In this special BONUS episode of the podcast, Todd is joined by Rights Track producer Chris Garrington of Research Podcasts to discuss their recently published book The Rights Track: Sound Evidence on Human Rights and Modern Slavery. 

The book, published by Anthem Press is launched today (September 6, 2022) at a special event hosted by the University of Nottingham's Rights Lab, funders of Series 3-5 of the podcast. 

Transcript

Todd Landman  0:01 

Welcome to The Rights Track podcast, which gets the hard facts about the human rights challenges facing us today. I'm Todd Landman. In this special episode of the podcast, I'm delighted to be joined by Rights Track producer, Chris Garrington to discuss our new book, The Rights Track: Sound Evidence on Human Rights and Modern Slavery, which was published in July. Chris and I launched The Rights Track podcast together in 2015, and have just finished production of a seventh series. Chris is the director and owner of Research Podcasts Limited, which specialises in consultancy, training and podcast production for researchers and students. So, welcome to this side of the mic, Chris.

Christine Garrington  0:38 

Thanks, Todd. I was gonna say it feels strange to be here. But of course, it doesn't feel strange at all, because I'm always here for recordings of Rights Track episodes, but it does feel strange, slightly strange. I'm not gonna lie to be speaking into the mic and be having a proper conversation with you in this way. But wonderful.

Todd Landman  0:55 

You're now the guest, you are not sitting behind the scenes trying to make the guests sound fantastic. So Chris, I wanted to start with, when did podcasts first enter into your head? 

Christine Garrington  1:06 

Oh, that's a really good question. So you know, Todd, but our listeners won't know that my background was in journalism. So I came straight out of university and trained to be a journalist back in the late 80s, early 90s. And spent most of that time working in radio - in BBC local radio in Essex. And then when radio five live launched here in the UK, in the mid 90s I worked there. So I developed if you like, my love of audio, my passion around the power of audio to tell stories, to report news, as well as obviously, all of the technical and editorial skills required to do that well, whilst working as a radio journalist. But jump forward a decade after leaving the BBC and doing a few different things and living abroad for a while, I came back to the UK and ended up working a little bit by chance, if I can be honest there, working in a research institute at the University of Essex.

Todd Landman  2:03 

Yeah.

Christine Garrington  2:03 

And it was actually there where I was given a free rein to try to help that institute promote its research better to communicate and engage around its research better with non-academic audiences to wider audiences, that I came up with this idea of using my skills, my background in this new setting, in the university and research setting to launch a podcast and it was indeed there that I launched my very first podcast, and that would have been in around I think, 2010 - 2011.

Todd Landman  2:34 

Wow. So 12 years ago. Now, I wanted to just hone in on one thing you said there, you've talked about people telling their stories. And I want to link it to my next question, which is, at what point did you want to work with academics interested in presenting their own podcasts? But I guess, are they any good at telling their stories? And did you really have to coach them to tell their stories? Because sometimes people ask us questions, we give ridiculously complex answers. And people really want more straightforward answers to questions, maybe in a more binary fashion. So how do you get academics interested in presenting their own podcasts? And how do you get actually get academics to sit and talk in a way that is meaningful, interesting and productive for a non-academic audience?

Christine Garrington  3:14 

Yeah, I think I'd go back a little bit and say that when I produced my first podcast, that was me in the chair, that was me, Chris Garrington, journalist, interviewer, you know, trying to coax good answers out of researchers and working with them on that in a way where they could present their work accessibly by asking questions, if you like that we're not about necessarily the complexities behind the research in terms of the methods and the regressions of the variables and all the things that a lot of researchers want to talk about, particularly social scientists, and work with them to really think about how they could answer simple questions about the meaning of their research, or how it could benefit people in the real world, how it could be of help to policymakers and practitioners. So if you'd like I was already working with them in that way in that environment. But moving on to your sort of question. I had this thing in the back of my mind, which was that, wouldn't it be great, you know, I can ask, you know, sensible, intelligent questions, but I'm a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none here. Wouldn't it be great if academics, you know, who would really want to - and it's not for everybody - but wouldn't it be great if there were academics who would like with the support and the background and the experience that I bring to the pot? Wouldn't it be great to get them presenting their own and they would, you know, necessarily, if you like, be using that medium to communicate and engage around their research, in a way I think that could benefit them, but also really demonstrate the potential impact of their work and yeah, hence next steps into really wanting to work with academics who would want to produce and present their own podcast.

Todd Landman  4:57 

That's brilliant, and I guess you know, in the back of your mind, or maybe in the front of your mind throughout that process, you always have the audience in mind who's the audience going to be? What will they be interested in? And how do we produce something that will meet that interest and capture their attention for the length of a podcast?

Christine Garrington  5:15 

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, you'll remember and will reflect back and we have reflected back in our book, Todd about the important conversations we had before we went anywhere near a microphone, right? I mean, we talked at length about who is it we want to engage with? Who is it we want to talk with? Who is this for? Who are we trying to reach? What are we trying to achieve? What's the mission, if you like, of our podcast, and those are things that these days, you know, I'm sharing with academics, whether that's in training situations, or whether that's in a situation where I might be producing them to present their own podcast, those are really important conversations to have before, you know, anyone goes near a microphone and starts interviewing or having conversations with people. And I think that conversations word is I don't know how many you times you and I have used the word conversations. And, you know, that's very, very important in the podcasting arena, because I as a journalist can conduct an interview about human rights, but I can't have a conversation. And that's where Todd Landman comes in because you can have a conversation around and about human rights in a way that I couldn't possibly. And so the team working is what works, the team working, the Todd model, as we like to talk about it at Research Podcast these days, really, really works. And that's why I'm so proud of it and feel so passionate about it.

Todd Landman  6:35 

Well, I guess I'd like to talk about the Todd and Chris model, because Todd and Chris model yielded The Rights Track. So why The Rights Track and why me?

Christine Garrington  6:43 

So it won't surprise you to know that really, when I was sort of thinking about podcasting, and thinking about who might like to work with me, I think our paths had crossed, not particularly sort of closely, but at the University of Essex. And that's, of course, where we, we first met, but we've had a couple of dealings around media work and stuff like that. And so when I was thinking, you know, I need to find somebody to work with on this idea, who can I talk with? You were, you know, right at the top of the list, of course, and I remember quite clearly sort of saying to you, can I come and have a coffee and chat to you about this idea of podcasts? And, you know, you were so open to the idea. And of course, we did a bit softly, softly it was, it was for that first sort of six episodes of a podcast, it was me interviewing you. But you know, I could tell quite quickly that you grabbed it, you grasped it. And so I suppose I might throw that back to you, in a way, Todd, you know, at what point did you think, oh, yeah, this is something for me, you know, I can work the Todd and Chris model, this could be something that could work really, really well. For me for human rights research for communication, for impact.

Todd Landman  7:46 

Briefly, I had been looking for a different medium to disseminate human rights information to a wider audience. And I liked talking about human rights. I taught human rights for many, many years and have had many conversations around the world, I travelled to probably 35 or 40 countries, by the point that you and I have started working together. And of course, I'd spent a lot of time in public fora, whether those were, you know, externally sponsored events in those countries. Some of the highlights for me, were going out to Mongolia at the time, when it embraced democracy, we were doing democracy assessment. And there the audience was fully International, as well as local media, academics, civil society organisations, I spent time in Latin America doing the same thing, particularly in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and sharing my views of course across the United States, across continental Europe, and parts of Africa. So for me, it was I was used to talking about human rights, I was used to teaching human rights. But many of this sort of format of that conversation, discussion remained didactic, whereas I didn't have a way of capturing the conversation. So for me, it was about the opportunity to capture a conversation. And I think that when you pitch to me over that cup of coffee, here's a new format. And I didn't know anything about podcasts was a bit like when Twitter came out, I thought, why would I want to use Twitter? You know, what's a tweet? Where's 140 characters gonna get me? Where does a 20 minute podcast get me, but you made very convincing arguments about why podcasting for human rights would be a good thing to do. And of course, we spend a lot of time thinking about the titles. And The Rights Track is a play on words, of course, because old recordings, we'd record on tracks, and we still record our podcasts on multiple devices, and then mix them down, you know, various tracks overlaying on top of one another. But for me, it was a really coming together and a very good moment in my own intellectual and sort of educational formation that this presented a great opportunity to bring this medium to the world of human rights.

Christine Garrington  9:43 

And so what is it that you would say that you enjoy most about presenting the podcast?

Todd Landman  9:48 

I think the surprises actually to be honest, I get anxious before every podcast, I don't have a script. I don't have pre-set questions. I know who my guest is going to be in the area of work that they do. I look for a challenging what I would call hook question to start off each podcast which sometimes frightens my guests, and I realise they're probably more anxious and nervous than I am. But what's interesting is after that initial hook question, the opening up of thought, and the opening up and sharing of both a track record of work, the incredible commitment to human dignity and human rights, the guests we've met, are committed to all those sorts of things that get revealed, are always surprising. And people will come out with all sorts of surprising things that you don't expect. And of course, you have to roll with it in a live recording setting, because we don't really like to over script and over edit our episodes. So for me, it was the natural flow of the conversation, I might take furious notes while listening to somebody and pick out key words, and then use those words to craft a new question to push the conversation forward. And I found that almost improvisational element of the podcast, very rewarding indeed. And then there was the final challenge of how do you end the podcast? You know, we would get deep into conversation with people from you know, gross human rights atrocities, being committed to, you know, technology and this latest series on the digital world, in areas that I hadn't talked to people about and quite complex topic areas, how do you then wrap that up? What were the main themes? How do you string those themes together? And how do you reach an end point for a finale of a podcast to leave the listener wanting more, but also feel satisfied that they've learned something by listening to that episode?

Christine Garrington  11:31 

Yeah, I think there's a real skill in that. And it's something that I often talk to people who want to present their own podcasts about whatever the subject matter is, is that you somehow have this art of wrapping up a conversation in a way that really pulls together the main things that have emerged and that's, you know, that's challenging, right? Because that means you've got to listen to every word, your guest says, and you've got to store all of that in your head across a 20-25 minute conversation. But I think, you know, there in, you know, is a really important thing to take away from, you know, what makes a good podcast, but I wanted to ask you as well about there's something there's an informality, right about the podcasting medium that just doesn't seem to exist in any other way that academics might get to communicate their research, you know, you're always presenting quite formally, right, whether that's at a conference or you're giving a media interview, or you're talking to policymakers giving evidence at some sort of inquiry. But this allows a sort of an informality that I just think is very, very special.

Todd Landman  12:29 

Well, I think breaking down the formality of human rights dissemination was a key motivator for me, having been to countless conferences and formal events and public fora, but also reading the literature on human rights. I've been, you know, steeped in research monographs, peer reviewed journal articles, policy reports, NGO reports, and they have a distinct formality about them, there's a trotting out of the human rights that are at stake, the legal parameters of those human rights, what is codified and not codified, where the areas of debate are. And it risks really in two ways. One, it's not easily accessible information. And we talk about that in the book, which I, you know, towards the end of the book about that the sort of established ways of disseminating human rights information, actually limit their accessibility for a wide range of people, particularly those people you're trying to reach. And so for me, the podcast and the informal nature is I can just say, oh, yeah, but you said this, but what did you mean by that? Or? I'm sorry? Could you give an example of how that principle works in practice? Or what in your personal experience could you tell us that either led you to that conclusion or motivated you to work in this area? And I remember some of our guests saying, look, it was my dad worked for a particular federal agency in the United States that was dedicated to environmental protection, that inspired me as a child to go to university and then at university, I got interested in human rights. And then I got interested in how people mobilise for human rights. So I started researching human rights NGOs, and to get the human element and motivation behind why people do the human rights work that they do. And equally, that you know, the impact they think they're having. Oftentimes, when we look at academic work, they think, Oh, well, you know, it's a publication, it's out there, it's, you know, it's in the peer reviewed journal world. It's in the research monograph world, it's an echo chamber, it's just academics reading their own stuff, reading each other, citing each other and making, you know, progressive change in the development of knowledge and expertise. But who's the wider audience that one could reach? And how do we make that information more accessible to people? And how do we get the human story behind the derivation and genesis of that information? And then why that information is important for us to ponder and to think about? And so I think the podcast was a perfect medium to be able to do that.

Christine Garrington  14:43 

Yeah. And so you mentioned the book there. So what on earth made you if you like, sort of, come full circle and come back to the written word, you know, with the idea of the book about the podcast, you know, where did that come from? Because I remember us talking about it, but, you know, it must have been sort of been mulling around in your head for a while before you broach the idea with me.

Todd Landman  15:03 

So for me, we originally set out to do The Rights Track for one year, we had one year of funding, then we accessed additional funding and more funding. And, you know, the middle part of the series were all about the modern slavery topic, we had really nice financial support from The Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham to do that. We had had Nuffield funding and ESRC funding. And as this body of podcast content developed, I thought, there's some recurring themes here that are of interest to me. And I think I originally pitched just writing a journal article about this. And I was conscious that we would be coming full circle from the written word and the spoken word back to the written word. And, you know, one thing led to another, we sort of parked the article for a while, we had tables and figures and things about the podcast for over a couple of series. But I guess it was late, you know, in deep into the fifth or sixth series, when I thought, actually, I think there's enough content here for a book. And so I approached you and said, let's put a book proposal together to a publisher and see what the response might be. And of course, Anthem Press very graciously said this looks like a winner went out for peer review, we got really good feedback about consolidating and condensing some of the content. And then lo and behold, for a year, I sat and wrote, and you wrote and read and edited and co-edited and fed back, you know, almost every Sunday for a year. And we ended up with 96,000 words of content based on the 58 podcast we did, and the 71 conversations we had, over 26 hours of recorded content, what a beautiful kind of, you know, body of content that was inaccessible, unless we did the podcast. And because we did the podcast, we had this accessible content could then be crafted into, you know, a kind of structure of a book not only tells the story of what we learned during this time, but also what people were saying, and what they were committing themselves to, and what they think they had achieved in the work that they did. So for me, it was all just wrapped up really nicely together.

Christine Garrington  15:06 

Yeah, and I guess I suppose that brings a question into my head is what you feel the book adds to what we've done, you know, what's come out of it as you reflect on it. And, you know, when that book arrived in your hands, as it did mine through the post a few weeks back, you know, what is it about the book that makes you think that was really worth doing? What, what struck you most?

Todd Landman  17:16 

Well, for me, you know, if I were to tell people and point them in the direction of our Rights Track website, they would encounter 58 podcasts for download. And they can listen to all 58 in their journeys, commuting journeys, whether they're at work or you know, listening on whatever device they have, that's one approach, but it might feel a bit scattered and sporadic for them. So I felt that our role as creators of this thing was to add value to the audio content we had, and to, in a sense, augment what we've learned from people with the extent knowledge of the state of human rights from an academic perspective. And the book tries to strike that balance between background and context. Why is freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of religion, important? Here are the parameters, here are the ongoing debates, here's what our guests said about these issues. And now we're going to tell you why that matters. And sort of chapter by chapter, podcast by podcast, we put everything together, and actually, I think, ended up with a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts, because we were able to add the academic commentary on top of the conversations and back again, to craft chapters that hopefully are readable, informative, thought provoking, and raised a high relief, the many human rights challenges that are facing us today.

Christine Garrington  18:35 

Yeah, 100% I agree with that. And also, it was wonderful for me to have the opportunity to reflect, you know, especially writing this section about why podcasts, you know, why that particular moment in time, you know, how we develop the ideas, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to reflect back on all of that in the context of a growing interest in podcasting, as we know, you know, from the early 2000s, to where we are today, with podcasts very much an established part our, you know, audio habits, if you like for many, many people, millions of people around the world, you know, coming from a place actually in the 2000s. You know, when we were talking about it when it wasn't quite so established. I think, you know, that's been a wonderful thing, certainly for me. And I wonder, also, you know, now the books out who you think will benefit from it, be interested in it, what they'll get out of it?

Todd Landman  19:22 

Well, I think we pitch the proposal to the publisher that this would not be a full on academic book that only academics and students would read. It would be a book that should appeal to the general reader that we have enough for lack of a better word, academic credibility behind what we're saying. There's a lot of referencing to established peer reviewed academic research, combined with experts that we spoke to both who were academics but also practitioners and activists, and weaving that narrative together as something that's not been done before by taking that very rich content of our conversations and weaving it into broader academic arguments that are balanced evidence based and reach a reasonable resolution and conclusion about matters affecting us here today. So for me, it was, I think it will appeal to people who are worried about the state of the world, given developments. Since well as we say, in the beginning of the book since 2001, there was almost a massive pivot after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. And there is a kind of rolling back, if you will, of commitment to human rights and certain emergence of political leaders who have an anti-rights discourse or a populist discourse that challenges the legitimacy of human rights. And equally, that raises to high relief, what I would call this idea of reductionism where, you know, you're either with us or against us, this binary dividing of the world into us and them. Black hats and white hats. You know, grouping very disparate groups of people together and calling them all the other and to be feared and to be deported. And to be, you know, deeply suspicious of them. And so for us to produce a book that says, well, actually, there are a lot of people out there that disagree with that view. And this is why, and actually did you know, here's the flow of refugees, and why here's what the German government did. Here's what the UK Government did. Here's why it matters. Here's some of the discourse around that. Here's the legal things that are in place that can help these people here, the legal gaps, where people are falling through the cracks, you know, so we identify and problematize all these issues in a way that wasn't really immediately obvious. If we had just gone for a straight book, it was listening to the voices of the experts, listening to people there on the ground, trying to make positive change for the world that really gave that human grounded element to the content of the book. And I hope that that's really enjoyable for the reader. And if you think about it, readers and listening to Audible books while they exercise, they might be listening to podcasts. But equally, they might like to pick up a hard copy of the book, and really thumb through the pages enjoy reading the content that we've put together over these many years.

Christine Garrington  21:47 

Yeah, indeed. And I wonder then also, again, coming sort of back to the podcast, if you like, but it's all been a journey. And whether our efforts to create what we've talked about as sound evidence about human rights with The Rights Track, I wonder if you believe or if you think in some small way, The Rights Track has made a difference that it's had an impact in its own right.

Todd Landman  22:11 

I think so. You know, we have a chapter about human rights evidence in the book and telling the story of human rights evidence is a very difficult and complex one. And the chapter moves really from individual cases of individual people, to aggregating metrics and indicators on large groups of people and looking for macro patterns. And my world of quantitative analysis of human rights is one that doesn't give what some people mistakenly believe as a precise answer to a question. In statistics, we always deal with probabilities and uncertainties. And I was really struck by you know, what Patrick Ball said about his work on documenting gross violations of human rights. And in the case of Guatemala, he showed that indigenous people during 1981 to 82, in the conflict in Guatemala, under the leadership of General Efrain Rios Montt, that indigenous people were eight times more likely to be killed by military agents than people from other groups in society. And I remember asking him, does that prove genocide? He said, oh, no, not at all. What it is, is a statistical statement that says, the patterns we observe in the data cannot be explained by chance alone, right. So it hints and implies that an intentionality to the observed differences in treatment against people, but it doesn't point its finger and say, this is absolutely sound evidence that tells you, these people were wholly responsible for and intentionally killed. That's a legal judgement that requires other kinds of evidence that requires forensic anthropology, documentary evidence, interviews with victims and survivors of the violence, and a triangulation of sources that then let you reach the legal judgement, that beyond a reasonable doubt, genocide was committed against these people. And I like the sort of small 'c' conservativism of that statement around evidence that you have to be very careful working in the field of human rights, not to overclaim or in my language, draw inferences that are not supported by the data. So we have a very strong section in the book around human rights evidence that I think needs to be read by lots of people, because you hear lots of statistics being bandied about, and certainly during the COVID pandemic, and certainly after looking at the differential impact of the pandemic on different groups, and people might say, well, therefore that demonstrates racism. Well hang on a minute, what does that mean, you know, and I was really struck by Dominique Day and her interview with us talking about medical bias in the medical profession and that, in the height of the pandemic in New York City, a directive came out in a hospital that said, we don't have the luxury for protocols and data analysis and committee meetings. Just use your best instinct in treating people. So that grounded decision does someone get a ventilator or not? Does someone get a mask or not? Does someone get treatment or not? At the heat of the moment, the peak of the pandemic, people fall back on internal heuristics and decision making, that may have an absolutely deleterious effect on certain groups of people in society. And I love that explanation because it went away from this kind of role intentionality of racism to a much more nuanced understanding of medical bias and the sorts of everyday decisions people make that when you aggregate those decisions up, you actually see disproportionate treatment of certain groups of people in society. And that argument that Dominique Day put together, actually is analogous to so many other situations I see in the world that individual decisions incrementally build up. And when you aggregate those decisions, you see those disproportionalities as a treatment. You see that maltreatment, maladjustment, maldistribution of resources, etc, within society that produces many of the societal conflicts and divisions that we're dealing with and grappling with today.

Christine Garrington  25:50 

Yeah, so many great conversations Todd, I wonder if there's for you, there's a highlight? No, I've got a couple around producing the podcast. But what about for you?

Todd Landman  25:58 

Well, I was struck by our conversations around the refugee crisis. I think, speaking to Mr. Vargas Llosa was really really impressive. His handle on statistics and the flow of people and the sheer number of people coming out of conflict ridden societies and why they were coming to Europe was a particularly telling conversation for me. Of course, I loved all the statistical conversations with everyone, I was really struck with the people fighting slavery on the ground from India, working with youth, etc, very much struck by a conversation with Mahi Ramakrishnan from Malaysia and her work with the Rohingya and thinking about just sort of the abject maltreatment of that group. And some of the complexities of that group as they fled one country where they were considered stateless, entered another country where they didn't have refugee status. And then were trying to eke out a living at the height of a pandemic. I mean, that's a lot of stuff coming together all in one place, and to have that reasonable, passionate discussion with Mahi on that topic, you know, still stays with me to this day.

Christine Garrington  27:00 

So many great conversations, I too, have learned so very much about human rights along the way, it's wonderful to have technology and all of the opportunities that brings but when the book popped through the letterbox and I could thumb through it and look back and reflect on, you know, all of that work. And all of that time, it was a wonderful moment. And particularly, I've got to say, to turn to the back page, because there's nothing as powerful as somebody else saying how good something is, right Todd? I mean, we can say, you know, we thought it was a brilliant project. But when I look and see Dame Sara Thornton, the UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner talk about the book and saying how it's, you know, how much it's done to bring modern slavery to wider audiences, you know, modern slavery being her interest. And you know, how powerfully it demonstrates the value of technology and making knowledge accessible and how it provides a collation and analysis of the rich material from the series, providing thought, challenging mindsets, and ultimately, with the potential to transform lives, I've got to say, you know, for me, that feels like a, you know, without wanting to, to get too carried away, for me, a real career highlight, and a real personal highlight that will stay with me forever.

Todd Landman  28:10 

Well, I'm glad that The Rights Track, you know, presented that opportunity to you. But I have to say, Chris, I also learned a lot from you. And the most learning actually came from your challenges to me. So I might pitch an idea. And you say, Yeah, but who's the audience? Or could you just you know, could you rephrase that? Because that doesn't quite make sense. Or you haven't really captured the human element of what we actually learned from that guest? Could you rewrite that passage, you know, and I think you were always good at pushing me around, you know, staying true to the theme staying true to the model, and making sure that we absolutely kept our thinking on the right track, if I might even say, so. I learned a lot. I hope you learned a lot. And I think the end result of this book is a great archive, if you will. And the great thing about books is they exist in perpetuity now, so very, very pleased that we did this project together and I hope that our listeners as well as our readers, take away so much value, as much value as we have in producing them.

Christine Garrington  29:04 

Thank you, Todd. Thanks for listening to this special episode of The Rights Track, which was presented by Todd Landman and produced by Chris Garrington of Research Podcasts. The Rights Track; Sound Evidence on Human Rights and Modern Slavery is published by Anthem Press and is available from all major bookstores. You can access all seven series of The Rights Track podcast via your podcasting app, or on our website at www.RightsTrack.org