide.

JINGLE
“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Awa Sow
Guests: Tariq Brown, Fuad Busoir, Luke De Noronha, Lavin Ousi, Binta Yade
Edited by: Awa Sow

In this episode, Awa Sow sits down with poet and community organiser Binta Yade to unpack the boxes we inherit: gender, sexuality, ethnicity, identity, and the binaries that shape how we understand ourselves and one another. Together, they explore the colonial roots of many of these categories, from the imposition of Western ideas in Sub-Saharan Africa to the ways identity is navigated across the diaspora. Through personal reflections and wider conversations around belonging, they ask what happens when we stop seeing identity as fixed and begin questioning the lines we’ve learned to live within.

REFERENCES
Oyewumi, O., 1997. The Invention of Women: Making An African Sense Of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Mamdani, Mahmood. "What is a tribe." Lond. Rev. Books 34 (2012): 20-22.
Yade, Binta. Homophobia in Sub-Saharan Africa: The B*stard Child of the West. Edited by Kia Kiasuka-Kiakanda. Google Doc. Accessed June 25, 2026. Google Doc

JINGLE
“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Awa Sow
Guest: Binta Yade
Edited by: Awa Sow

Recorded live at Three-Sixty Festival, this special episode brings together spoken word and conversation with Ay Hearts and MyselfBlaize, whose work sit at the intersection of poetry and community practice. Moving between performance and discussion, we explore care as something shaped in real time – as we make space for ourselves, navigate our realities, and shape the environments and practices we need.

REFERENCES
House of Vox (@houseofvox). Instagram profile. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.instagram.com/houseofvox/.
Nuclear Fusion App (@nuclearfusionapp). “Everyone Wants a Village.” Instagram post. Published April 2, 2026. https://www.instagram.com/p/DWnO-5bFFPt/

JINGLE
“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Awa Sow
Guest: Blaize Alexis-Anglin (MyselfBlaize), Ayanna Stevens (Ay Hearts)
Edited by: Awa Sow

In this episode, Awa sits down with Lavin Ousi, a returning guest from Season 1, to explore what it means to navigate Kurdish identity without a state formally recognised under international law, and how culture, language, and community hold that identity together beyond borders. The episode reflects on the complexities of “statelessness,” and the ways Kurdish identities are continuously shaped through everyday acts of self-determination, self-validation, and self-legitimisation.

JINGLE
“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Awa Sow
Guest: Lavin Ousi
Editor: Awa Sow

In this episode, Awa returns to conversations with guests from the first three episodes of season 2, weaving together their reflections to explore what drives us in life, and how that can take different forms across our work, our lives, and the ways we make sense of the world.

JINGLE
“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Awa Sow
Guest: Luke de Noronha, Tariq Brown, Fuad Busoir
Editor: Awa Sow

In this episode, Awa is in conversation with Fuad Busoir about love – what it means, how it is recognised, and whether it’s something felt or practised. Moving between romantic relationships, friendship and family, they reflect on the ways love shapes how people relate to one another, to space, and to themselves. Along the way, they sit with questions of accountability, intention, and whether love can ever be separate from politics – or if it is always quietly structuring the worlds being built.

REFERENCES

Davies Jr., Akinola, dir. My Father’s Shadow. 2025. Drama film.

Hooks, Bell. All About Love: new visions: Bell Hooks. William Morrow, 2000.

Jenkins, Barry, dir. If Beale Street Could Talk. 2018. Film.

Nash, Jennifer C. "Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality."Meridians 19, no. S1 (2020): 439-462.

Prince-Bythewood, Gina, dir. Love & Basketball. 2000. Film.

JINGLE
“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Awa Sow
Guest: Fuad Busoir
Edited by: Awa Sow

In this episode, Awa sits down with scholar Luke de Noronha to question what borders really do in our everyday lives. From citizenship and belonging to the politics behind “migration crises,” they explore how borders shape who belongs, who is welcomed, and who is framed as a threat.

JINGLE

“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

REFERENCES

Bradley, Gracie Mae, and Luke De Noronha. Against borders: The case for abolition. Verso Books, 2022.

Robinson, Cedric J. Forgeries of memory and meaning: Blacks and the regimes of race in American theater and film before World War II. UNC Press Books, 2012.

CONTRIBUTORS

Host: Awa Sow

Guest: Luke de Noronha
Edited by: Awa Sow

In this episode, Awa speaks with spoken word artist Tariq Brown about using poetry to make power visible. They explore how he transforms complex, often academic ideas – from capitalism to systemic oppression – into poetic, thought-provoking verse. It’s a conversation about heritage, awareness, and the poet’s role in illuminating systems of oppression.

JINGLE

“Niamey Nights”, Bamako Bae, Shutterstock, ⁠⁠https://www.shutterstock.com/music/track-1221135-niamey-nights⁠

REFERENCES

el-Kurd, Mohammed. 2025. Spoken remarks at the Closing Plenary of 25 Years of Human Rights at LSE Conference: Subverting Human Rights: Left, Right, and Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, May 16, 2025.

Poetic Unity. https://www.poeticunity.org.uk/

CONTRIBUTORS

Host: Awa Sow

Guest: Tariq Brown

Editor: Awa Sow