Join us as we talk through the impact of commodification under capitalism. What exactly do we mean by "commodification" and how does it undermine our sense of kinship with each other and the rest of the planet? We explore why there might be limited benefits to selling our talents, cultural expressions and special skills if our goal is to relate to each other rather than compete with one another, the strange history of the commodity as a concept and how it is connected to the devaluing of our ecosystems, what is lost when knowledge about ecological sustainability and equity work is limited to the domain of  experts and private coaches, and ways to resist commodifying ourselves. Our show is engineered by Von Pea. Our theme music is Fly Away by Mountaineer. You can find us on Instagram at @ToBeKinPodcast! Works referenced:  "Jay-Z Says No Shame in Success, Compares Being Called Capitalist to the N-Word." Billboard.com The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries and Aquaculture by Stefano B. Longo, Rebecca Clausen and Brett Clark. Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender and Science in New England by Carolyn Merchant. "The Secret of Primitive Accumulation." Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The theory of Accumulation by Dispossession by David Henry.

This week we're reading bell hooks' All About Love in order to ask, what is the rightful place of love in our lives and in our movements for social change?  We explore the utility of having a common understanding of love in relationships of all kinds, what is missing from dominant ideas of love confined to the realm of the nuclear family, the differences between love as a feeling and love as an action, whether accountability within organizations is possible among people who don't love each other, and more.  Our show is engineered by Von Pea. Our theme music is Fly Away by Mountaineer. You can find us on Instagram at @ToBeKinPodcast!

There are things we want to do for our communities, for our families, and for ourselves, but what happens when we just don't have the emotional or physical capacity to do it?  What does it look like to find our place to contribute while being realistic about our limits?  And, what happens when we ignore our limits and try to muscle through? In this episode Rza and D'Lena kiki about the ways both for-profit and non-profit work divert energy that could be used for social transformation, what it looks like to reassess how we can be useful using Deepa Iyer's Social Change Ecosystem as a roadmap, and whether we can practice "self-care" without turning healing into another form of unsustainable work. Our show is engineered by Von Pea. Our theme music is Fly Away by Mountaineer. You can find us on Instagram at @ToBeKinPodcast!

In this episode we discuss the hidden connections that make us kin, what it is about the structure of the U.S. that makes finding kinship hard, and what we're doing to put out frequencies to find more connections. Our show is edited by Von Pea. Our intro/outro music is Fly Away by Mountaineer. You can find us on Instagram at @ToBeKinPodcast!