For the third year running the Ulex Project is collaborating with Advaya to offer the Regenerative Activism series, this time in the online space.
The times are calling for renewed energy and adaptive capacities. To meet this crisis, we need strategies for deep change on multiple levels. To answer this call we’re inviting you to be a part of a series of online gatherings over 4 consecutive Thursdays in May 2020 to explore how we respond to the challenges of our time for deep change at every level. Bringing together activists, doers and thinkers who are trying to get under the surface of crisis, we’ll be exploring deeper questions and constructing deeper responses.
This will be a collaborative event, the third in a series of annual Regenerative Activism conferences co-hosted by Ulex Project, Advaya and Gita Parihar.
Note: If you sign up after the first event, you will receive a recording and resources to catch up on what you missed.
Ticket link: https://bit.ly/DeepChangeTickets
Tickets give you access to all 4 evenings, Thursday 7th, 21st, 14th and 28th May. Pricing is tiered. The ‘pay-it-forward’ ticket is an option for those who find themselves in a position to support others. Please get in touch if you require a ‘pay-what-you-can’ donation ticket for a further concession: advaya@advayainitiative.com.
Dates & Themes
♦ Session 1: New Economy and Systemic Transformation, Thursday 7th May, 7-10pm BST
♦ Session 2: Climate Justice: Identity, History and Power, Thursday 14th May, 7-10pm BST
♦ Session 3: Rights of Nature: Law and the More-than-Human, Thursday 21st May, 7-10pm BST
♦ Session 4: Resilience in Times of Uncertainty, Thursday 28th May, 7-10pm BST
About this Event
Through the series we will:
♦ Bring together people immersed in tackling the climate crisis, activists working on radical alternatives and pragmatic responses, and those creating new stories for deep cultural regeneration.
♦ Look for new understanding at the intersection between hard political realities and paradigm shifting insights.
♦ Seek to go beyond radical critique to find pathways for radically transformative action.
About the sessions:
These sessions explore four core dimensions of structural change we need and the deep shifts in worldview and consciousness they depend upon:
> Thursday 7th May, 7-10pm:
Session 1: New Economy and Systemic Transformation
Ann Pettifor, an architect of the Green New Deal says, “We can choose to survive. But in order to survive, everything must change. Everything”. This is the scale of the challenge that new economic thinking and radical collective action needs to face. The structure of our economic system, driving both environmental destruction and social fragmentation, needs a radical overhaul. This panel brings together activists and thinkers who are facing the scale of that challenge. Each of them is developing inspiring approaches to systemic transformation, asking deep questions about the assumptions and beliefs that drive the system and the specific structural changes that are needed.
Participants: Ruby Reed (Advaya), Ann Pettifor (Green New Deal), Shaun Chamberlin (Fleming Policy Centre, Transition Network & Dark Optimisim), Fran Boait (Positive Money).
> Thursday 14th May, 7-10pm:
Session 2: Climate Justice: Identity, History and Power
The climate crisis is as much about power and politics as it is about the environment. This session explores the challenges involved in ensuring climate justice and designing a just transition beyond our carbon-belching system for all communities and workers. How can we achieve the changes required in a way that promotes justice and equality by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing the historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities and countries? How can we ensure that the structural transformation required doesn’t strengthen the hand of those who already use their power to exploit and oppress? Understanding the power dynamics of race, class, gender and our economic and political systems – both locally and globally – are crucial to building a climate justice movement. It involves reconstructing our identities, building renewed understanding of our histories, and re-forging our socio-political relationships.
Participants: Gita Parihar, Hiba Ahmad (Our Future Now), Nick Dearden (Global Justice Now), Sheila Menon (Plane Stupid), Rachel Kennerley (Friends of the Earth).
> Thursday 21st May, 7-10pm:
Session 3: Rights of Nature: Law and the More-than-Human
Arguably, the view that humans are at the centre of things, above and superior to all that is non-human, is one of the fundamental flaws at the heart of our dysfunctional civilisation. And yet so much of our society is grounded in this assumption. In various ways, these speakers are all working at the edge of our understanding of agency, personhood and the extension of legal and cultural frameworks to embrace a fuller understanding of who we are and our relationship to nature. What might society and our legal system look like when we recognise rivers as sacred, forests as an aspect of our own breathing, and humans as plain members of the earth community? Where do such worldviews already exist? How might a radical shift in our society that redefines what it is to have sentience change our culture and translate into concrete frameworks for protecting and asserting the rights of nature?
Participants: Gita Parihar, Carlotta Byrne, Shivali Fulchand, Paul Powlesland and Laura Guarch.
> Thursday 28th May, 7-10pm
Session 4: Resilience in times of Uncertainty
These are probably the most important years in our history. We’re facing the gnarly, and interlinked problems of climate crisis, stark inequality and a post-democratic reality. Earth’s life support systems are under attack, while authoritarian, racist and intolerant nationalist populism is on the rise. Our survival involves deep transformation and a shift beyond the failing capitalist system that underpins our extractive and destructive economy. How can we sustain ourselves through this time? How can we enable our activism to be a source of flourishing, for ourselves and society as a whole? We will dig deep into key questions and practices for a truly regenerative activism.
Participants: Gee, Aesha Francis, Dean Francis, Maria Llanos del Corral, Anthea Lawson, Eweryst Zaremba & Jyoti Fernandes.
For participant bios and event registration visit: https://bit.ly/DeepChangeTickets
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