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Material Crimes

Material Crimes 8 Episodes Sep 24, 2026

Material Crimes investigates how infrastructure projects such as mines, roads, and prisons can be considered criminal. The podcast explores the connections between everyday physical sites and global histories of conquest, resource extraction, profit-making, and resistance. Each episode examines the hidden stories behind the built environment and its impacts on communities. The show also provides a website and social media channels for further engagement.

Episodes

[S2: E6 Re-release] Night Terror (Namir Shabibi) with Surviving Society Productions Sep 24, 2026 56:58 *TW: This episode contains discussions of extrajudicial killing that some listeners may find distressing*During a deadly dawn raid by a Kenyan paramilitary squad, an innocent Muslim man, Omar Faraj, was brutally murdered. In this episode Namir Shabibi sets out to find those responsible for this extrajudicial killing. The paramilitary squad is, we discover, part of America’s post-9/11 covert War on

[S2: E5 Re-release] Shelter on the Hill (Benedetta Zocchi) with Surviving Society Productions Sep 17, 2026 1:23:47 Sitting at the edge of the notorious ‘Western Balkan Route,’ Bihac’s Borici Temporary Reception Centre is witness to some of Europe’s worst border violence. Only a few kilometres from the Bosnian-Croatian border that separates the Western Balkans from the European Union, migrants find themselves stuck; arrested, tortured and pushed back over and over again by Croatian police. But within Borici, th

[S2: E4 Re-release] Underwater (Eray Çaylı) with Surviving Society Productions Sep 10, 2026 39:12 When a dam on the Tigris burst in 2018, waters rushed towards Amed, Turkey’s largest predominantly Kurdish city. In its aftermath, the Turkish state claimed there were no casualties. Speaking with environmental justice campaigners and farmers (Samed Uçaman, Doğan Hatun and Zeki Kanay), Eray Çaylı reveals how this claim was based on dodgy accounting. Delving into the depths of this case, he explore

[S2: E3 Re-release] Gaslighting Tengratila (Paul Gilbert) with Surviving Society Productions Sep 3, 2026 57:05 In 2005 blowouts occurred at Bangladesh’s Tengratila gas field operated by Canada’s Niko Resources Ltd. Toxins leached into the surrounding environment, devastating local habitats. Niko pled guilty to bribery charges related to Tengratila in 2011, but it had already sued Bangladesh’s government for losses at an international arbitration tribunal. What the hell is international corporate arbitratio

[S2: E2 Re-release] Death by Welfare (China Mills) with Surviving Society Productions Aug 27, 2026 1:26:23 *TW: This episode contains discussions of suicide which some listeners may find distressing*On Tothill Street, in the heart of London’s Whitehall, sits Caxton House, home to the Department for Work and Pensions. The DWP administers the UK’s welfare system, a key infrastructure of everyday life. For many, the DWP determines if they have enough money to eat, stay warm, power medical equipment - to l

[S2: E1 Re-release] Murder in Melville (Nicky Falkof) with Surviving Society Productions Aug 20, 2026 1:10:23 On New Year’s Eve 2019, a drive-by shooting took place in the popular Johannesburg suburb of Melville. Two people were killed and six injured in this shocking and as-yet-unsolved case. Almost unheard-of in this crime-ridden city, the drive-by horrified local communities, provoking surging anxiety in everyone from middle class home- and business owners to student renters and informal workers. To un

[S1: E4 Re-release] The White Elephant (Mor Cohen) with Surviving Society Productions Aug 13, 2026 50:25 *This episode first aired in 2022 before the Israeli state began committing genocide against the Palestinian people.* What on earth can a central bus station have to do with racial capitalism and settler-colonialism? This week’s host, Mor Cohen, tells the story of the Central Bus Station (CBS) in the Tel Aviv neighbourhood Neve Sha’anan. Talking to activist Shula Keshet and academic Sharon Rotbart

[S3: E4] “He Fell from a Piece of Soap”* (Robyn Gill-Leslie) Aug 10, 2026 45:45 *TW: This episode contains descriptions of state torture and murder that some listeners may find disturbing*On 27th  September 1969, a healthy man supposedly falls down a set of stairs in police custody, and dies a few days later. But these aren’t just any stairs, and this isn’t just any man. Imam Abdullah Haron was an anti-apartheid activist, arrested by South Africa’s notorious security ser

[S1: E3 Re-release] Leaking Guantanamo (Shereen Fernandez) with Surviving Society Productions Aug 6, 2026 55:43 *TW: This episode contains discussions of torture that some listeners may find disturbing*Guantanamo Bay prison leaks. Parts of it are overgrown with weeds. And yet, as of today, 36 detainees still remain imprisoned within its leaking walls.* How did the United States of America come to erect this gruesome, derelict prison on Cuban soil? In this episode, Shereen Fernandez, tells the story of how t

[S3: E3] Ghosts of a Military Road (Evelina Gambino and Elisabed Gedevanishvili) Aug 3, 2026 36:57 There is a road that crosses the Caucasus Mountains at an altitude of 2,379 metres. This road connects Georgia's capital Tbilisi to Vladikavkaz in the Russian Federation. Built in the 18th century, it pushed the Russian Empire’s boundaries southward. Over two centuries, it has been endlessly remade: extended, widened, cut and diverted. Today it forms a key artery of the North-South Corridor linkin

[S1: E2 Re-release] A Train to Nowhere (Sharri Plonski) with Surviving Society Productions Jul 30, 2026 52:19 *This episode first aired in 2022 before the Israeli state began committing genocide against the Palestinian people.*When Israel’s HaEmek railway reopened in 2016, it served only nine stations and stopped 4km shy of the Jordanian border. Far from more spectacular sites of violence, the train’s inauguration fell below most people’s radar. In this week’s episode, Sharri Plonski tells the story of th

[S3: E2] Location, Location, Location (Ari Jerrems) Jul 27, 2026 45:06 Modular housing units sit among decaying workers’ blocks on a quiet street in the remote town of Port Hedland in Western Australia. The Pilbara region where the town is located is at the centre of Australia’s booming iron ore industry yet sits at a remote edge of its territory. As Ari Jerrems discovers, distance is at the core of what makes this place work. Ari investigates how the violence of imm

[S1: E1 Re-release] A Very British Massacre (Daniel Selwyn and the London Mining Network) with Surviving Society Productions Jul 23, 2026 49:46 **TW: This episode contains discussions of state violence that some people might find disturbing**On the 10th anniversary* of the massacre of 34 striking mine workers at Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, our host for this episode, Daniel Selwyn, investigates the transnational complicity of state and corporate actors, while amplifying voices from the ongoing struggles for justice and reparations. F

[S3: E1] Stop that Train (Dom Davies) Jul 20, 2026 49:52 “But didn’t colonialism give them railways?” The “Cape-to-Cairo” railway was meant to stretch from Africa’s southern tip to Egypt in the north. It was the unrealised fantasy of an unruly cast of imperial hustlers, including most infamously Cecil Rhodes. As Dom Davies traces the legacy of this unfinished railway across Africa, he finds that tracks of colonial plunder, resource extraction, and white

Season 3 Trailer Jul 8, 2026 2:09 This season on Material Crimes...How can infrastructure be criminal? How does a road, a train or even a piece of real estate become a perpetrator of violence? Listen to Season three of material crimes as we try to answer these questions. Out 21st July! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Material Crimes

Episodes

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