An Arabic word meaning “my body”, جسدي | Jasadi is Kerning Culture Network’s first Arabic-language podcast. Launched in 2019, it focuses on experiences of the body, the self and what’s between them, sharing honest and expansive stories of people’s relationships with their bodies and the influences community and SWANA culture have on those relationships.

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The first venture-funded podcast company in the SWANA region, Kerning Cultures Network, was co-founded in 2015 by Razan Alzayani and Hebah Fisher with a dedication to telling “the kinds of stories in which we can actually see ourselves”, they share with AMAKA.

Having been featured in The Guardian, NPR, WNYC’s Radiolab and MENABytes, Kerning Cultures showcase an impressive collection of award-winning Arabic and English-language podcasts dedicated to storytelling. “We love stories – really good stories, and there are so many from our region just waiting to be told”, they say.

According to The National, “A new generation of young and forward-thinking producers are providing an alternative view on the Arab world.”, and Kerning Cultures Network is their hub. Their women-led team’s spearheading of Jasadi is an unprecedented and revolutionary act in the Islamic podcast space and arguably the media as a whole.

Arabic speaking societies’ traditional perceptions of the body as an inherently shameful thing — from its functions to its desires — are a weight on all those who inhabit the region; where some accept and perpetuate that weight, many find it to be crushing and unbearable. This perception of the body, almost as a vehicle of sin, is only exacerbated when applied to the bodies of women, trans, non-binary, queer and gender non-conforming people.  

A brief note on the multicultural and transcontinental prevalence of the Arabic language

The Arabic language is most commonly used in countries across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Of the 25 countries in which Arabic is an official or co-official language, 13 of them are in Africa: Algeria, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Tunisia, which add up to just under a quarter of Africa’s nations and territories. Arabic is also a national or recognised minority language in Mali, Niger and Senegal. Though widely associated with the Middle East, Arabic is significant to the experience of many African-Arabic speakers and those, predominantly in North Africa, who often identify with both African and Arab cultures.

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قصص عن الجسد والذات ومابينهم | Stories about the body, the self and what’s in between

Season one of Jasadi, hosted by Shahd Bani Odeh, tackles issues of the body in all its varieties, from puberty to hair (its texture and presence or lack thereof), gender identity, tattoos, sex, trauma and healing. Each episode delves into personal accounts from people about their experiences with their bodies in their own voices. With sparse, brief questions and prompts from the host, the format lends itself to an open mode of storytelling, allowing the listener to be immersed in the narrative as if listening to a vulnerable recount from a friend.

The first of the season’s nine episodes was released across streaming platforms on 4 December 2019, featuring artwork by Rawand Issa, music composition and sound design by Muhammad Khreizat and production by Kerning Culture’s women-led team. The whole season is powerful in its discussion of bodily experiences that, though natural, are deemed taboo by Arabic societies. They are seldom discussed, even between close friends and family.

The fifth episode, however, dives into a topic that is not only taboo but largely criminalised across Africa and the Arab world: the existence of queer, trans and gender non-conforming people. “The bodies we are born with don’t necessarily reflect our identities. Even though society classifies us exclusively as men or women, there are those who refuse to be categorised. ‘Identity: Grey’. The guests in this episode share a glimpse of their gender identities outside of society’s definition of male and female.” 

All episodes of Jasadi’s first season, as well as a few bonus episodes, are listed below and are available to listen to across all streaming platforms.

1. لما نكبر | When We Grow
2. أزمة شعر | A Hair Problem
3. حديثُ رجال | Men’s Talk
4. فراغ وامتلاء | Emptiness and Fullness
5. الهوية: رمادي | Identity: Grey
6. محفور بج | Engraved on My Body
7. مسلم به | For Granted
8. أول مرة | First Time

          9. رقصة الروح | The Dance of the Soul 

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This cultural avoidance of anatomical discussions is transferred two-fold when it comes to speaking on the mind. Supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G Buffett Fund for Women Journalists (@theIWMF), season two of Jasadi brings themes of mental health and illness out of the shadows. Hosted by Ahmed Feteha and following the same format as series one, the podcast creators summarise its contents as “stories about what is going on inside of us, our efforts to process our experiences, feelings trapped by anxiety, depression, or desperation, and our constant quest for inner peace”.

“There’s no shame in mental illness, but we rarely talk about it… ”, is season two’s tagline. Often exiled by tradition and religion, this collection of audio insights explores that which is habitually dismissed, belittled or even attributed to supernatural possessors such as Jinn — the demonic creatures of Islamic mythology. Across the twelve episodes, we hear stories of childhood trauma, postpartum depression, therapy, alternative methods of healing and more. Perhaps the most impactful narrative is offered in episode three, يحيى سيحيا | Yahiya Will Endure, in which a Yemeni trans man details his fight against his family, medical institutions and wider society to simply be.

We also hear from three Egyptian women in episode two, ألم غير متوقع | Unexpected Pain, who relay their dealings with postpartum depression. Contextualised within a culture that expects women to seamlessly blend into motherhood, these women's recollections are candid, raw, and powerful in their normalisation of negative feelings regarding motherhood. All episodes of Jasadi’s second season, listed below, are available to listen to across all streaming platforms.

1. "طفولة عادية" | A Normal Childhood
2. ألم غير متوقع | Unexpected Pain
3. يحيى سيحيا | Yahiya Will Endure
4. دردشة عن الصحة النفسية | A Chat About Mental Health
5. أنا اليوم "مو أوكيه" | Today I Am Not Okay
6. أطباء لكن ظرفاء | ‘Good Doctor, Bad Doctor’
7. كل الطرق تؤدي إلى الداخل | All Roads Lead to the Inside
8. الخصم الخفي | The Hidden Discount
9. الطاقة الكونية أو: كيف تعلمت أن أحب قدمي | Cosmic Energy: How I Learned to Love My Feet
10. أفانجارد | Avante Garde
11. السكري ما يوقفني | Diabetes Didn’t Stop Me
12. صوت في رأسي | A Voice in my Head

 

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هذه ليست قصتي .. هي قصة امرأة عربية فضَّلت أن تبقى هويتها مجهولة | This is not my story… It is the story of an Arab woman who preferred to stay anonymous.

Jasadi’s third season was created in collaboration with Mauj, the first sexual and reproductive wellness platform by and for SWANA women, which works to destigmatise and normalise bodies and sexuality. Last year, Mauj came out with a vibrator they describe as “the first intimate product designed for Arab women’s pleasure”. Kerning Culture Network’s collaboration with Mauj is a continuation of their Hakawatiyya series, which began in November 2020 and provided thirteen videos posted across Mauj’s IGTV and Youtube channels. In Arab cultures, the hakawati is traditionally the role of a male storyteller, a character who travels far and wide gathering stories to recount as tales. Mauj's hakawatiyyas are women who have chosen to come forward to tell the stories of others who decide to remain anonymous.

In the pre-season episode ‘هذه ليست قصتي’ | “This is not my story”, KC editors and producers Shahid Bani Odeh and Alma Intabli discuss the collaboration, Jasadi’s new format and the shared intention of telling narratives that lay the foundation for positive change. Speaking about this third season, Mauj's founders shared, “There is deep wisdom in women’s shared experiences. Our collective pain, suffering, pleasure, and joy should be more openly talked about, normalised, and celebrated. When these topics go unspoken of, it’s women who are the most vulnerable and at risk of violence and exploitation.”

Hosted by Syrian journalist Alma Intabli and featuring anonymous true stories read by female actors, Jasadi’s third season explores first-hand accounts of the pains of (in)fertility, female genital mutilation, the orgasm gap, sexual harassment, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, fatphobia and more. Unlike the first two seasons, this one does not include questions and prompts from the host. Instead, accounts are sequenced between a brief introduction and conclusion, leaving the essence of each tale to essentially speak for itself.

The first episode إلى سترة أخي السوداء | “To my Brother’s Black Jacket” is a story of sexual harassment. We hear the actress tell a sixteen-year-old’s experience of street harassment. Though always aware, as all young girls and women are, that her mere existence in the streets garners unwanted and often illicit male attention, it was an experience she had in a taxi cab that led her to adopt wearing her brother’s oversized black hoodie whenever she left the house. She shares, “It seems as though harassment is something engraved in the psyche of Arab men, as if it were a divine gift received at birth: you have the right, being a man, to harass any woman who passes by you. It has become part of our culture, something we expect to happen on a daily basis.”

Episode two, معركتي الصامتة | My Silent Battle, follows a woman’s experience with infertility in a society that directly links her value and womanhood with her ability to have children. “Sex became a chore, a routine, an exhausting responsibility. We tried for six months until it was just too disappointing. All I wanted was for the doctors to put a baby in my uterus and be done with it”, her declaration reveals.

Jasadi season three (full episode list below) is hosted by Alma Intabli and produced by Shahd Bani Odeh, Heba Afifi, Alma Intabli and the Mauj team, with music composition and sound design by Muhammed Khreizat, Paul Alof and Sarah Kaddouri and artwork by Mona El Kateb.

1. إلى سترة أخي السوداء | To my Brother’s Black Jacket
2. معركتي الصامتة | My Silent Battle
3. فجوة اللذة | The Pleasure Gap
4. خُلقت عارية | Created Naked
5. أمومة قيد التنفيذ | Motherhood on Hold
6. أنا ومثلي الملايين | Millions Like Me
7. الشخص المطلوب غير مُتاح | The Person You’re Calling is Not Available Right Now
8. لستُ أماً | I am not a Mother
9. سوف تلعنكِ الملائكة | The Angels Will Curse You
10. أنتِ | You
11. أنا الغريبة | I am the Strange One
12. سَطوةُ التسميات | The Power of Labels
13. قصة لصغيرتي | A Story for my Little Girl
14. سارق القلوب | The Heart Thief |
15. من بعد إذنكم | With Your Permission
16. قميص أبيض وسروال أسود | A White Shirt and Black Pants
17. أمّي العزيزة | Dear Mother
18. العيشُ في جسدٍ سَمين | Living in a Fat Body
19. حُريَّة بالإيجار | Rented Freedom

       20.   عن الحميمية والخزي | About Intimacy and Shame  

A revolutionary podcast

The most impactful thing about Jasadi is not its discussion of things that tend to go unspoken or expressed in hushed tones but that it curates these conversations in the Arabic language. Many of the issues the podcast sheds light on are much more commonly discussed in English, with available resources and representation largely inaccessible to those outside of the language. Typically, these are those who need them the most. Consequently, Jasadi provides transcontinental Arabic speakers with a place to listen, learn and feel less alone about the things they’ve been taught never to speak of. The team behind Jasadi made a conscious decision to take the risk of discussing topics that are often criminalised, both by the court of public opinion and the law. In doing so, they’ve birthed a groundbreaking podcast that not only increases visibility for Arabic-speaking women’s issues but spearheads it for trans, queer and gender non-conforming Arabs and Arab speakers in the SWANA region and its diaspora.

Jasadi is available from streaming on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Anghami, Deezer, Soundcloud, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

If you’re interested in contributing to their work, check out their Patreon and follow @kerningcultures on Instagram to learn more about their other podcasts and keep up with the next season of Jasadi - coming later this summer!