So the first time I saw Samira Jabi, she was speaking on stage at TEDx in Boulder, Colorado.
I was blown away by her story, her graceful, wise, kind, straight up, funny presence, especially given the fact that over the last few years, she'd been diagnosed with a brain tumor, endured ten surgeries, and on any given day might find herself leaking spinal fluid.
While teaching students at the university.
I kind of had to know more.
And as I dove deeper into the work she has devoted herself to for her professional life, I was even more convicted.
She had to be on the podcast, so I reached out to her.
She is a scholar of digital media, trauma, social media, international relations, feminist theory, and communication.
Samira is currently an instructor and director of digital influenced pedagogy at the University of Colorado.
But it was her take on trauma, both personal and mass scale societal trauma, and how social media and technology can actually be powerful tools for recovery, for meaning making, and finding, belonging and safety in the aftermath that really opened my mind and eyes and left me with hope.
It is such a powerful lens, especially when so many others are focusing on how social tech is isolating us.
Samira offers a radically different frame, a way to tap technology, to come together and to heal.
In today's conversation, we cover much of this, as well as her deeply personal journey of discovery, of being othered when she was younger, finding her own place and voice and identity, and then enduring her own trauma and learning to embrace and celebrate each moment of life as a gift.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
So, as you mentioned.
So your family is from Iran.
What generation came here?
So my parents came from Iran just before the revolution.
Got it.
So my dad wanted to come from early seventies?