The Ecology of Social Movements: Agency, Theory and Strategy

We are living in a time of multiple crises, in the presence of both great threat and potential. Neoliberal economic growth and traditional political models are in crisis, with a rising far right, growing inequality and violence, and intensifying ecological devastation. For the worst to be prevented and for something new to grow from the cracks of the old, our efforts to contest the future and build strategic alliances are crucial.

As in the natural world, our organisations exist within a much wider ‘movement ecology’ which includes many different networks and ways of taking action, multiple histories and different ways of showing up, in many different places. Understanding ourselves in this wider context helps us to think more clearly about our specific contributions, what others offer, and what wider possibilities might exist. We will explore our own movement practice and ecologies to develop creative strategies for social transformation.

All too often there is a huge gap between the scale of the problems we are responding to and the limits of a single organisation. At times we may see that, though the actions we have taken hold some importance, still they do not achieve the effects we want or expect. All this can lead us into loss of hope, cynicism or burnout. Ecology of Social Movements helps us to find strategic ways forward – to strengthen resilience for hard times and difficult places, to rethink our organisations’ situation and tactics, find unexpected allies, explore new initiatives, think differently about movement strategy – and be in a space with others that deeply honours that we cannot do everything on our own.

How can we develop more powerful and effective alliances, across different organisations, social situations, places and issues that can allow us to genuinely change the situation and win against powerful opposition? How can our own organisations become more effective as part of a wider whole? And how can we find a path to social change grounded in solidarity, cooperation and creativity, despite our differences?

We will explore:

• Ways of understanding social movement ecologies and where and how our organisations fit
• The life cycles of movements, our roles within them, and what we can learn from movement history
• How to build alliances and transversal strategies to increase our collective impact
• Power and empowerment at social and movement levels; how can it be disrupted, transformed, reclaimed?
• Theories of social change; what we can learn from diverse perspectives and approaches, how and when divergent strategies can strengthen impact.

Learning from each other’s struggles

This course uses carefully chosen tools and theories that we have found are highly useful for organisers in supporting their work to become more effective, better networked and able to contribute to deeper social change. The course supports a shared process of deepening reflection and learning in a community of exploration. Orientating in this collective, strategic way, sits beside a commitment to emancipatory and radical learning. With the experience and knowledge we bring from this strand of our work, we hold the course design in a flexible and responsive way, focusing on shaping content for participants’ learning needs and creating space to hear and learn from one another.

Importantly, this enables us to learn from each other’s struggles. We don’t have to rely only on limited  experience within our single organisations, or indeed mainstream sources, to support our problem solving. Course participants and trainers bring a rich and wide variety of movement experience and possibilities into the room. When we spend proper time with our peers from different movements, countries, social situations and traditions, and really listen, we can learn a huge amount about the choices for how and why to organise in the ways we do. We get perspective on our own approaches and build our capacities to work more effectively across our many differences and across distance.

Who is it aimed at?

Anyone involved in socially engaged action addressing ecological, political and social justice issues. We embrace a broad definition of activism, including: Resistance – action preventing further damage to ecosystems and social justice; Renewal – action focused on developing and creating alternatives for healthier societies and communities; and Building Resilience – action supporting increased resilience in communities to weather the uncertain times ahead.

Participants should:

• Come with significant movement experience and engagement
• Be open to deep and critical thinking in solidarity with others
• Be embedded in organisations or networks that they can bring their strategic learning back to
• Come with knowledge and support of their group(s) and what strategic problems need work.

The main spoken language on the course will be English.

Preparation and follow-up

The course is designed to include a bit of preparatory work – collecting some materials from your organisations/movements and reflecting on key strategic problems. Post course, there will be the option to join a forum with other course participants to support good follow-up and continue sharing experience as we carry our learning back into our day to day work.

For accessibility and venue information see <here>.