In a nutshell...
Today I am introducing the third and final of my three main categories for this blog, the RCI Archives. It's about one of the issues of sustainability that I find very interesting, world issues and in particular in development aid.
What is the RCI?
Well the RCI, or to give it its full name, Radio Canada International, is the international broadcasting arm of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada's public broadcaster. It started out life in 1945 as the CBC International Service, becoming known as the RCI in 1970. During the 1980s, the RCI was a major producer of original content and conducted a huge number of interviews, investigations and documentaries. These were often recorded and released on records, as you can see to the right. And in my house we have quite the RCI archive!
Finding the archive
I'm not exactly sure how this house ended up with multiple boxes of RCI records, but living with a retired anthropologist who just can't let things be thrown away I suspect he just took these from an office that was being cleared out. I suspect he never got around to listening to them before he put them in the attic and forgot all about them. When I moved to Canada last year, I started to reorganise and tidy the attic level, which is where I have my room, and during that process stumbled over the boxes containing the records. Of course find the records is one thing, listening to them is another!
What I will do with the archive
Many of the interviews on the records cover the themes of Cult of Squirrel, relating to topics on international development, the environment and global politics. This makes for an interesting delve (well at least for me!) into the archives of the RCI. It is my intention to try and revisit these some of the topics discussed and see what has panned out since the broadcasts. If I'm lucky, I might be able to make contact with people involved. Keep you fingers crossed that people say yes when if contact them! Due to the need to research and make contact with people I suspect postings in this category could be a bit slower than with the other two categories, but bear with me. It'll be worth it for sure!
How I will listen:
Fortunately, with the help of some friends here, I have managed to lay my hands on a record player, which I've got set up in my attic. There's a lot of records to get through, so I'll probably be a bit choosy about which ones to listen to... otherwise I could lose my life to living back in the 80s!
