Places that Built Us: Belonging and Environmental Justice Across Borders

Please check ticket info for this event below, incl. information about access.

Through migration, climate, technology and politics, we are all connected. But with all that, how do we articulate belonging?

Our writers, Dalia Al-Dujaili, Aileen Angsutorn Lees and Jessica Gaitán Johannesson, discuss the interweaving threads of place and people, and how our stories and care are central to forging paths forward for everybody together. Discussing environmentalism, justice and narrative, they look for common cause among the challenges of our times and explore the role storytelling has in navigating such territory.

– Our Speakers —

Dalia Al-Dujaili is an Iraqi-British writer, editor and producer based in London. She is the online editor of The British Journal of Photography. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Dazed, GQ, WePresent, Aperture, Atmos, It’s Nice That, Elephant Art and more. She is the founder of The Road to Nowhere Magazine and in 2023 she was the Producer of Refugee Week. Dalia holds an MA Hons in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh.

Aileen Angsutorn Lees is a Thai-British writer, photographer and artist based in Perthshire whose work centres social justice and climate justice. She has written for shado magazine, The Courier, Bella Caledonia, Migrant Women Press and National Trust for Scotland, among others. Her poetry has featured in anthologies by Aberdeen University Press, Madrigal Press, Tangerine Press, t’ART Press, Writing Our Legacy and more. She is the founder of Decolonising The Outdoors, a creative and community project which dismantles narratives of dominating land and extracting nature and imagines anti-capitalist decolonial futures.

Jessica Gaitán Johannesson grew up between Sweden, Colombia, and Ecuador. She’s a bookseller and an activist working for climate justice, and lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, How We Are Translated, was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize.

– The Books –

Babylon, Albion : A Personal History of Myth and Migration by Dalia Al-Dujaili - A lyrical inquiry into how identity is informed by the natural world.

Whoever said nature is still has not borne witness to the migration of the seasons. In this lyrical enquiry, Dalia Al-Dujaili considers what it means to belong in your land. She traces the rich heritage of the earth beneath our feet and the wildlife that call it home – from the oak tree and date palm to fairytale creatures, such as dragons, unicorns and the ancient Lamassu.

Weaving together Arab and Islamic mythology with the English and Christian pastoral, Al-Dujaili unmasks the communal lush, familiar and, at times, dark places we share. A love song to Britain, Iraq and the body of earth we hold in common, Babylon, Albion is a compelling re-imagining of what it means to be native.

The Nerves and Their Endings: essays on crisis and response by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson - The body as a measuring tool for planetary harm. A nervous system under increasing stress.

In this urgent collection that moves from the personal to the political and back again, writer, activist, and migrant Jessica Gaitán Johannesson explores how we respond to crises.

She draws parallels between an eating disorder and environmental neurosis, examines the perils of an activist movement built on non-parenthood, dissects the privilege of how we talk about hope, and more.

The synapses that spark between these essays connect essential narratives of response and responsibility, community and choice, belonging and bodies. They carry vital signals.

*Please note that masks will be required at this event (as with all Lighthouse events).

*Accessibility: All events will be professionally filmed & livestreamed. The Roxy is wheelchair accessible (including toilets) and we'll have provisions for neurodivergent guests including stims, quiet space and colour-coded lanyards.

*Events are £5 or free -we completely understand paying for one or two events and then getting free spots for others. The Radical Book Fair is entirely bookshop run and ticket sales are vital to keeping the fair sustainable and paying all our speakers so all support is heartily welcome!

*Featured books: The book & ticket option will select the most recently published book at any given event, if you’re not sure which book you want or don’t want that featured book, then buy a £5 voucher ticket that can be used for any of the books below. There are also DONATION TICKETS which are £10, listed as a 'book', please note these are not redeemable at the fair, and rather a much appreciated contribution to the Fair's running costs,

*If you'd like to help make the book fair accessible to more folks, please consider adding to our pay-it-forward fund HERE.