Caring Relationships: Disability and Maintaining Dignity (Encore)
The vast majority of care recipients are exclusively receiving unpaid care from a family member, friend, or neighbor. The rest receive a combination of family care and paid assistance, or exclusively paid formal care. Whether you’re a paid home care provider, or rely on personal assistance to meet your daily needs, or a family member caring for a loved one, the nature of the working relationship depends on mutual respect and dignity....
What Does A Latino Version of “The Bear” Taste Like?
On this week’s show, we explore Latino food and culture in Chicago’s historic Pilsen neighborhood and hear about how food can bring communities together. We tag along with the podcast In Confianza with Pulso as they try to answer the question: what does a Latino version of the tv show “The Bear” taste like? We’ll head to two restaurants, Cafe Jumping Bean and Pochos, to find out. Featuring: Eleazar Delgado, ...
Thirsting for Justice (Part One): East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water (Encore)
This episode originally aired on July 25, 2024 as “East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water.” East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the state capital to working with neighboring towns. And they may finally have one. New...
The Healing Project: Abolitionist Art and Activism (Encore)
This episode was last updated in 2024. It was originally published in 2023. Composer, pianist, and vocalist Samora Pinderhughes tells us about The Healing Project. The Healing Project, a fundamentally abolitionist project, explores the structures of systemic racism and the prison industrial complex. This story first aired February 2023. The Healing Project takes action towards abolition with forms such as musical songs, films, an...
Heating Up: The Dilemma of Geoengineering (Encore)
Geoengineering is defined as some emerging technologies that could manipulate the environment and partially offset some of the impacts of climate change. Seems like the perfect solution for a consumerist society that lives on instant gratification and can’t stop polluting even at the risk of our futures, right? Well, let’s slow down. Today we’ll discuss the dangers of geoengineering and the ethics of the fact that these new...
Caste Aside: Dalit Oppression, Healing & Liberation
This episode was originally published on June 12, 2024 as “The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation.” .” Caste — one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world — is thriving. Despite the ban on Untouchability 70 years ago, caste impacts 1.9 billion people in the world. Every 15 minutes, a crime is perpetrated against a Dalit person. The average age of death for Dalit women is just 39. And the wreckages...
Dividing Lines: What Are Borders and Why Do We Have Them?
[This show is an Encore of “Borders: What Are They Good For?” which premiered on May 29, 2024.] What are borders, and why do we have them? And how is violent border enforcement at the US-Mexico border connected to Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza? And what happens when borders cross living land and communities? We’ll dig into these questions in this week’s episode with the help of Heba Gowayed, sociology...
East Orosi’s Long Struggle for Water Part 2: The Role of Community Utility Districts
In Part 1 of our series on water in the Central Valley of California we visited a town called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also falling apart. Why has it been so difficult for East Orosi to get clean drinking water and fix its sewage problems? To answer that question we take a look at the entities that run things like sewage and...
Culture & Spirituality As Substance Use Treatment in Indigenous Communities
In the late 1990s, psychologist Dr. Joseph Gone, a professor and member of the Aaniiih Gros Ventre tribe, returned home during his doctoral training to the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana. There, he set aside eurocentric concepts of psychology he was learning in school and instead asked tribal members how mental illness is addressed using traditional Indigenous practices. What he learned changed the trajectory of his...
An Interview with Summer Intern Alex Corey
This was an exciting and eventful summer at Making Contact, especially as we had Alex Corey join us as our summer intern! Like the journalists we are, we had to interview him about his time at Making Contact. Be sure to check out his answers below! 1.Tell us about your journalism background. How’d you get into it and why? Well in the past I’ve done a wide variety of reporting, from in-depth science coverage to gonzo reporting on...
