Defragmenting our selves
Every year hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants ride freight trains up through Mexico in the hope of reaching the United States. They are riding ‘The Beast’ or ‘The Train of Death’. The nicknames give you some idea of how dangerous it is. The danger is not only in jumping on and off moving…
I have not acquired any fortune but I have my paternal estate and the pension of a Subedar. This is enough for me. The people in my village seem to respect me, and are now fully satisfied with the ease and benefits they enjoy under British rule.[i] From Sepoy to Subedar is the autobiography of…
On a fine spring weekend I went for a long drive along the roads and lanes of southern England. The places I saw provided some insight into the way property works in Britain. The first stop was Savernake Forest, an ancient woodland in Wiltshire. It is the only major forest in the UK in private…
I made these videos from some road trips I went on. They are all incredibly amateur. The quality of the footage is not good either – you’ll be pleased to know I now have a (slightly) better camera. But I was experimenting with shooting and editing and it was fun. A walk in the…
On a fine winter’s day, the first after weeks of storms and rain, I went for a walk in the country. I found myself in a typical English rural landscape, driving down hedge-lined lanes that grew progressively narrower. A couple of dead badgers lay whitening on the edges of the road. At the gate of…
Gentrification is often portrayed in the media as a process in which young, hip people move in to an area, improving its reputation for fun, shopping and culture. Writing in the Evening Standard Richard Godwin informs us that “it is youth culture that helped turn a place like Dalston, once an unassuming place of butchers and…
Have you ever wondered what happens when a big multinational mining company turns up in your small Colombian town with the intention of building a gold mine? A new report produced by a UK-based campaigning group records the experience of local people in Cajamarca, Tolima, as South African-based gold miner AngloGold Ashanti moved in. The…
So who are the re-emerging Colombian left? I met my companions in this small Casanare village at a meeting in Bogotá organized by the group ‘Congreso de los Pueblos’, or People’s Congress. That meeting attracted 15,000 attendees from all over Colombia, mostly from rural areas, many campesinos and indigenous people, but also students groups, women’s…
As night falls over a meeting of student and youth organisations in eastern Colombia, the shadows over the peace process between the government and guerrilla groups become eerily literal. We are in a village in Casanare department, in the east of Colombia, far from the nearest mobile phone signal. As darkness closes in around us,…
Young people in the Valle de Sibundoy, Colombia, are campaigning against a road to Brazil that cuts through their territory, including an ancient pathway used by their ancestors. “Our worry as indigenous people is that this project was not agreed with the people. There was no prior consultation, they don’t have our permission. This is…