PAMELA CURR is Campaign Co-ordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne.
NIKOS PAPASTERGIADIS is Associate Professor at University of Melbourne whose work focuses on cultural theory, artistic practice and cultural institutions in relation to migration, globalisation and impacts of digital technology.

Listen:

26 Jan 2007 photos Karen Trist

Pamela finds out that chasing a missed tram by taxi is tough business – it took half an hour and half a lap of the city to catch it up and hop aboard! But their journey gets underway with relative ease, as they consider the risk involved in journeys undertaken by peoples seeking asylum, travelling without documents and without the privilege of feeling calm and secure. Why does fear and words of difference between people get cultivated by politicians? According to Pamela, fear and division is a way of having people vote for the status quo and cease to hope for something better. It is tragic if it takes a war to make people feel connected, says Nikos. Anecdotes flow of planned and chance events that change the course of people's lives and the connections that people ultimately value. The dialogue turns to the role of conductors connecting people.