Raj Patel is a food systems activist and academic who has challenged conventional ways of thinking about food systems, capitalism, and democracy. He was born and raised in London and spent much of his childhood in the corner store that his parents ran. His mother is from Kenya and his father is from Fiji, and his ancestors come from India. He has worked in many academic fields including sociology, politics, and economics all of which have helped him shape his unique perspective on the world. He can be found giving interviews on the news, giving lectures in class at the University of Texas, featured in as well as co-directing documentaries, he frequently writes articles for The Guardian and The Atlantic, and he has published several novels on the perils of the food system. He is an excellent speaker, equal parts academic and quick with a joke, he makes the heavy topic of world hunger and poverty feel hopeful, with reform in sight. He has worked for organizations such as the UN, the World Bank, and the International Trade Organization, and now protests all three. His political alignments have anarchist tendencies in the sense that he believes there must be a complete overhaul of our current “free market” economy, which has been moving more and more towards a monopoly, according to Patel. His work is always centered around social justice, and recognizes this as key to addressing root causes of inequality. He does not believe in temporary band-aid solutions, and to him, capitalism is simply a band aid solution: a way of organizing society and valuing things that cannot last forever. Patel uses his platform to travel the world and highlight those who are already moving away from our current global food system, and towards a more local, sustainable, and equitable food system.
I really liked your podcast and I learned so much. I liked how you seamlessly incorporated Raj Patel’s voice into your podcast and highlighted the unique things about his career. It was interesting how he had worked for corporations who seemed to be doing great work on the surface, but as he said they were not interested in getting to the root cause of systemic issues. It was also cool how Patel has written so many books that offer real life solutions because it is so easy to critique capitalism, but much more difficult to actually fix it.
I really liked the sound clips you chose. They all were stories that kept me engaged. I had never heard of Patel so this was a great introduction. Something that stuck with me was his anarchist tendencies to overthrow dominant systems. He is certainly not scared to bring about major change.
This was an awesome podcast Mia! You did a great job of keeping things interesting by incorporating his interview clips in with your own voice. I have read one of his books for a class before but never knew about his “libertarian socialist” self-given title. It really made me think about how many different ways there are to look at topics like food sovereignty.
I really enjoyed this podcast! I liked how you incorporated his own words and dialogue into the podcast without interrupting the overall flow at all. I loved to hear about an activist that really wants to get to the root of the issues surrounding our food systems, as many people think that band-aid solutions are enough. Clearly, they are not, and it was great to hear someone who is outspoken on these kind of issues. Overall, I really enjoyed this podcast.