MISSION & ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
Radio is a Foreign Country is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit radio platform, mixtape series, and community collective. Our mission is to explore forgotten and new ways of making radio and to facilitate greater access and exposure to sounds and music not sufficiently documented by industrial music curation. The organization’s primary activities include music and cultural exploration & research, collecting, preservation, education and community events.
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RIAFC began life in 2018 as a homemade mixtape series. Since then, we have collaborated with private collectors, archives, field recordists, sound artists and small, independent labels to produce over 150 curated mixtapes of rare ceremonial, folk, and pop music from all over the world. Our mixtapes have captivated listeners, amassing nearly half a million plays on various streaming platforms, showcasing the station’s unique blend of global sounds and music exploration. In April 2021, we launched our 24/7 internet radio stream on our website where, on average, we attract 3-5,000 listeners per week. RIAFC also broadcasts on terrestrial radio station WXDR 99.1 FM (New Orleans, LA) (2018 – Present) and, until recently, on Resonance FM 104.4 FM (London, U.K.) (2018-2021). RIAFC has been featured by the Attic Magazine (Bucharest, Romania), Radio Garden (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), EastEast Radio (Moscow, Russia) Stegi Radio | Onassis Foundation (Athens, Greece), Landline Newsletter (Seattle, WA), WIRED Magazine’s Gadget Lab, Radio Elsewheres (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Wireless at Flirt FM (Galway, Irleand),Radio Olisipo (Lisbon, Portugal), Soho Radio (London/New York City), WRMI-Radio Miami International (shortwave), the Gambit (New Orleans) and more.
STAFF & BOARD OF DIRECTORS
KENNETH ROUTON
Founder & Director
Kenneth Routon was born and raised in a working-class family in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. He is a cultural anthropologist by training with a focus on West Africa & the Caribbean and the author of the ehtnographic monograph "Hidden Powers of State in the Cuban Imagination." He has taught anthropology at several universities across the country, including Wesleyan University and the University of New Orleans, and served as a curator at the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum (New Orleans) and grant writer and researcher at Puentes New Orleans. He is the founder and director of Radio is a Foreign Country. In 2024, he worked with the legendary independent label Sublime Frequencies to curate & produce the vinyl LP, "Music for Shape-Shifters: Field Recordings from the Amazonian Lowlands, 1981-1985."​
LISBETH PEDROSO
Board of Directors, President
Chief of Staff & Director of Operations – Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Engagement – City of New Orleans​
Lisbeth Pedroso was born and raised in the colonial township & municipality of Guanabacoa in Havana, Cuba. She grew up in the heart of a thriving cultural and music scene that included rumba, timba and Afro-Cuban religious music. She is passionate about giving back to the community that raised her and, in 2023, she organized and led a group of residents from New Orleans to the island where they personally donated food and other essential goods to needy families in her old barrio.​
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PHOTO CREDIT: Lisbeth featured in Essence Magazine's "Hair Street Style: The Fiercest ESSENCE Festival Naturalistas"
VERA GUTMANN
Board of Directors, Secretary
Grant Writer & Researcher – Wild Fundraising (New Orleans)​
Vera Gutmann was born and raised in the Philippines to a Filipina mother and an Austrian father. She immigrated at age 8. A historian by training, she has shared her research on the history of Africans in the Americas at numerous national and international conferences. Her volunteer work includes teaching English as a Second Language to refugees, serving on the board of a nonprofit fair trade retailer, and working as a historical reenactor for school groups in New Orleans' French Quarter. She loves to travel and her favorite radio station is Radio is a Foreign Country, which she affectionately describes as, "radio for wandering hearts."​​
GITI FARUDI
Board of Directors, Treasurer
Department of Languages – Xavier University of Louisiana​
Giti Farudi was born to an Iranian father and an American mother. She loves travel and language. She has served as Head of the Department of Languages at Xavier University of Louisiana since 2016, and has been a faculty member in the department since 2010. Her accomplishments include the development of Xavier's first faculty led study abroad program. She has developed and grown the program to include a medical shadowing and observational component in both public and private hospitals in Costa Rica. She is passionate about global education and creating meaningful experiences abroad.
ADVISORY BOARD
ROBERT DUNN
WXDR 99.1 MHz FM – Dolphin Radio (New Orleans)
DAVID GOREN
Shortwave Shindig/Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map