60 acast.com Making Meaning https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/making-meaning en Skin Deep Magazine faith,liberation,theology,activism,apocalypse,hope Skin Deep Magazine

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]]> false Skin Deep Magazine comms@skindeepmag.com 6aa144148ff451bb22f57cea making-meaning serial https://assets.pippa.io/shows/6aa144148ff451bb22f57cea/1789139064817-429a8486-bee7-4f88-aa05-cf96f3b89931.jpeg https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/making-meaning Making Meaning Faith Begins Where Certainty Ends Faith Begins Where Certainty Ends Fri, 02 Oct 2026 05:00:00 GMT 32:23 6aa421387d9d1b16782eb344 false https://shows.acast.com/making-meaning/episodes/6aa421387d9d1b16782eb344 6aa421387d9d1b16782eb344 6aa144148ff451bb22f57cea The People’s Letters full 1 3 What if faith is what we practice when certainty is impossible? In this episode, Isabella sits down with Jules and Alex from The People's Letters, a worker-led cooperative bookshop and event space in Bethnal Green, London. They explore what happens when doubt becomes something we carry collectively rather than alone, how alternative institutions of care can be built together, and why doubt doesn't have to stop us from taking action. Recorded on their one-year anniversary, this conversation is an intimate look at cooperative values, collective responsibility, conflict resolution, and the quiet revolutionary power of community spaces.


About The Guests

Jules and Alex are co-founders and workers at The People's Letters, a worker-led cooperative bookshop and community event space located at 395 Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green, East London. Opened in October 2025, The People's Letters operates as a bright, welcoming third space that combines radical politics with accessibility, hosting events, secondhand books on a 'pay what you can' basis, and sharing space with Release, a harm reduction organisation. Both Jules and Alex bring lived experience of marginalisation and community organising to their work building alternatives to capitalist models of retail and community care.


Resources & References 


  • The People's Letters: worker-led cooperative bookshop and event space, 395 Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green, London
  •  Release Harm Reduction Hub: a community drop-in centre located at The People’s Letters, which provides low threshold harm reduction advice and signposting for any visitor, with the goal of benefitting people who are traditionally underserved due to stigma - such as people who rough sleep, use drugs, or sell sex. 
  • Terrible Therapy: monthly event at The People's Letters replicating a judgment-free zone for attendees to rant about relationship/situationship dramas, work issues, and all kinds of life spats. 
  • Puppy Girl Social Club: regular social event at The People’s Letters by & for dykes, dolls & transbians with at least a passing interest in petplay. 
  • Dalston Solidarity Cafe: community space where Jules and Alex have hosted talks about their cooperative model





Credits

Host & Editorial Lead - Isabella Kajiwara

Producer - Ornella Mutoni

Executive Producer - Sylvia Hong

Guest - Jules and Alex, The People's Letters

Editor and Video Engineer - Andrew Shaktah

Development & Research Support - Micha Frazer Carrol

Final Edit Review - Hannah Azuonye

Studio - Podcast House 


Link to episode transcript here.


About Making Meaning

Making Meaning is a Skin Deep podcast series emerging from our editorial season on faith. It's a space for people of all faiths and none to think creatively and critically about how faith shows up in how we produce culture, make meaning of our times, and build our movements.


About Skin Deep

Skin Deep is a grassroots organisation that makes culture in service of racial justice and liberation. Working across editorial and events, we produce and facilitate creative work that informs, motivates, and nourishes people in the fight against racial capitalism.

For more information, visit skindeepmag.com.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> What if faith is what we practice when certainty is impossible? In this episode, Isabella sits down with Jules and Alex from The People's Letters, a worker-led cooperative bookshop and event space in Bethnal Green, London. They explore what happens when doubt becomes something we carry collectively rather than alone, how alternative institutions of care can be built together, and why doubt doesn't have to stop us from taking action. Recorded on their one-year anniversary, this conversation is an intimate look at cooperative values, collective responsibility, conflict resolution, and the quiet revolutionary power of community spaces.


About The Guests

Jules and Alex are co-founders and workers at The People's Letters, a worker-led cooperative bookshop and community event space located at 395 Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green, East London. Opened in October 2025, The People's Letters operates as a bright, welcoming third space that combines radical politics with accessibility, hosting events, secondhand books on a 'pay what you can' basis, and sharing space with Release, a harm reduction organisation. Both Jules and Alex bring lived experience of marginalisation and community organising to their work building alternatives to capitalist models of retail and community care.


Resources & References 


  • The People's Letters: worker-led cooperative bookshop and event space, 395 Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green, London
  •  Release Harm Reduction Hub: a community drop-in centre located at The People’s Letters, which provides low threshold harm reduction advice and signposting for any visitor, with the goal of benefitting people who are traditionally underserved due to stigma - such as people who rough sleep, use drugs, or sell sex. 
  • Terrible Therapy: monthly event at The People's Letters replicating a judgment-free zone for attendees to rant about relationship/situationship dramas, work issues, and all kinds of life spats. 
  • Puppy Girl Social Club: regular social event at The People’s Letters by & for dykes, dolls & transbians with at least a passing interest in petplay. 
  • Dalston Solidarity Cafe: community space where Jules and Alex have hosted talks about their cooperative model





Credits

Host & Editorial Lead - Isabella Kajiwara

Producer - Ornella Mutoni

Executive Producer - Sylvia Hong

Guest - Jules and Alex, The People's Letters

Editor and Video Engineer - Andrew Shaktah

Development & Research Support - Micha Frazer Carrol

Final Edit Review - Hannah Azuonye

Studio - Podcast House 


Link to episode transcript here.


About Making Meaning

Making Meaning is a Skin Deep podcast series emerging from our editorial season on faith. It's a space for people of all faiths and none to think creatively and critically about how faith shows up in how we produce culture, make meaning of our times, and build our movements.


About Skin Deep

Skin Deep is a grassroots organisation that makes culture in service of racial justice and liberation. Working across editorial and events, we produce and facilitate creative work that informs, motivates, and nourishes people in the fight against racial capitalism.

For more information, visit skindeepmag.com.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> A Revolution Needs A Tomorrow A Revolution Needs A Tomorrow Fri, 25 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT 45:36 6aa42108eeff2d17d35343a6 false https://shows.acast.com/making-meaning/episodes/6aa42108eeff2d17d35343a6 6aa42108eeff2d17d35343a6 6aa144148ff451bb22f57cea Jordan Jones full 1 2 In an age saturated with discourse about apocalypse and the beginning of the end, how do we prepare ourselves for the world we're trying to bring into being? This conversation explores liberation theology, the politics of hope, forgiveness as revolutionary practice and why imagining the day after we win may be one of the most important things we can do right now.


Guest Bio

Jordan Jones is an Associate Pastor at Metro Hope Church in New York City, whose ministry is shaped by abolition, liberation and revolutionary love. He is a writer and faith-based community organiser whose work centres healing, resistance and hope. An Atlanta native, Jordan is a student of the Black Freedom Movement and Latin American liberation theology, learned from organic movement leaders in rural Colombia. He is a proud brother, friend, son and long-time contributor to Skin Deep.


Resources & References 




Credits

Host & Editorial Lead - Isabella Kajiwara

Producer - Ornella Mutoni

Executive Producer - Sylvia Hong

Guest - Jordan Jones

Editor and Video Engineer - Andrew Shaktah

Development & Research Support - Micha Frazer Carrol

Final Edit Review - Hannah Azuonye

Studio - Podcast House 


Link to episode transcript here.

About Making Meaning

Making Meaning is a Skin Deep podcast series emerging from our editorial season on faith. It's a space for people of all faiths and none to think creatively and critically about how faith shows up in how we produce culture, make meaning of our times, and build our movements.


About Skin Deep

Skin Deep is a grassroots organisation that makes culture in service of racial justice and liberation. Working across editorial and events, we produce and facilitate creative work that informs, motivates, and nourishes people in the fight against racial capitalism.

For more information, visit skindeepmag.com.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> In an age saturated with discourse about apocalypse and the beginning of the end, how do we prepare ourselves for the world we're trying to bring into being? This conversation explores liberation theology, the politics of hope, forgiveness as revolutionary practice and why imagining the day after we win may be one of the most important things we can do right now.


Guest Bio

Jordan Jones is an Associate Pastor at Metro Hope Church in New York City, whose ministry is shaped by abolition, liberation and revolutionary love. He is a writer and faith-based community organiser whose work centres healing, resistance and hope. An Atlanta native, Jordan is a student of the Black Freedom Movement and Latin American liberation theology, learned from organic movement leaders in rural Colombia. He is a proud brother, friend, son and long-time contributor to Skin Deep.


Resources & References 




Credits

Host & Editorial Lead - Isabella Kajiwara

Producer - Ornella Mutoni

Executive Producer - Sylvia Hong

Guest - Jordan Jones

Editor and Video Engineer - Andrew Shaktah

Development & Research Support - Micha Frazer Carrol

Final Edit Review - Hannah Azuonye

Studio - Podcast House 


Link to episode transcript here.

About Making Meaning

Making Meaning is a Skin Deep podcast series emerging from our editorial season on faith. It's a space for people of all faiths and none to think creatively and critically about how faith shows up in how we produce culture, make meaning of our times, and build our movements.


About Skin Deep

Skin Deep is a grassroots organisation that makes culture in service of racial justice and liberation. Working across editorial and events, we produce and facilitate creative work that informs, motivates, and nourishes people in the fight against racial capitalism.

For more information, visit skindeepmag.com.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Not All Who Obey Are Faithful Not All Who Obey Are Faithful Fri, 18 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT 39:44 6aa420c4eeff2d17d3533520 false https://shows.acast.com/making-meaning/episodes/6aa420c4eeff2d17d3533520 6aa420c4eeff2d17d3533520 6aa144148ff451bb22f57cea lisa minerva luxx full 1 1 Who gets to lose faith, and who doesn't? Can refusal be an act of faith? In this conversation, Isabella speaks with poet, organiser and essayist lisa minerva luxx about sacrifice not as loss but as a practice of choosing what deserves our loyalty. Through poetry, political organizing and cultural resistance, they explore how revolutionary disobedience, refusal and moral clarity become acts of faith in themselves. Drawing on their experience in the Lebanese uprising, mutual aid work across Syria and Lebanon, and their current role coordinating the Filton 25 Defense Committee, luxx articulates a framework for understanding faith as embodied, grounded and inseparable from direct action.


About the Guest

lisa minerva luxx is a British Syrian writer, poet, organiser, and essayist. They are the author of Fetch Your Mother's Heart (Outspoken Press, 2021) and a PhD researcher on militant poetics at the University of Manchester. luxx is a long-time transnational community organiser with deep experience in the Lebanese uprising, mutual aid networks across Syria and Lebanon following the Beirut blast, and currently coordinates the Filton 25 Defense Committee, which supports 25 Palestine Action activists arrested for breaking into Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems in Filton, Bristol, in August 2024.


Resources & References 




  • David Graeber (Anarchist Anthropologist), "Protest is begging the powers that be to dig a well. Direct action is digging the well and daring them to stop you." The Make Believe The Make-Believe World of David Graeber
  • Fetch Your Mother's Heart by lisa minerva luxx (Outspoken Press, 2021)
  • Poets Liberation Front: an 8-part literary salon that took place in London across April 2025, bringing together poets, organisers and political prisoners into a conversation about cultural resistance and militant poetics 
  • Filton 25 Defense Committee: Supporting 25 Palestine Action activists arrested after breaking into Elbit Systems (Israeli weapons manufacturer) in Filton, Bristol, August 2024
  • Umer Khalid @freeumerkhalid:Palestine Action-linked activist held as a political prisoner in relation to the RAF Brize Norton action 
  • Jordan Devlin @beforeisneeze: former Filton 25 political prisoner who spent 18 months in jail for targeting an Israeli weapons factory 
  • Heba Muraisi: Palestine Action-affiliated activist. Whilst in prison Heba went on hunger strike for 73 days, the longest in UK history, which ended in victory for the hunger strikers 
  • CAGE International @cageinternational: London-based independent advocacy organisation challenging war on terror-driven state oppression around the world 
  • Muslim Social Justice Initiative (MSJI) @msji.uk: is a Muslim-led site of political education, cultural work, publishing, and community infrastructure based in Manchester. 
  • Grace Lee Boggs: Chinese American revolutionary philosopher and Detroit-based activist


Credits:

Host & Editorial Lead - Isabella Kajiwara

Producer - Ornella Mutoni

Executive Producer - Sylvia Hong

Guest - lisa minerva luxx

Editor and Video Engineer - Andrew Shaktah

Development & Research Support - Micha Frazer Carrol

Final Edit Review - Hannah Azuonye

Studio - Podcast House 


Link to episode transcript here.

About Making Meaning

Making Meaning is a Skin Deep podcast series emerging from our editorial season on faith. It's a space for people of all faiths and none to think creatively and critically about how faith shows up in how we produce culture, make meaning of our times, and build our movements.


About Skin Deep

Skin Deep is a grassroots organisation that makes culture in service of racial justice and liberation. Working across editorial and events, we produce and facilitate creative work that informs, motivates, and nourishes people in the fight against racial capitalism.

For more information, visit skindeepmag.com.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Who gets to lose faith, and who doesn't? Can refusal be an act of faith? In this conversation, Isabella speaks with poet, organiser and essayist lisa minerva luxx about sacrifice not as loss but as a practice of choosing what deserves our loyalty. Through poetry, political organizing and cultural resistance, they explore how revolutionary disobedience, refusal and moral clarity become acts of faith in themselves. Drawing on their experience in the Lebanese uprising, mutual aid work across Syria and Lebanon, and their current role coordinating the Filton 25 Defense Committee, luxx articulates a framework for understanding faith as embodied, grounded and inseparable from direct action.


About the Guest

lisa minerva luxx is a British Syrian writer, poet, organiser, and essayist. They are the author of Fetch Your Mother's Heart (Outspoken Press, 2021) and a PhD researcher on militant poetics at the University of Manchester. luxx is a long-time transnational community organiser with deep experience in the Lebanese uprising, mutual aid networks across Syria and Lebanon following the Beirut blast, and currently coordinates the Filton 25 Defense Committee, which supports 25 Palestine Action activists arrested for breaking into Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems in Filton, Bristol, in August 2024.


Resources & References 




  • David Graeber (Anarchist Anthropologist), "Protest is begging the powers that be to dig a well. Direct action is digging the well and daring them to stop you." The Make Believe The Make-Believe World of David Graeber
  • Fetch Your Mother's Heart by lisa minerva luxx (Outspoken Press, 2021)
  • Poets Liberation Front: an 8-part literary salon that took place in London across April 2025, bringing together poets, organisers and political prisoners into a conversation about cultural resistance and militant poetics 
  • Filton 25 Defense Committee: Supporting 25 Palestine Action activists arrested after breaking into Elbit Systems (Israeli weapons manufacturer) in Filton, Bristol, August 2024
  • Umer Khalid @freeumerkhalid:Palestine Action-linked activist held as a political prisoner in relation to the RAF Brize Norton action 
  • Jordan Devlin @beforeisneeze: former Filton 25 political prisoner who spent 18 months in jail for targeting an Israeli weapons factory 
  • Heba Muraisi: Palestine Action-affiliated activist. Whilst in prison Heba went on hunger strike for 73 days, the longest in UK history, which ended in victory for the hunger strikers 
  • CAGE International @cageinternational: London-based independent advocacy organisation challenging war on terror-driven state oppression around the world 
  • Muslim Social Justice Initiative (MSJI) @msji.uk: is a Muslim-led site of political education, cultural work, publishing, and community infrastructure based in Manchester. 
  • Grace Lee Boggs: Chinese American revolutionary philosopher and Detroit-based activist


Credits:

Host & Editorial Lead - Isabella Kajiwara

Producer - Ornella Mutoni

Executive Producer - Sylvia Hong

Guest - lisa minerva luxx

Editor and Video Engineer - Andrew Shaktah

Development & Research Support - Micha Frazer Carrol

Final Edit Review - Hannah Azuonye

Studio - Podcast House 


Link to episode transcript here.

About Making Meaning

Making Meaning is a Skin Deep podcast series emerging from our editorial season on faith. It's a space for people of all faiths and none to think creatively and critically about how faith shows up in how we produce culture, make meaning of our times, and build our movements.


About Skin Deep

Skin Deep is a grassroots organisation that makes culture in service of racial justice and liberation. Working across editorial and events, we produce and facilitate creative work that informs, motivates, and nourishes people in the fight against racial capitalism.

For more information, visit skindeepmag.com.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]>