Islands of Resistance by Andrea Langlois, Ron Sakolsky, Marian van der Zon

Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada

 

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About Islands of Resistance

Visit the Islands of Resistance website for more about the book and to hear audio clips of pirate radio.

Since radio's invention, some Canadians have been concerned about the increasingly commercialized and centralized nature of medium. Sometimes working alone, more often in teams, and always illegally, these activists represent islands of resistance within the ocean of homogenous frequencies, pirating radio signals for personal, political and artistic expression.

In the first book published on the subject, Islands of Resistance gives you a view from the crowsnest of the phenomenon of pirate radio in Canada. Here is a collection of seventeen activist manifestos, artistic treatises of intent, historical essays on the development of radio and its regulatory bodies, sociological examination of pirate radio's application in new social movements, and personal anecdotes from behind the eyepatch.

Just as the new media ostenibly renders the old obsolete, Islands of Resistance unveils the existance of a thriving clandestine counterculture. An invaluable addition to an unscrutinized subject in Canadian media studies, Islands of Resistance appeals to the anarchist, anti–authoritarian impulses in all of us.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: Setting Sail: Navigating Pirate Radio Waves in Canada
Ron Sakolsky, Marian van der Zon & Andrea Langlois

CHAPTER 2: Latitudes of Rebellion: Free Radio in an International Context
Stephen Dunifer

CHAPTER 3: Resistance to Regulation Among Early Canadian Broadcasters and Listeners
Anne MacLennan

CHAPTER 4: Freedom Soundz: A Programmer's Journey Beyond Licenced Community Radio
Sheila Nopper

CHAPTER 5: Secwepemc Radio: Reclamation of Our Common Property
Neskie Manuel

CHAPTER 6: Awakening the "Voice of the Forest": Radio Barriere Lake
Charles Mostoller

CHAPTER 7: Squatting the Airwaves: Pirate Radio as Anarchy in Action
Ron Sakolsky

CHAPTER 8: Amplifying Resistance: Pirate Radio as Protest Tactic
Andrea Langlois & Gretchen King

CHAPTER 9: The Care and Feeding of Temporary Autonomous Radio
Marian van der Zon

CHAPTER 10: The Voyage of a Gender Pirate & Her Toolbox
Bobbi Kozinuk

CHAPTER 11: Pirate Radio & Manoeuvre: Radical Artistic Practices in Quebec by André Éric Létourneau
(translation by Clara Gabriel)

CHAPTER 12: Touch That Dial: Creating Radio Transcending the Regulatory Body
Christof Migone

CHAPTER 13: The Art of Unstable Radio
Anna Friz

CHAPTER 14: Repurposed and Reassembled: Waking Up the Radio
Kristen Roos

CHAPTER 15: Radio Ballroom Halifax
Stephen Kelly & Eleanor King (with Marian van der Zon)

CHAPTER 16: The Power of Small: Integrating Low–Power Radio and Sound Art
Kathy Kennedy

CHAPTER 17: Voices in a Public Place: A Docudrama in Seven Acts on/for Micro–Radio in Canada
Roger Farr

About Andrea Langlois, Ron Sakolsky, Marian van der Zon

Andrea Langlois was a member of the Indymedia movement (CMAQ.net). Autonomous Media: Activating Resistance and Dissent, co–edited with Frederic Dubois, documents uses of media by social justice movements in Canada. She lives in Victoria.

Ron Sakolsky has been a radio pirate for over twenty years in both the States and Canada, and with Stephen Dunifer co–edited Seizing the Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook. He lives on Denman Island, BC.

Marian van der Zon founded a pirate radio station (TAR: Temporary Autonomous Radio) in 2003, a station that is still active. A media activist and musician, van der Zon teaches in the Media Studies and Women's Studies departments at Vancouver Island University.

Visit Andrea Langlois's page

Visit Ron Sakolsky's page

Visit Marian van der Zon's page