Meeting notes

–Notes are in chronological order from earliest to latest–

May 12th, 2020

 Reactions to the readings on ‘First Nations Resistance and Climate change’ and other thoughts ....

• Sovereignty versus practical realities of living
• Decolonization
• Indigenous prophecy meets scientific prediction
• Resolving generational trauma
• Reconnecting - The crux of Westernization - Creating spaces to reconnect to our bodies and to the Earth
• Trust what is emerging
• Sharing experiences (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) from different parts of the world: Latin America/Europe/Africa/North America/Australia
• The role and positive presence of the outsider
• Need for a local, tribal, national, global shared vision allowing for diversity
• Challenging complexity - e.g. Indigenous rights versus green movement
• The need for time .... to pause, reflect and work out directions, draw together differences
• Workers rights and the need to take care of existing workers in a just transition to alternatives. Degrowth will mean less traditional ‘work’ and so the need for something else.
• The role of science in a just transition (multiple sciences not just Western)
• New normal – shared perspectives under lock down - how to capture this
• Bruno Latour’s notion of living on two (or more) different planets (in his book ‘Down to Earth’)
• Certain groups of people being considered expendable
• Exploring communication ...
• We are in a liminal space - of confusion, of messiness, of not knowing where we are or where we are going, lets accept this and allow it to be, so we don't rush to ‘solutions’ that are not meaningful or effective.
• How can we build a nation? What is it and how will we all contribute?
• Being in a container – sharing our own transitions, in touch with principles that are important to us
• How can we ‘re-enter’ in a just way - acknowledging the role that African Americans and others have played in serving others at their own cost - what is their sense of place?
• Building relationships - who each person is, what do you like, love and do
• Flesh out the ways that change can happen and the threats to those changes
• Important that we recognize power and how it is applied
• Patient trust versus the need for action

May 27th, 2020

 Reactions to ‘Disaster Capitalism and a People’s response’ and other thoughts

The views and perspectives are still very much from the US or Australia and do not reflect well the experiences from Latin America – how to bring these in? Questioning that the answer to problems with capitalism is socialism – must consider the problems of socialism too especially in Latin America. Need also to question the model of development of the West.

Just transition is still the key thing arising from these materials – taking care of workers in existing systems whilst transforming to new systems

Considering ways in which we can connect with others - global practices and networks - this is a touchable moment

We need to question and consider the role of work – the idea of work, vulnerable workers, essential work, whose work? Who for? The connection between work, knowledge and social cohesion.

The following themes arose in our discussion:

• Just transition
• Work
• Re-balancing power
• Values of success – truth meaning and value
• Capitalism/socialism – nationalism, growth, greed
• Westernization
• Wholeness versus patriarchy and racism
• Political theology of the earth (Katherine Keller)
• Corporations, power and culture

We considered the following action items we would like to include in future meetings:

• Critical friend - someone to help you question your own assumptions and ideas
• Sharing one idea or reading from the two weeks before - if it's a paper please share beforehand otherwise just bring it up at the meeting
• Taking one of the themes above and leading a discussion around this with associated papers, etc. - please let us know if you are interested
• Graphic recording – Holly
• Bring in the work of other networks and meetings and share these with the group - please bring this up each session as appropriate
• Digital place to store readings and links - Jerry/Eric to consider mechanisms

– Critical Friends –

My suggestions are as follows – I've tried to think about overlaps of interests / enough difference to support criticality/ people that don't know each other so well to stretch us. I will think of an activity for our next meeting to use critical friends to get us going.

Caroline/Holly – Jerry/Glevy – John/Eric – Debbie/Melissa

June 9th, 2020

 Reaction to "Democracy" (but more specifically to the anti-racism movement)

Reaction to Democracy (with additional emphasis on the anti-racism movement given the timing of the meeting with current events)

The conversation touched on different aspects of democracy, from municipalism to town meetings to indigenous democracy, there was also a significant discussion around anti-racism given the turmoil erupting out of the killing of George Floyd in the USA and the protests that have broken out across the USA and around the world in support of anti-racists reforms, especially with regards to the brutality of policing.

The issue of militancy, which was defined for our group as non-violent radical challenge to the status quo, was brought up but not fully explored as an imperative if anti-racist change is going to get any significant traction, with a sense that without militance, this may all settle back into the same racist realities that much of world is subjected to and is structurally protected from being undone.

Town meetings, a localized form of democracy that brings people together to engage in dialogue as a key component of the decision-making process, where town residents are encouraged to come and share perspective before they each vote on key issues involving the town, was shared noting this continues to exist in rural communities but is hard to find in urban settings.

Indigenous democracy is an inclusive process that focuses on listening to all voices, respecting the different needs and perspectives but also embracing the importance of looking beyond individual needs to the community needs and, more importantly, to environmental needs... allowing people to consider the important decision-making role not just on what is best for the people but what is best for the planet (local environment and beyond). The listening to each other and the planet, and responding to what is learned from listening rather than what is desired for oneself, especially by those at the top of the hierarchy, is essential to this form of democracy.

Frustrations were shared around the perpetuation of power and privilege, whether it be by privileged students questioning the political motives of professors who expose inequities of privilege or by liberals advancing their own interests and causes upon other contexts they have the resources and interest to influence, even if their understanding does not correlate to their judgements.

Municipalism, from the readings, was raised as a growing counter to centralized democracy, noting its ability to address the most urgent and relevant needs of the city. There was general agreement that neither local nor central governance holds the key and neither should be “fetishized”. That led to sharing of the string vest theory, which highlights the balance needed between central governance (string) and local governance (spaces between the string). It was a nice metaphor for understanding the need for a balance that at a certain point, you can have too much space or too much string, thus compromising the intent behind the string vest.

We had a chance to connect in breakout rooms with our critical friends, this being the first chance to connect for many and thus more a chance to get familiar with each other than to go deeply into the topic.

Action Items

• We agreed to stay with the reading assignments but as we did this week, to feel free to pull pertinent topics into the discussion.
• Eric is currently setting up a wiki page that will allow us to post articles and videos relevant to our group that will be easily accessible.
• We are all encouraged to share content we think will be helpful to the group.

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June 23rd, 2020

 Reaction to "A New Economy"

• New Internationalist community journalism project in Newcastle
• Plaine Commune in Northern Paris Suburb
• Hilary Wainwright (paper linked to in readings section)
• need to balance centralization/decentralization in communal/autonomous social formations - UK response to Covid-19 is too insulated from local conditions and centralized while US response is fragmented and decentralized
• Pioneer Valley Cooperative Farm in Northampton, MA is a worker-owned farm with 7 members on 4 acres (https://pvworkerscenter.org/coop-farm/)
• Highlander Center in Tenn. is a social justice leadership and training school (http://thehighlandcenter.org/)
• Argentina's Recovered worker-owned Factories embedded in communities and offering community services e.g. health services, popular education courses, libraries, performance spaces, etc.
• Mondragon Corporation is a federation of worker-owned cooperatives in the Spanish Basque region
• transitional horizons to soft power
• how has our internalization of capitalism impeded our ability to create alternative political/social/economic structures?
• The economy is a term for how people relate to each other and the world around them in order to support a full and meaningful life
• localization of economy
• motivation of growth can be different than profit
• hierarchical and patriarchal construction of communes in Venezuela. Movement came from top down. Women's groups already practicing communal principles
• organic approach as opposed to orchestrated approach to change
• research that doesn't reflect experiences at local level cannot create change
• theory — value — action
• Gramsci's organic intellectual
• clarify differences between rural and urban environments/farm culture
• Lomax investigated music as embodiments of different economies - participatory or expert based
• Heart of England Forest (https://bit.ly/3fbEZ0x)

July 7th, 2020

 Reaction to "Building Relationships & Power for Transformation"

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Kindred – Octavia Butler

• Kumeyaay held a demonstration in San Diego where they blasted and human remains came up. Burial grounds ignored. Hope in the diversity of the event.

• Age of Surveillance Capitalism – Shoshana Zuboff

A Question of Culture – Building Relationship and then approaching frameworks for looking at White Supremacy.

• Individual Transformation and is it the most productive thing we can be doing right now?

Saul Alinsky and his Community Organizing techniques

• Hierarchy vs. Participatory Democracy

Revolutionary Goals and Revolutionary Processes must be aligned.

Responding to the Podcast

• How do we get buy in? How do we actually align values between groups in some way? How do we analyze economic systems? How to bring in systemic change that is fair and democratic and stays the cause?
• The leave UK interpretation is contested. Each group claiming “they got the vote through”
• Manipulation of the media. Cambridge Analytic

Joining groups with people with different relationships can create complex communication webs. Trust – How we come to trust a group we enter or assume we can because we know someone or some of the people, but how do you move from the individual trust to trusting others in a group?

Limitations of communication via email and zoom vs. face to face building.

Trust built through common struggle and activities – participate together.

Community Labor Coalition:

• Organizing in cities in New York around responsible development with affordable housing, more green space, and local hire agreements with teeth that lead to careers with health care and family sustaining benefits.

—Need help with the full-time task of organizing coalition communication

—Need to take time, and break bread

—Need to have strategy but also always reflecting

—Need to be willing to listen

Indigenous Group Organizing —

• Being able to share an activity – crucial to building the trust
• Individuals representing is all just theory until we actually were able to have an exchange
• Build relationships when it’s uncomfortable not an easy thing. We achieved that because we listening to each other.
• Bring Food to the table (literally and figuratively).
• Who you are, not what you are or what you can do (Words match my walk.)

Come to the table of a dialogue Listening/Understanding the values of the communities we are entering into coalition. Time, again

• Very important when you try to build or help facilitate this type of network, to listen to what people are saying.

Venezuela

• Key goal was to build a network of indigenous background environmental leader
• Recently their issue interest is shifted from environmental. Now they want to talk about food stability. Without food we can’t do environmental work.
• If you want to gain the trust you have to be in the same line of space with them. Show Solidarity
• Assumption that people on the ground in Latin American want to build the revolution. Need to focus on the issues they have.

In Argentina – Doing this work because need to eat Not interested in discussing theoretical

Casa Pueblo – Countering the mining needed to not start there.

Dakota Pipeline – Environmental lens on a sovereignty fight

Food Security in a Western experience vs. any food whatsoever Linking the issue of mining and high levels of coronavirus Health.

Always watching for having one’s own agenda and not listening to what the needs are.

Nicaragua

• Systems of information flow (youth and community leaders who went door to door and knew everyone and their status – connected to a District Nurse and then a broader group.
• Nesting Dolls – Strategic Politics of health networks

By keeping close relationships with these communities able to maintain power. Government can utilize these networks for maintain power but also can be used and developed to get information in a positive health

Coronavirus contact tracing implementation will then exist and be able to be used to exert control later. Allowing them to consolidate control.

ESJP Community Solidarity and Universities – How to work together. Value informed Practice – PRAXIS Waste for Life and how they work vs. others with the same technology. For Profit model: Employing and then generating profits back vs. Waste for Life – generated by the community

What is our role?

• Charity? Necessary but not sufficient.
• How we bring ideas and theories to help groups?
• How can we??

Power – For abiding change (whatever you call it) to occur, you have to be able to exert some sort of power. Whether on your environment or autonomously.

How do those without power gain back any power? Seeing you have the ability to change the circumstances.

Exploring Power

• What are the barriers, what’s emerging in the margins that are effective, how can we connect these movements? Way of capturing this – maybe visually. Cross-pollinating emerging systems.

Issue based coalitions and working with community.

• Comes a point where you have to start all over again.
• What was importance was not the individual victories, but to keep these relationships going in such a manner that they were able to act as a powerful coalition.

July 21st, 2020

Reaction to "Centering Justice and Care"

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• John - has been thinking about nomadic theory ( Rosie Braidotti) and liminal spaces

• Eric on epistemological Luddism - active protest against getting involved (Winner’s "do artifacts have politics")

• Eric and Caroline have been thinking about school - no guidance from state or locality - considering outdoor learning, and how it can help with covid. We wrote a letter to the governor of NY and school superintendents. Need clothing for kids to go outside all weathers.

• Also considering white vans taking people from streets by unidentified federal agents in Portland - reminding us of those from both Sri Lanka and Argentina who lived through years of ‘disappearing’ people.

• Glevys - Drug dealers challenging the government challenging the government - state within the state, link between drug dealers and mining companies. WHO considers Latin America will be worst hit, especially situation in Venezuela is horrendous. Worry about lack of attention to South and future of region immersed in violence. Future very bleak for Latin America.

• Debbie has been doing a lot of work protesting with Kumeyaay people at the border, desecration of burial sites. Disgusted with what’s happening in Portland, no connection to that which has happened in other countries e.g Nazi Germany. About ready to go back home to Canada. When you see injustice you must speak out.

• Melissa is outside a meeting, she’s been meeting with 12-15 people face to face, one o whom is in ankle bracelet and she needs to deal with his probation officer, thinking about parole officers and probation and surrounding issues. Thinking also about Portland, and the rise of facism in the US. Reading Loren Eiseley, anthropologist/ nature - reunification of climate justice and this relates to classes I’m running, how can I link to environmental issues, infection rates in South Bronx. What can I do with small group of people whilst recognising that they are compromised by the system because they are on parole.

• Holly feeling angry, focusing on meditations to enable me to get my thoughts and feelings in focus

• Eric suggested ideas on Radical humanism ( Gia Tolentino). Via Campesino - international food sovereignty network

• Jerry - listening to the intercept, Ruth Gilmore, on abolishing prisons, how ignorant we are about the systemic oppressions of prison system. Loved what Gia brought about hope as a discipline. Interesting work in Syria from Build Up team, two Syrians, urban planners and architects reconstruct and rebuild Syria, a number inside of Syria - insiders and outsiders, recognising what can come from that and intersections between worlds I’ve been involved in and what’s going on in the US? Blackspace - black urban planners, only love at the speed of trust.

• Caroline talked about her thoughts on rural education, learning from nature, and also urban resiliency

• Jerry - social media is so entrenched - can it become something different. BLM gone way beyond activism. Have there been hard looks at ways in which systemic injustice has been accelerated to be entrenched.

• Eric - questions also about capitalism and its inevitability, Laura Flanders, Ruth Gilmore also historicizes slave patrols. Everything is individual and racism needs racism training , police need sensitivity training. Structural issues that need to be challenged. Thought collective, hegemony, common sense.

• Naomi who was being interviewed - ways to move away from the system.

• The system co-ops any attempt you make to change it.

• Co-op the threat becomes greater - significant understanding changes the equations.

• John on Steiger - the speed with which it operates, five minute updates or responses. How do you guard against that, I’m not just taken for granted?

• How systems Derrida talks about how the system itself includes things to destroy itself from the inside - every system has the seeds of its own destruction. Will Davis at Goldsmiths - nervous states talks about how social media uses people’s feelings, what is triggered, to get beyond that is very difficult.

• The Intelligence report released information about the meddling with Brexit and Trump etc.

• Tik-Tok people Kapoc people sabotage movements

• Holly - futurism came up, coopting decolonize, etc, how certain futures benefits some over others - criminal justice system obsolete, liberal policies soften it to make it stronger. US has sold the idea that you can be the future of the world. Indigenous solidarity is a necessary goal - what can our future be?

• Debbie on co-option on reservation - in order to succeed in western world, must be the doctors and the lawyers. Others say I don’t need your teaching to move in this works, it’s a struggle. Trying to advocate to bring modern book learning and Indigenous wisdom together. No trust for that.

• Something that’s part of North American context - restorative justice. In Indigenous culture victim and perpetrator worked together to heal, long time, trust has to be built. Having time to have trust. I’m hearing the system is broken and we have to look at restorative practices.

• On the issue of power thought about the link with several governments people have to trust them to build the new fusion. Trust was lost. People are lost and don’t know where to start. How to rebuild the country. Systems are linked to control people and make them feel powerless. Entrenched powerlessness. Caused by Interconnecting systems of : Multinationals, criminal gangs, paramilitary groups.

• Eric on town in Cheran, Mexico which formed a self-defense system, autonomous community, policing itself.

• Glevys mentioned small towns or villages have organized themselves, in spite of these there is the other force which dictates what people can and cannot do. Village community in Venezuela organized to prevent miners from kidnapping their daughters. Worked well - they brought the girls back. The miners wiped them out. Seat of violence is in the State. Mexico and Venezuela - violence sits in different groups.

• Jerry the thing about these being small places of hope- the fact that’s it not accessible to us, not surprising that we don’t have access, let’s not assume if we are only getting glimpses that these are the only things that exist. Hope is a device.

• Caroline talked about radio ambulance and the Lupa app which shares stories from Latin American people wherever they find themselves, stories of injustice, resistance suffering and hope

• Eric agreed that we need to consider the small places of hope such as Soulfire farm

• Jerry - dangerous to over-expose groups that may resist but are fragile

• Eric - if groups of resistance and need funding for an identified a need - autonomous groups that have identified actions

• Glevys - move forward let’s prepare for the future, let’s build capacity for the future. Values, - etc one of the things we are going to do is build on these capacities for the moment that they can move forward. Opportunity to question development agenda and establish what future can look like. In case of Indigenous people hard to accept that they left their communities and now they have to go back and begin again.

• Eric - accommodation, assimilation, that’s the conversation that people are wanting to have. How we got to where we are and what the future can look like.

• Caroline on capability theory - developing capabilities for an unknown future

• Consider how we can move forward - ideas on our own or joint projects or actions or keep talking about ideas

August 4, 2020

 freeform 

Meeting 4th August Present: Melissa, Debbie, Holly, Eric, Jerry, Caroline, John and Glevys (minutes- taker)

Eric: Suggested purpose of meeting would be to find out what’s on our minds. Thought the game “pass the ball around” and follow the thread would help to think how things are inter-related: for example, the COVID-19 pandemic is linked to TB and malaria. He reminded us of the consequences of focusing on one thing to the exclusion of others e.g. Bangladesh suffering the consequences of climate change.

Jerry: Working on Kenya, Somalia where there is a lack of capacity to deal with Covid19; Other things start to escalate. These are scary times. A real risk that information can be manipulated. Set back for HIV, malaria. Promising work being done on vaccines, e.g. Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa: very impressive. Plenty of good will going round. Digital peace-building with around 60 students, not paid, learning skills on-line. There is promise and hope, but some ugly realities. Governments exploiting international aid is a source of corruption, providing the opportunity. There will be elections in Kenya in 2020. Those in power suggest the situation has to do with other factors (deaths from malaria, tuberculosis). It is easy to associate Covid with other conditions.

Debbie: Going to give it a different spin; how can we take care of the planet when we don’t know how to take care of ourselves? Found people who don’t wear a face-mask have an impact on her. Described an incident at a dog-park (in California) of a woman who was abusive towards a couple not wearing a face-mask, although they were not close to her. She continued shouting rudely, produced a can of Mace and sprayed the man. Such incidents show there is no collective connections. Saddened by such outrageous behaviour. Disheartened and disgusted by the incident. The woman was followed to her car, the plate noted and reported. If I’m connected, my duty is to take care. We [the group] all have the desire to share, to connect, no matter where we are. Saddened that we can’t take things seriously enough.

Holly: Live with six people, all feeling with symptons, thought they had Covid so were all tested. All went to the woods, trekked to a mountain, drummed and sang, lying on ground, found harmony and felt better. Looking at indigenous wisdom: a resource, video documentary on indigenous people, which is very centred. Talks of cultural burning; burning once in a while is good for the land. It is frustrating that indigenous people work with the land, but whites ignore such wisdom.

Searching for a job, but so far finding them all silly and meaningless. Feeling anger and frustration; but love for the Earth is coming back.

Glevys: Not looking at Covid figures, but following Latin America where the situation is critical. Would like to do something – will contact Venezuela to send equipment to indigenous people. Malaria and TB is a serious problem within indigenous land, because of the mining. There will be a parliamentary election in Venezuela, in December. Already the main groups are opposing the process. There is concern because new electoral legislation has modified the constitution without respect for due process, so the election is not legal. For example current government has taken from indigenous the right to an individual vote; this then opens the way for corruption. At the last election, three elected indigenous leaders were objected to, and were unable to take their seats. It is difficult to formulate an agreed position, so there will be a big impact on the rights of indigenous people.

Caroline: Been thinking about how best to use who I am. Been thinking about the Forest Schools, but don’t think it is enough. Would really like to follow thread of what is wrong with society, making connections, to get inspired, not in a woolly way. Participated in very interesting class about the pandemic from different perspectives with twenty professors at the university: Dystopian Fiction; Failure of WHO; Catholic church; Over-development; Land Use.

Learning from Nature, indigenous groups. Wanted to talk about future of this group.

John: Important to focus on what we can do to help younger generation. WHO talks of high number of children missing out on formal education. Understood and shared Debbie’s view about damaging human relations. Anti-Vac movement growing in UK. Incident in Seattle related by a student, of Mace being used for no mask. Continuing government shambles in UK. Lockdown of some areas (although it won’t happen). Guidelines are unclear. Think people are confused and frustrated, because they have to make it up as they go along. There are serious concerns about what will happen in the autumn. Numbers are creeping up. General atmosphere is flatness.

We are taking for granted that virtual contact is how we are going to live in the future. Digital contact is better than nothing. Melissa: Thinking of somatic loss. Working with twelve African-American urban residents of New Rochelle via Zoom; keeping distance; being safe. Exploring different activities, including yoga (something physical) for two weeks, which seems to be a good idea with them all. It is dangerous how much we embrace the medium; it is better outdoors.

Studying the intersection of Labour and Civil Rights movements and their stories, including “trouble-makers”. Working with the students reminds her how important it is to engage with them in a honest way.

Eric: Listening to memorial to John Lewis, a tribute from Lawson, who set the record straight about non-violence and the active role of JL; a huge influence.

Caroline: We’ve had a build-up of land and indigenous rights, democracy leading to supporting action. Where to from here? We want to carry on, but in this format? Most are connected through other groups: Debbie and I are into Nature.

Jerry: These conversations are really nice; we’re so buried in where we sit; but the unifier amongst us is important. Keen to join in other initiatives. Excited about nature retreats. No travel for five months; opportunities to explore new directions.

Eric: Agree with Jerry, something interesting within this group. Group has not a sole purpose, very nourishing because of its diversity; the underlying impulse we share plus the diversity of avenues we manoeuvre through our beliefs. I look forward to meetings. People are getting Maced all the time. People seem to have the impulse to play cop; weird, troubling thing; hate being put in that position; feel uncomfortable. John: Sessions interesting, would miss them. Whatever the group decides am happy to follow. Went to Oxford on the train. As there were more people, even outside, put on a mask. Looking at others, people gathering in pubs, restaurants, situation is generating such responses, is divisive. Mask use is inconsistent: how do you feel about other people?

Holly: “Abolish the police” is in your head first. Notice how we react to the world. Thinks it’s important we address our own reactivity. Believe in a fractal world. Our deep internal world can be seen form outside. Look forward to this circle; cherish the conversations; it feels sacred. I have ideas, fascinating to hear everyone.

Debbie: If we continue, won’t be able to make this time

Melissa: I would love to find a way. I like when we read something. Agree with Holly: doesn’t need to be fixed, if there is something we could move towards, would agree.

[John leaves]

[Discussion of forthcoming meetings and new time]

Eric: Idea of structuring with reading as launch pad, gives common start point. The original RESET group meets tomorrow.

Caroline: it could be a process, or something else.

Eric: Something concrete, such as poetry or from a play.

Jerry: Will resonate with others; thanks to Debbie, comments useful; thinking outside our boxes.

Debbie: Tommy’s poem speaks to so many issues.

Caroline: Debbie to do next one? There is a workshop webinar around students and nature; an action team; professional development on-line.

AGREEMENTS

Debbie: Will circulate.

Next meeting to be held on Friday 21st August at 11am/2pm/7pm UK time.