Beyond the Bars Community Radio Programme, a Decolonial Practice?

An ethics of engagement community project was co-developed with 3CR Community Radio to learn about their Beyond the Bars radio programme, a radio broadcast produced in ‘prisons’. A collaboration with a First Nations broadcaster, a 3CR settler producer and two settler academics created a knowledge sharing project with local community radio, to demonstrate how Beyond the Bars can be considered a decolonial practice. This paper reflects on this programme to argue that it creates space- for Indigenous broadcasters and First Nation's people incarcerated to be heard, and to connect with family, community and Country. Broadcast participation means First Nations peoples speak for themselves and reconfigure negative media portrayals, the paper shows. We learn from this community engagement that Beyond the Bars broadcasts contribute to citizen participation despite this problematic ‘carceral setting’. We conclude by briefly suggesting that the collaborative project shows how radio content making participates in a decolonial practice.