A relational and emergent practice for social change
As social practitioners we often observe tensions between what is planned and programmed and the messy, complex, relational, ambiguous nature of what we see happening. This expresses itself through the dissonance between the intentions of the work and the outcomes. Our urgency to achieve change often lies on automatic ways of doing that we hardly question – focusing solely on results, rather than process, on plans rather than response, on doing rather than observing. This training is hosted as part of the Ulex South Project
This course explores moving from an automatic response to observing the processes of life and nature where actions are not guided by linear pre-planned processes and/or undertaken by management teams; but instead are emerging responses from constant interactions amongst the people involved.
It seems to be an intention playing itself out unconsciously for us, but through our activities that despite the best of humanistic intentions, the unspoken habits of the sector hold sway. (Allan Kaplan)
We will work with organic approaches to social and ecological practice. To work in ways that are respectful of the complexity and true nature of our challenges. “Encountering the problems we face in the world today requires the exercise of a responsive creativity premised on our own transformation in the process of engagement” A. Kaplan. Engaging in this way is built through a disciplined practice of observation.We will learn how ecological thinking resonates and apply with social work. We will explore the disciplines of goethean sciences – what is called the practice of social phenomenology – using our own experience to pay delicate attention to our activism. Grounding our learning in the practice of observation and imagination.
Social Phenomenology
Perception is a two way street where our projections influence the seeing so that what we see is in fact what we project. Social work, and migrant solidarity work is a field that is played out in a delicate space of diverse perceptions of the world. It is particularly necessary in this terrain to be aware of the kinds of thinking with which action is created. A blindness to this realisation could entail a predominant understanding over others and an imbalance in terms of the capacity to influence and decide on those not represented, and finally on power and participation.
Methodology
We will follow Goethean exercises of observation to develop the skills of shifting perception. We will apply that observation to natural processes and social processes looking deeply with these lenses into our own work.
Other ways of seeing and other intelligence will be developed within the use of paint, craft, body work, performance, social presencing theatre.
Venue
This training is hosted as part of the Ulex South Project
Bibliography
In the solidarity economy:
(See details of our approach to radical economics here)
Contact us
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Location:
Sergio (all pronouns) was born in Romania and migrated to Germany in the early 2010s. In the past, he was a social worker with homeless people and a social consultant for Eastern European migrants for various organisations. Trained as a filmmaker, he spent two years making a documentary about the ‘civic reawakening’ in Romania and the waves of protest it brought with it. In connection to this, Sergio is currently co-steering the development of an online open-source participative knowledge production platform on activism in Romania. Over the past nine years, Sergiu has offered his skills to various journalists, grassroots collectives and campaigns, mostly working within the labour rights, climate justice, international solidarity and anti-authoritarian movements in Germany and Romania. Nonetheless, his biggest focus since 2020 has been his work as an organiser with the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers Union, where he focuses mostly on organising Romanian migrant workers on construction sites, in factories and in the agricultural field.
Navigating the complex terrain of migrant and migrant-solidarity organising
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an introduction to a holistic and transformative approach to activist training and facilitation
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Go to the people, learn from them. Live with them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have – Lao Tzu
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Building facilitation capacity through participatory practices.
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a space to think critically, to ask challenging and transformative questions, and find deeper inspiration and understanding to empower social change.
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building and strengthening regenerative praxis for BIPOC organisers.
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strategies for weathering, surviving, and recovering from repressive actions by state and non-state forces.
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new stories for a different world.
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exploring the deeper dynamics of collaboration, for transformation.
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strengthening and connecting transformative social movements.
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Ulex: del Llatí, (argelaga en català) nom:
1. Arbust espinós de fulla perenne i floració, amb gran capacitat de regeneració i resistència. Les seves pues s’obren en entrar en contacte amb el foc i torna a brollar dels tocones carbonitzats. Planta successional que creix bé en condicions difícils. Millora la fertilitat del sòl mitjançant la fixació de nitrogen, preparant el terreny per a una renovada biodiversitat.
2. Una opció tradicional per a encendre focs. Crema amb intensitat i lluentor.
3. Un projecte en xarxa que aporta nutrició i fertilitat als moviments socials europeus a través de la formació
