Accountability, My Joyful Compass
About this episode
Chaise interviews Ben Reid-Howells about reclaiming cultural heritage and community activism.
What does it mean to reclaim your cultural heritage in service to struggle? And what do you owe the people whose land you live on when you don’t know your own songs? This month Chaise sits down with Ben Reid-Howells — Scottish-Canadian community organizer, co-founder of Deep Roots Alba. Ben’s story begins in so-called Canada, growing up with immigrant parents and a longing to answer to the question: what are our people’s creation stories? That early hunger set him on a path that included a three-and-a-half year motorcycle journey from India to Scotland with his friend Prashant (the Vasudhaiva Ride, named for the Sanskrit phrase meaning “the whole world is one family”), a year building a grassroots climate justice center in Bihar, working with asylum seekers in the refugee camps of Lesbos, getting rooted into working-class Glasgow communities, and finally being brought into Gaelic culture by tradition bearers. Deep Roots Alba grew from all of that. The work brings together people reclaiming Gaelic and Scottish heritage at the intersection of solidarity activism, specifically in relationship with communities facing systemic oppression globally. It’s about not showing up as “hungry…
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