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)
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Location:
Jeroen (he/him pronouns) has been involved in grassroots social movements for more than two decades now, starting back when he was fifteen. Throughout the years the fights for “climate justice” and “migrant justice” have been consistently on top of the list of struggles that make his heart beat faster. A key transformative moment for Jeroen was reading Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire’s revolutionary pedagogy gave him a language to support the creation of emancipatory learning environments, rooted in a desire for collective liberation. Jeroen has also been exploring in depth Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and Joanna Macy’s The Work That Reconnects among other methodologies to build his trainer’s toolkit. Inspired by the liberatory possibilities of these traditions, he started an organization with a friend, LABO vzw, based in Belgium, where he has worked as a trainer and campaigner between 2013 and 2023.
Tools for effective and sustainable activism
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new stories: different worlds
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Knowledge, skills and perspectives to challenge oppression and create spaces of solidarity.
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Tools for effective and sustainable activism
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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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Ulex: del latín, (tojo en castellano, argelaga en catalán) nombre.
1. Arbusto espinoso de hoja perenne y floración, con gran capacidad de regeneración y resistencia. Sus púas se abren al entrar en contacto con el fuego y vuelve a brotar de los tocones carbonizados. Planta sucesional que crece bien en condiciones difíciles. Mejora la fertilidad del suelo mediante la fijación de nitrógeno, preparando el terreno para una renovada biodiversidad.
2. Una opción tradicional para encender fuegos. Arde con intensidad y brillo.
3. Un proyecto en red que aporta nutrición y fertilidad a los movimientos sociales europeos a través de la formación
