Talking Precarity – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, guest host Shannon Giannitsopoulou interviews the producers and hosts of Talking Precarity, Zoë Newman and Vannina Sztainbok. They discuss the origins and intent of this show and how they understand academic precarity. In the process they make links between precarity and the repression of solidarity, particularly solidarity with Palestine.

This segment was recorded back in 2024 so there are aspects that are dated. There’s a lesson about precarity in this delay–unpredictability goes hand in hand with precarious work conditions. It can mean never turning down extra work, or going on strike, or spending a lot of time on job applications. And we often end up having to set aside other projects that don’t earn us an income!

On November 23, 2024, Talking Precarity brought together a group of workers from various sectors in Toronto to explore the connections across their precarious labour conditions. Participants were asked to share something that represents an aspect of their past or present labour experiences to become part of a temporary “precarity archive.” The group was guided through a discussion and documentation process by lens based artist and scholar Zinnia Naqvi. This process included using the archival object as a launching pad for storytelling, audio recording, and photography.

In this episode, you will hear workshop participants tell the stories behind the precarity archive objects.

Together these stories provide an entrypoint for thinking about the connections between precarious workers: that means noticing how our lives are shaped by settler colonialism and racial capitalism, as well as how we recognize ourselves in each other’s stories. The participants in the “precarity archive” remind us that workers are joined not only by experiences of exploitation, but also by our creativity and solidarity.

Precarity archives participants: Alexandra Yeboah, Ananna Rafa, Chunlei Liu , Dinah Thorpe, Khiem Hoang, Shams Seif, Susanna, V, W, Zara Alvarez

Facilitation and Photography: Zinnia Naqvi

Photography Assistant: Ananna Rafa

Coordination: Zoë Newman and Vannina Sztainbok

Recording and Editing: Milena Rzepa Sztainbok

We would like to acknowledge support from OPIRG York and the York Global & Community Engagement Collaborative Project Fund that made the workshop and poster possible.

Related Links:

https://zinnianaqvi.com/the-professors-desk

https://www.instagram.com/ananna

Report of the Independent Inquiry into Alleged Discrimination Against Dr. Kin-Yip Chun | CAUT

2025 Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts.

No Archive will Restore You

In this episode, we interview Nadia Habib, who has been teaching at York University for over 20 years, most recently in the School of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies. Her research focuses on a complex examination of everyday life in the cultural and social production of the Egyptian nation in its postcolonial iteration. More recently along with her work as a poet and activist, she is working to support people whose loved ones struggle with addiction and mental health.

Nadia shares her wisdom on teaching under transactional neoliberal conditions, the importance of storytelling and making the classroom a place for students to have an embodied experience and hold space for each other, and what it means to teach in a time of genocide.

Related Links: TVO ‘Best Professor’ award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMW6ofZGGBM

In this episode, we interview Sheryl Nestel, a scholar, activist, and educator, who brings an anti-zionist and critical race lens to Jewish studies. Sheryl is a founding member of Independent Jewish Voices in Canada, she’s a member of Global Jews for Palestine, and was involved in the drafting of the Jerusalem Declaration.

Sheryl talks about the new paths she was developing in Jewish studies, when her long-time, yet precarious, employment at the University of Toronto was cut short. Sheryl also speaks about the wider suppression of scholarship on Palestine, which she and Rowan Gaudet began to document in their groundbreaking study, Unveiling the Chilly Climate: The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada.

Sheryl insists that research can be transformative. Specifically, she finds hope in public scholarship—critical research conducted outside of the academy, which provides activists and movements with the hard evidence they need.

Related links:

Global Jews for Palestine

Independent Jewish Voices

Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism

Unveiling the Chilly Climate: The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada