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  • Why Do Institutions Protect Perpetrators Over Survivors? | Whistleblowing & Power

    Why Do Institutions Protect Perpetrators Over Survivors? | Whistleblowing & Power
    Feb 10 2026

    Whistleblowing is often framed as an act of courage. But in practice, it is more often met with punishment, isolation and quiet retaliation.


    In this episode of Rigour & Flow, we examine what actually happens when people tell the truth inside institutions that claim to value transparency, ethics and accountability.


    Drawing on lived experience, research and patterns across multiple sectors - including academia, media, charities and the creative industries - we explore why whistleblowers so often become the problem, while harm is minimised, managed or protected.


    We explore the gap between official reporting processes and informal power: how complaints are received, reframed, delayed or quietly buried; why “doing the right thing” frequently backfires and how institutions close ranks when truth threatens reputation, funding or authority.


    Similarly, we explore what happens when allegations of wrongdoing enter the public sphere, how reactions play out on social media, and what we’ve encountered ourselves since launching the show.


    This is a discussion about retaliation that doesn’t always look dramatic, but is deeply effective. It’s about progressive spaces that punish, often reproducing the same silencing they claim to oppose. And it’s about the emotional, professional and psychological costs of refusing to stay quiet.


    Rather than offering a simple morality tale, we sit with the uncomfortable reality: that silence is often rewarded, truth is seen as a liability, and whistleblowers are rarely protected in the ways policy suggests.


    This episode is for anyone who has ever been told to report concerns and then learned directly the cost of doing so.

    🎙️ In this episode:

    • The system punishes courage: why speaking up often triggers retaliation rather than protection
    • The whistleblowing myth: how “doing the right thing” is celebrated rhetorically but punished in practice
    • The whistleblowing paradox: why institutions tell you to report harm, until you actually do
    • Why systems close ranks: reputation management, risk containment and the quiet defence of power
    • Progressive spaces aren’t exempt: how charities, media, academia and creative industries reproduce the same silencing dynamics
    • Retaliation without spectacle: exclusion, stalled careers, informal blacklisting and being reframed as “difficult”
    • Silence as currency: how compliance, restraint and loyalty are rewarded over truth
    • What accountability would actually require and why institutions resist it


    🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts

    🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FWzSfpNpimI

    🔁 Share with someone thinking about power and accountability


    ☕ Want to support the show? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflow

    Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.

    Connect with us on:

    • TikTok
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • AiAi Studios
    • Roots & Rigour


    This is an AiAi Studios Production

    ©AiAi Studios 2025

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    53 Min.
  • Whitewashed Lecture Halls | African Knowledges and the Limits of the Western Higher Education

    Whitewashed Lecture Halls | African Knowledges and the Limits of the Western Higher Education
    Feb 3 2026
    African knowledges have always been everywhere, in language, land, healing and survival. Yet most of us passed through the highest levels of education without ever encountering them. In this episode, we step into the lecture halls of “higher” education and ask what it means to be trained to forget, and who that forgetting ultimately serves. We begin inside higher education itself. Tamanda reflects on achieving the highest formal qualification possible, a PhD, while being taught almost nothing about Black people, African histories or global majority cultures within the core curriculum. She speaks about navigating universities that were not built for us, encountering racism and silencing, being mocked for studying race, and carrying the emotional weight of ancestral absence inside institutions that claim neutrality. From Britain and Northern Ireland to Southern Africa, we trace how entire peoples, geographies and ways of knowing have been written out of what counts as knowledge. Not by accident, but by design. From there, we go deeper. Together, we unpack how higher education operates through state-sanctioned curricula where silence is framed as objectivity and colonial histories are avoided rather than confronted. We explore how African spiritual, ecological and communal ways of knowing were dismissed as backward or dangerous, even as their insights were extracted, repackaged and profited from elsewhere. We confront epistemicide in practice. Dismissal, extraction, pathologisation and profit. We ask what this has cost a world now facing ecological collapse, mental health crises, and deep social fragmentation. This is not only a loss borne by Africans and Caribbeans, but a collective impoverishment of how humanity understands care, land, community and survival. In closing, we return to vital African knowledges themselves. Knowledge rooted in connection, collective life, healing, land and embodiment. Tamanda reflects on what she reclaimed during her PhD, her commitment to documenting the knowledge of her ancestors, and why putting our stories on record matters in systems where what is written is what is recognised. This is a conversation about remembering. About power. And about why African knowledges are not supplementary or symbolic, but essential to making sense of the world we are living in now. 🎙️ In this episode:Colonial higher education exposed: What higher education reveals about Black history erasure in universities State-sanctioned silence: How colonial curricula erase entire peoples, geographies and colonial historiesErasure by design: Why African knowledges were dismissed, pathologised and written out of what counts as knowledgeWho gets to be a knower: Power, legitimacy and the marginalisation of Black academics in white institutionsEpistemicide in practice: The global consequences of destroying indigenous ways of knowing and insightWhat modernity forgot: How the strength of collective life, connection and ritual were lost in the pursuit of profit and progressReclaiming the archive: On ‘writing what I like’ and why putting ancestral knowledge on record matters deeplyKnowledge for everyone: Why African knowledges are not niche or symbolic, and what it costs us to keep pretending they are 🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts
🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/x5RYSYRRs5Y🔁 Share with someone thinking about knowledge, power and belonging📬 Reflections or stories to share? rigourandflow@gmail.com☕ Want to support the show? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflowPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    55 Min.
  • Black Kids, White Classrooms: Black History Erasure, Colonial Control & Britain’s Education System

    Black Kids, White Classrooms: Black History Erasure, Colonial Control & Britain’s Education System
    Jan 27 2026
    Education is not neutral. And for Black children, it is rarely complete. School is often the first place where erasure is formalised, belonging becomes conditional, and history is taught as if our people were a footnote rather than the foundation.In this episode, we turn our attention to education - not as a neutral site of learning, but as a powerful system of selection, silence, and control. Drawing on our own schooling across Botswana, Northern Ireland, London, Leeds, and the Midlands, we reflect on what we were taught, what we internalised, and what we later had to unlearn. Aiwan reflects on moving from a Black-majority school in South-East London to predominantly white classrooms in Leeds, navigating the silence around race while carrying the weight of being “the only one.” She speaks about the hidden curriculum - how schools quietly teach you who is centred, who is valued, and who is merely tolerated - and why supplementing formal education at home became essential to developing a fuller sense of self. Tamanda draws on her education in Botswana, Northern Ireland, and England, as well as her later academic experience, to examine how education systems claim neutrality while carefully avoiding power. She reflects on moments where critical thinking was praised in theory, yet penalised in practice - revealing the tight boundaries around what could be questioned, named, or challenged. Together, we explore how Black history is routinely framed as optional or supplementary in UK schooling, rather than foundational to understanding Britain itself. We examine the expectation that Black families must fill the gaps - through Saturday schools, community learning, books, travel, and cultural memory - simply to counter what is missing, sanitised, or distorted in statutory education. We then consider what Aiwan learned over ten years educating young minds as a teacher herself. This is a conversation about power, not pedagogy alone. About what knowledge is protected, what knowledge is deferred, and why calls for “balance” or “neutrality” so often function to preserve the status quo. And about the long-term emotional and intellectual cost of learning in systems that demand assimilation while withholding recognition. 🎙️ In this episode:Encounters with erasure: Growing up Black in White education systems, beginning with the deafening silence around Black historyThe curated curriculum: How schooling disciplines curiosity, avoids power, and prioritises order over understandingSupplementing the system: Learning Black history beyond the classroom through Saturday schools, newspapers and self-directed studyWhen curiosity is punished: A defining moment where questioning the curriculum was met with anger, revealing what was “off limits”Entering teacher training: Confronting Eurocentric ideas of intelligence, culture and legitimacy as a Black womanTeaching from lived culture: What happened when music education met connective language, rhythm and real-world experienceBeyond Black History Month: Tokenism, cherry-picked heroes and how Black history must be continuous and connected to the nowChanging the status quo: What it means to teach with care, responsibility and cultural fluency for the next generation 🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qQ6-XNwHaeY🔁 Share with someone thinking about education, history, or curriculum reform☕ Want to support the show? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflowPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 Std. und 32 Min.
  • “I’m Done Performing Productivity!” | Burnout, Worth & Walking Away

    “I’m Done Performing Productivity!” | Burnout, Worth & Walking Away
    Jan 20 2026
    New year energy is usually about what we are chasing next. In this episode of Rigour & Flow, we slow that impulse down and start 2026 by asking, “What are we leaving behind in 2025?” After an intense year of work, production, learning curves and hard lessons, we wanted something lighter for this conversation. The result is a mix of reflection and a lot of laughter, alongside some seriously important focus points as we step into the year ahead for Rigour & Flow, AiAi Studios, as well as Roots & Rigour. We launched into our on-mic reflections without comparing notes at all for this one - each of us sharing five things we are consciously putting down as we enter into a year we both want to feel totally different from that last! Aiwan reflects on leaving behind the misused word “talent” in the creative industries, exploring how it enables poor behaviour, while erasing the intense work of entire teams. She speaks about productivity systems that promised balance, but only delivered pressure, pain and anxiety. And finally, the cost of allowing other people’s visions to dominate her time, energy and creative life. Tamanda reflects on entering public-facing work after years in academia and the shock of navigating online hostility and automated culture war commentary. She talks about funding applications, funding rejections, the need to centre realism, and the difference between backing yourself and building expectations on timelines you do not control. Together, we unpack over-functioning, the consequences of straying out of our lanes, underestimating the labour behind the scenes in creative work, and the subtle ways self-abandonment often masquerades as dedication. We close with reflections on choosing to trust our experience and instinct more this year, planning for guilt-free rest, living truthfully and outline some simple decisions we have made to build a work and life balance that can be sustained. 🎧 In this episode:The misuse of “talent”: How creative industries blur the lines of contributions, empower poor behaviour, and overlook collective effortProductivity promises and personal cost: Systems that claimed balance but delivered anxiety, rigidity and rebellionWasted social media arguments: Navigating public commentary spaces, automated hostility, and why not every comment deserves a responseOptimism and timelines: Funding hopes, rejection, and learning the difference between backing yourself and just getting your hopes up too earlyOver-functioning and reciprocity: The hidden costs of filling the gaps others leave behind because you are a high performerStaying in your lane: Underestimating creative processes, straying into everything, and learning to respect and trust others’ expertiseSelf-care as infrastructure: The importance of planning rest, nourishment and recovery before crisis hits 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xuvHT96FGeY🔁 Share with someone choosing differently this year☕ Want to support the show? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflow Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    59 Min.
  • Snatched! | Behind the Scenes on RuPaul’s Drag Race Companion Podcast

    Snatched! | Behind the Scenes on RuPaul’s Drag Race Companion Podcast
    Jan 13 2026

    In this Feedwarmer episode of Rigour & Flow, we spotlight a project from Aiwan’s back catalogue that brought her an enormous amount of joy to produce: Snatched! - the companion podcast celebrating all things RuPaul’s Drag Race.


    We open with a short preamble reflecting on why Snatched! mattered to AiAi Studios as a creative project - not just because of the joy and chaos of Drag Race, but as producers who care deeply about sound, pacing, playfulness, and permission to lean fully into camp, queer chaos. From there, we introduce Snatched! and share clips and reflections on how the show came together, why it worked, and what made it such a pleasure to produce.


    Hosted by Sam Damshenas and Umar Sarwar, Snatched! is smart, funny, irreverent, and unapologetically joyful - a podcast that treats fan culture as something thoughtful, creative, and worth taking seriously. We sit with the craft behind that joy: the sound design choices, the creative freedom, and the rare delight of making something that doesn’t need to justify itself beyond being fun.


    We talk about why Drag Race lends itself so well to podcasting, what it means to make a companion show that serves both superfans and casual listeners, and why projects like this remind us that pleasure, camp, and creativity are not distractions from “serious” work -they are part of it.


    🎧 In this episode:

    • Reflections on joy, camp-queer chaos, and creative freedom
    • Spotlighting Snatched! as a Drag Race companion podcast
    • Why RuPaul’s Drag Race makes perfec the opportunity to build new sonic landscapes
    • Fan culture as thoughtful, playful, and meaningful
    • Why making something fun can still be rigorous and technical work


    🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts

    🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube

    🔁 Share with someone who loves Drag Race, podcast craft, or joyful sound design

    ☕ Want to support Rigour & Flow? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflow


    Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.

    Connect with us on:

    • TikTok
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • AiAi Studios
    • Roots & Rigour


    This is an AiAi Studios Production

    ©AiAi Studios 2025

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    47 Min.
  • She Love Bombed the F*ck Out of Me: The Unapologetically Black Podcast on Friendship

    She Love Bombed the F*ck Out of Me: The Unapologetically Black Podcast on Friendship
    Jan 6 2026

    In this Feedwarmer episode of Rigour & Flow, we spotlight a podcast that had us nodding, wincing, laughing, and quietly re-evaluating our own friendships.


    We open with a short preamble and reflections on adult friendship; the stories we tell ourselves about loyalty, closeness, and safety, and the moments when something starts to feel off but we can’t quite name why. From there, we introduce an episode of the Unapologetically Black Podcast that literally woke Tamanda up in the dead of night.


    Hosted by Dr Leanne Levers and Roshan Roberts, the episode centres on friendship red flags- from love bombing and emotional over-investment, to negativity, judgement, and relationships that drain more than they give. What unfolds is an honest, funny, and sometimes uncomfortable conversation about how friendship can mirror romantic dynamics, and why so many of us end up lowering our standards when it comes to the people we call friends.


    We reflect on why this episode resonated so deeply: the language it gives to experiences many people struggle to articulate, the permission it offers to reassess “ride or die” narratives, and the importance of boundaries in friendships.


    This Feedwarmer is all about giving ourselves permission to name the patterns and emotional labour that seem to go unquestioned, and asking what healthier, more reciprocal friendships look like. You can see it as a taster of what’s to come in a deeper dive on friendship we’ll be dropping in 2026.


    🎧 In this episode:

    • Reflecting on adult friendship: unspoken discomfort and toxic patterns
    • Spotlighting the Unapologetically Black Podcast and their episode on friendship
    • Love bombing in friendships, and why it’s not just a dating phenomenon
    • Red flags, emotional drain, and the myth of unconditional loyalty
    • Rethinking friendship standards, boundaries, and reciprocity


    🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts

    🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube

    🔁 Share with someone rethinking friendships, boundaries, or emotional labour

    ☕ Want to support Rigour & Flow? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflow


    Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.

    Connect with us on:

    • TikTok
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • AiAi Studios
    • Roots & Rigour


    This is an AiAi Studios Production

    ©AiAi Studios 2025

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    42 Min.
  • What a Gold Medal Meant for Black Britain: Tessa Sanderson’s Legacy

    What a Gold Medal Meant for Black Britain: Tessa Sanderson’s Legacy
    Dec 30 2025

    In this Feedwarmer episode of Rigour & Flow, we share a moment of encounter: meeting sporting history in the flesh.


    The episode opens with us setting the scene at CLIMB 2025, where Aiwan attended a talk by Olympic gold medallist Tessa Sanderson and knew immediately she had to hear more. After that brief introduction, we move into a live conversation between Aiwan and Tessa, recorded at the AiAi Studios stand during the festival.


    Tessa Sanderson is the first Black British woman to win an Olympic gold medal. In this conversation, she reflects on her journey to the 1984 Olympics, the mindset required to win, and the reality of carrying history on her shoulders. She reflects on racism in British sport, the pressures faced by Black women athletes, and the mental discipline required to sustain excellence over time.


    The conversation also moves beyond the track. Tessa shares how she has translated elite sport into business, leadership, and advocacy - from boardrooms to grassroots work - including her longer term vision to set up a Museum of Diversity and her commitment to creating pathways for young people, especially Black girls, in sport.


    This is a warm, generous, and energising conversation about excellence, confidence, legacy, and what it means to meet someone whose achievements shaped generations.


    🎧 In this episode:

    • Tessa’s journey to Olympic gold in 1984 and the mindset behind it

    • What that medal meant for Black Britain and Black women in sport

    • Mental strength, self-belief, and sustaining confidence over time

    • Sport as business: sponsorship, leadership, and treating yourself as an enterprise

    • The Museum of Diversity and educating future generations

    • Encouragement for Black women and girls to take up space and keep going


    🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts

    🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube

    🔁 Share with someone who loves sport, legacy, and Black British history

    ☕ Want to support Rigour & Flow? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflow


    Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.

    Connect with us on:

    • TikTok
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • AiAi Studios
    • Roots & Rigour


    This is an AiAi Studios Production

    ©AiAi Studios 2025

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    27 Min.
  • Why We Love Reality TV: Unguilty Pleasures with Liv Little & Scarlett Curtis

    Why We Love Reality TV: Unguilty Pleasures with Liv Little & Scarlett Curtis
    Dec 23 2025

    In this Feedwarmer episode, we spotlight one of our absolute favourite projects of 2025: Unguilty Pleasures - the Real Housewives–inspired podcast we launched this year as a collaboration between AiAi Studios and Daylight Productions.


    Hosted by Liv Little and Scarlett Curtis, Unguilty Pleasures is a joyful, self-aware ode to reality TV, escapism and the softer corners of culture we don’t always give ourselves permission to enjoy. From the chaotic brilliance of The Real Housewives to the emotional intelligence hidden inside so-called “trash TV,” Liv and Scarlett dive into the shows that hold us, distract us, heal us or simply make us laugh.

    In this episode, we revisit their conversation with Elizabeth Day - a warm, funny, chaotic delight that celebrates pleasure without guilt, the art of switching off, and the beauty of finding meaning in the unserious. We reflect on why these worlds grip us, what they reveal about class, gender and longing, and why escape isn’t something to apologise for.


    If you need a smile, a breather or a reminder that joy counts as culture, this Feedwarmer is for you.


    To close the year, we also share how much fun it has been to help bring this show into the world - with Aiwan Obinyan serving as Executive Producer and Senior Producer, Elizabeth Day as Executive Producer, and Tamanda Walker leading on data and insights for the series. One of the brightest collaborations of our 2025.


    🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts

    🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube

    🔁 Share with someone who loves Housewives, pop culture or escapist joy

    ☕ Want to support Rigour & Flow? Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflow


    Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.

    Connect with us on:

    • TikTok
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • AiAi Studios
    • Roots & Rigour


    This is an AiAi Studios Production

    ©AiAi Studios 2025

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    49 Min.