Episode 10 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where our icebreaker ship explores conflict icebergs as a model: what it highlights, and what it hides.

'All models are wrong, but some are useful' - George Box

Show notes, links

The perenially-useful Seeds for Change have a PDF on navigating conflict in groups.

See our "What is facilitation?" podcast episode page for more general facilitation resources.

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Sami: So welcome everybody to the Resist + Renew short podcast where we chat about facilitation tools, why we love them, and simultaneously, why we hate them. So, moving in to.

we're gonna talk today about conflict icebergs. This is a kind of like model for how people understand and can talk about conflict. And the picture that's often drawn is two icebergs next to each other, where they're kind of like, the top bit sticking out the water will be described as people's position in a conflict. So like, that's kind of like what you can see the first time you're looking at some people that are in a conflict, and what you understand about yourself what you understand about other people, and and then the bit underneath the water people will describe what's like the interests chunk. And so that's talking about like, what is their interest that person has in this conflict? Like, what's the stake they have? And, and then at the very bottom, you'll have needs. So that's the deepest bit. And and this will be like, what is the lack of the kind of fundamental need that people are trying to get met in this conflict, and ways that people often describe this tool. So they'll talk about it as like a position-interest-needs or a conflict iceberg tool? And is they'll say that, like, the reason it's useful as you can use it as a way of thinking about like, well, opposition's may seem like they're not overlapping at all. But actually, if you dig down into interests, then even deeper into needs, you'll maybe uncover a section that actually were both motivated by the same need. And that can help build shared understanding and help as a tool to like move through conflict. And I think people I've sometimes hear say, is,

though, like positions are in conflict and interests can be in conflict needs are never in conflict.

TBC as to how true that is. And so let's chat through a example of when that's been useful.

Kat: Yeah. So I was facilitating a group. And recently where we were trying to work out kind of the next phase of what we were going to be doing together. And there were two ideas that were kind of opposing: one was to start reading a book and working through a book together. And the others was to definitely not read that book and not work through that book together. So they were polarities around what we were going to do. And, and we had quite a lot of exploration around why people wanted to read the book and why people didn't want to read the book. And it felt like they were really like, we weren't going to persuade either side to switch. And so I used the iceberg kind of in my head of like, okay, so there's this tension, I don't know our way through, but maybe if we think down a little bit, there'll be something overlapping.

And we actually just jumped straight into needs, I kind of skipped the interests layer, but went into like, what do we need from this group? Like, why are we here, and everybody did a go round. And in sharing why we were there, there was this real desire to share from personal experience to understand what was going on for us internally and as individuals and in the groups that were part of, and the people that were holding up the book as the thing we should do next was because they thought the book would support us to do that internal work. And the people were saying not the book was because reading for them wasn't the way that was going to help them do their internal work. But we realised that we all wanted to do the internal work. And, and so the people that want to do the reading group are going to set up an additional group where they get to go through the book, and they get to do that. But we're going to hold the space that we still do our regular meetings, where we are looking at other ways in which we might be able to go into that internal work. And so it's kind of a “yes and” solution. But it moved us beyond the polarity, because we then realised we all wanted to be in the space for the same reason, even if it wasn't doing the same thing.

Kat: So that's an example of it working. And in a brief way, I'm wondering, like, there are probably a lot of limitations with this tool. So maybe Ali, do you want to start us off on some other spaces where this doesn't work so well.

Ali: So yeah, limitations of the iceberg model, I guess wanting to jump straight into is that it's a model and all models of the world are simplifications and therefore wrong in some sense, but it still can be useful to like help look at a particular aspect or think about a particular way. It can be a little bit confusing as a model. I guess. It's based, I feel like it's based on, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and nonviolent communication, where needs are seen as like this universal thing. And there's a particular like language and understanding around that. So interests and needs can be confusing, has kind of like a, maybe some baggage around it as well, like nonviolent communication has got a lot of baggage. And I guess it's kind of a little bit individualistic, or it's like, it's like a snapshot of a conflict in a particular time when people are thinking about a moment where there's division, and there are these positions and people in those positions.

Ali: And that can be useful to like, highlight that snapshot, but it doesn't necessarily acknowledge or provide any help for any kind of structural differences: are the gender, race, class ability, disability dynamics going on, as well? And also, is there like long term beef? Which is kind of like not really represented in this model? I feel like it doesn't offer a way through that. Not that I know a simple tool that does. But yeah, it can ignore, ignore them. And like, oversimplify things a bit sometimes. What do you what do you what do you both think?

Sami: Yeah, I think like, with that, like, quote, all models are wrong, but some are useful. Like the there is the aim of any kind of model for anything conflict, whatever is never that it's going to be like 100% accurate reflection of what is going on in a situation. Models are useful in that they illuminate certain things, and then put away certain other things. So it's what you draw into the centre and what you push out into the margins. And I guess the thing, which is often a critique of this tool, like you were saying is that the thing which it generally puts pushes out into the margins is any kind of like structural context, the thing that it draws into the centre is like a very

individual framing of what's happening in a situation. And that's not to say, you can't then try and use that tool to bring in and bring back in those kind of like structural analyses. But there is definitely something in the way that the framing happened. And the way that things are presented that means what it often casts out is a broader analysis of like, the kind of structures that have led to a situation. And, and that's not, I guess, to say that this frame, that this tool is flawed, and shouldn't be used. But it's more I guess, a useful thing to think about in terms of like, well, what's the context in which I'm using this? And what other things Am I going to use to try and make sure that we're not losing that broader political, social structural context?

Ali: You got any thoughts?

Kat: Yeah, just thinking about the example I gave of like, there were structural things that were brought into the conflict, particularly around class and disability and income, access to income. But there was something about the like, we needed to find a way to agreement, that meant that wasn't really what we were focusing on, we were focusing on like, Okay, so what's the lowest common denominator that we can go for that is going to make sure that most people are going to be able to agree and move beyond the conflict. And I wonder like, I'm kind of curious, I'd like us to talk more about other models around how we hold conflict, because I think there are, some maybe useful things in the moment that the iceberg does. And if you're kind of really stuck a polarity, but what else? Because it's Yeah, it doesn't cover everything.

Ali: I guess, in that example. Depending on where it went, it might have been different. So like, if the, if the main reason people didn't want to read book, a book was because we couldn't afford it, then that need would have changed. And then maybe the group would have gone in a different direction and be like, well, let's create a fund within the group to buy books for everybody. Make sure we can all do it. That's what everyone wanted. But it wasn't, that wasn't what people wanted. So it didn't need to go down that route.

Sami: Yeah, I guess, like, What? What's really useful is, as it's like, it's a process, right? Like it's useful as a process to work through. So that you can basically reflect on whether there is like shared, like some kind of shared need motivating people that's underlying the conversation. And I guess the limitation that I experienced with it, is the framing that that shared need necessarily exists. Like I don't think that's it's a, that's a very strong claim that I think isn't necessary to make the tool useful. Like, it's useful because the exploration is useful,

Episode 9 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview Ru from the London Campaign Against Police and State Violence (LCAPSV).

“Very often, the best way to realise what you're about is actually to do something, and not get caught up in the semantics of it all the time”

- Ru

Show notes, links

London Campaign Against Police and State Violence website and Twitter.

Some extra reading suggestions and links from Ru:

From Minneapolis to London: who polices the police? (Freedom News, May 2020)

Hackney Community Defence Association

Asian youth movements in Bradford (Working Class History podcast, September 2019)

REVOLUTION IS NOT A ONE-TIME EVENT (The White Review transcript from a June 2020 panel talk)

The Abolition of Carceral Forms (Base, June 2018)

As we didn't get to spend much time talking about NGOs, Incite's classic Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

Mariame Kaba: Everything Worthwhile Is Done With Other People (Adi, autumn 2019)

And finally, the Mariama Kaba tweet that was mentioned:

Questions I regularly ask myself when I'm outraged about injustice:

1. What resources exist so I can better educate myself?

2. Who's already doing work around this injustice?

3. Do I have the capacity to offer concrete support & help to them?

4. How can I be constructive?

Some groups mentioned in the interview were "GBC" (Green and Black Cross) and "ACAB" (Activist Court Aid Brigade).

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Sami: So, Welcome back, everybody, to the Resist Renew podcast. And today we are delighted to have Ru who organises against state violence and also occasionally writes about race, gender, and abolition. Ru is mainly here today wearing a hat of someone who organises with the London Campaign Against Police and State Violence will also be hopefully bringing in other organising experiences. And knowledge is as well. Ru, thanks for coming.

Ru: No worries. Thanks for having me.

Sami: So, to get into it, and could you talk a little bit about the context that you are organising in so I guess broadly, things around like anti violence, campaigning, that kind of stuff? And like, why that's an area that you focus on why you think it's a good area to organise around.

Ru: So I'm generally organising against state violence, and how that manifests in different spaces. So be that police violence, or immigration enforcement and certainly previously gender based violence and how that's exacerbated or accentuated in contact with this state? And why I'm organising. I mean, yeah, there's, I guess over the years, I was thinking about this before I spoke to you guys, like I guess it's coming up to like a decade of organising in different sort of spaces. And the thing I've obviously my politics have developed over time, you would hope that they would over the course of a decade, but the, the specific thing I was kind of come back to is like, yeah, where is the kind of accentuated power manifesting? And that is the state and how does that kind of interact with the lives of working class people, racialized people, migrants? Or Yeah, like, on the basis of your gender and how is articulated so I think for me, it's always kind of this core idea that it comes back to for me and how I organise and even in in how my politics has developed is still the state unfortunately is, perpetrates, the worst violence is against us. And while the things I focus on might change over the years, or I might develop new tactics, or, you know, I don't know, develop my analysis, that's kind of the thing that I always come back to so.

Sami: And I guess, there's a lot of, well, there can be, in my experiences, a lot of the people that do anti violence work, a lot of the focus in terms of especially if you start talking about NGOs, charities, a lot of its around, I guess we could broadly term interpersonal violence, in terms of where a lot of funding goes, where a lot of money goes, and IE often abstracting away the idea of the state and the state being a thing that does violence on people. And so I'm just wondering if you've got anything around that in to say, or to any thoughts around it in terms of like, what I guess the differences are, and or potentially the crossovers around like interpersonal violence, state violence, how those things kind of intersect, as struggles, yeah.

Ru: 100% and also, we can talk about NGOs later. Yeah, 100% and actually, like, I think I can come on to is obviously actually the problem with NGOs, or professionalised organisations that are securing funding from the state or have to articulate a relationship in collaboration with the state, there's always going to be a kind of a level of, well, this can be changed, like the state can be made better. It serves us like this idea that, yeah, the state is there to serve us. And the thing it's doing often is not serving us properly. But actually, the thing you're able to do with a kind of more, I guess a more material analysis that's actually grounded in what is happening around us rather than something that might actually be a bit idealistic is understanding that the state can't be like, made to serve us. It can't be made better. It can't. Yeah, I guess this kind of liberal idea of it's just kind of working wrong and it's working badly rather than, actually these violences are the natural consequence of how the state is set up. It has to have people that are considered surplus. People that are unfortunately, you know, there's this kind of balance of there, there are people that are always going to face the violence of the state and like that society is kind of organised in that way. And it won't be that suddenly, the state can protect, for instance, like undocumented migrants or something.

Ru: So yeah, sorry, in terms of how these things connect. So I mean, you can talk about gender based violence, or Yeah, interpersonal abuse, where, yeah, if you experienced domestic violence or sexual violence, certainly, especially if you're not white, or if you're a migrant. So you, you know, there's ways in which you're kind of already kind of cast out or you face particular violence that on the state, you may face that interpersonal violence, you also know, for instance, you can't rely on reporting something to the police. Because, you know, perhaps if you're an undocumented migrant, you may get shopped to immigration enforcement, or you get read as the aggressor in a situation. So, yeah, I did a lot of work on domestic violence. When I was kind of starting out, I guess. And yeah, so many cases I dealt with were women who were like, migrant women or British, but you know, black or brown, and they get red as an aggressor in the situation, because they don't know how to communicate with police officers, or at least get them on side.

Ru: So there's, yeah, you might be facing that interpersonal violence, but like, realistically, are you going to go to the police, or, you know, actually, one of the specific things that's used against undocumented migrants is an abusive partner or family member saying, well, if you try and report this, we'll have you removed from the country. So so many ways in which people or you know, your documents are actually kept from you. So you don't know where your passport is, or someone intentionally, like doesn't renew your, your visa. So it's easy, you know, all these things.

Ru: It's really easy to fall into the logic of like talking about the state as an abuser, but it's not. It enables abuse and enables abuse to be more pronounced for people that are already vulnerable. But the machinations of this state are set up in a way in which it doesn't need to like be your abusive partner or like the abusive, I don't know, parent, or however people try and think of the state, the way it's already set up naturalises violence against certain people.

Ru: And so yeah, I mean, I can also come into this later. But I think it's so important when you're organising to have a proper understanding of power, and like how that manifests. And it's, I mean, it's really complex. But in some ways, it's like, really easy when you're talking about the state, because it's like, there's just not a way that you can change this, you can, you can certainly soften the blow, which maybe isn't the right analogy when I'm talking about violence. But yeah, you can basically soften the blow of how the state operates, you can't make the state good. So in that way, it's fairly straightforward.

Ru: But yeah, when you're talking about someone facing interpersonal abuse, it's made worse by how the state operates, and the state can't be made better. Although, yeah, sorry, I think that sounds really nihilistic. But we'll come on to, like, what you shouldn't be sorry. So when you're when you have an articulation of like, what power is and how it manifests, you understand that you can't make that thing good, what you can do is reduce the violence in the way that it operates. And you can scale back its power. And that's why I always come down to like, you have to understand how power operates. And also in an organising context, it helps you to understand how you're exercising power, even if you feel pretty powerless, right? In the face of this giant machine, or in the face of racism, or like structural whiteness. Actually, there are still ways in which we hold informal power, or are involved in a kind of ecosystem of power that we need to be critical of. And we need to use that to frame our organising and also how responsible we are to each other,

Episode 8 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we get into using hand signals ("agreed gestures or shapes that people make with their hands, to communicate in a non-verbal way") as a facilitation tool: what hand signals are useful in facilitation, when they're useful, and their limitations.

'Know why you want to use them, be really clear on what they're for, and keep it kind of simple.' - Ali

Show notes, links

The perenially-useful Seeds for Change have a PDF that covers a lot of the hand signals you may see in meetings.

See our "What is facilitation?" podcast episode page for more general facilitation resources.

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Ali: Hello again, this is the Resist+Renew podcast. And this is the time where we talk about facilitation tools where we geek out and examine some of the things that groups might use to help things go a bit more smoothly. And this week, we're talking about hand signals. Many people have probably come across these in meetings, it's just a way that you can non verbally communicate to each other. And it can be really useful for the facilitator to get a sense of what's going on in the room, it can be used to get who take turns on who's gonna speak and communicate other things like that. So Sami, do you want to kick us off with a story?

Sami: Yeah, sure. So quick example of a scenario where hand signals have been really useful to me in the past is a situation on a protest. And that was at a Arms Company base in the middle of nowhere, lots of different people coming together for like a coordinated day of action to shut down this space and stop vehicles getting in, stop vehicles getting out. And a lot of people who hadn't interacted before, all doing their own actions separately, but trying to make sure they all threaded together into a good plan and blockade. So what that meant was a lot of quite quick fire coordination with a lot of people that you've literally never met before in your life, you have no idea what the plans are, you don't really know what you're going to be trying to coordinate together. But you may be trying to talk about how you can collaboratively and effectively block a road and things like that. And so having like a shared idea of hand signals. And what I guess that kind of leads to is a shared idea of how like a conversation will be structured, which goes into the link, I guess, between hand signals and consensus, which we can maybe talk about, is really enabled, and made a lot more possible, making really quick decisions with strangers in a way where I think if you were just limited to talking, especially in an environment where there's a lot of police around, and you're trying to make a plan, which is really contingent on the police not knowing what you're doing. And having being able to like form up a little circle and do little signals and whatever to each other to indicate agreement, and things like that meant everything went a lot more smoothly than it could have done. So that's a vote of love for hand signals. So worth noting, in the prep chat for this not entirely love for hand signals. So I guess, let's move on to maybe what we see some of the limitations being.

Kat: Yes, I guess I don't use hand signals very much. And I think one of the reasons is because I had a fairly negative experience when I first came across them, which was a lot of people using hand signals and not explaining to me what they were. And coming into a group where people were using lots of signals that I didn't understand felt quite excluding. It also felt a bit culty. And I couldn't really engage because I didn't know what was happening. And then I was also kind of shouted out a little bit for not knowing what the right hand signal was for the right piece of the process. And I think that can happen quite a lot of the expectation of knowing what to do, not necessarily why, if it's explained at all, and sometimes it's not explained at all. So that's kind of one lot of reasons why there are quite a lot of limitations in terms of Is there time to explain what they are? Is there time to explain why they're being used? And is there time for people to actually learn and get involved in the hand signals if that's the way the group works. And but then I guess also if you're in a context of where hand signals are being used, and there are also limitations around what people are doing with those hand signals, and sometimes like negative hand signals are used, and where like strong disagreement and is used, actually someone else explain that. So I've not seen that happen. I'm just reading off the notes at this point.

Sami: I guess because I put that in as a thing so like, I guess it's worth noting that like hand signals that a lot of like grassroots political organising contexts often have a strong link with consensus decision making. And and a lot of the hand signals that come from that are hand signals that kind of link into specific aspects of a consensus decision making process, ie indicating agreement with something and and then like, which Is that probably the most common one people just like twinkling their fingers waving their fingers? and transfers? Great onto a podcast?

Ali: jazz hands?

Sami: Exactly. Sometimes people lose it, people in the states say twinkle fingers, and it just sounds so much more adorable than jazz hands. And but I think, and there's a like, kind of a lot of complexity that can go into that in terms of like loads of different hand signals for loads of different stuff, which kind of links into the problem Kat was talking about in terms of cognitive load, I guess, like, there's just a lot to remember. And to get to the point where people don't have to put up big posters... I've seen, like protest camps before having big posters explaining what all the hand signals are, which I'd say, if you've using that many hand signals. Maybe the process is too confusing. I don't know. And but I think that there's a thing which I've seen happen in spaces where things aren't really operating by, at least aren't operating by formal consensus, let's say, though, maybe people were to describe what they're doing as consensus decision making a conversation for another time, is that there? There, there are hand signals that people will use, which were kind of I would guess, intentionally never really included in the initial set of hand signals, for example, signals to indicate disagreement with something. And because what that can mean is if somebody says something, and people start like so a one, I've seen it a few spaces is people can like twinkling their fingers just on significance, but with the hands pointing down, and to be like, no, which is a very bracing thing to happen when you start talking. And people just start disagreeing with you mid chat very, definitely throws you off maybe is the kind of thing that can work fine in a group of people that already know each other quite well. But in a more open space, which is the generally the context I've seen them used, I think it's I think it's really jarring for the people that it's happening to. And so I think there's - hand signals being used for things which really, you shouldn't be communicating non verbally, you should probably be, if possible, communicating verbally to people. So not just saying, I don't like what you're saying, but at least trying to communicate why you don't like what they're saying. To give them something to go off.

Ali: I definitely liked what you're saying Kat about the not knowing like what this hand signals are or like it feeling culty. I definitely think like, hand signals are full into that like activist subculture thing of like, you have to know it. And if you don't know it, you're not in it. Really. Yeah. Can be like a kind of like a policing thing of unknown thing. Definitely true. Also heard mentioned quite a lot that it's quite a classist thing, like, putting your hand up to speak is very middle class and jarring. If you're like, more used to like a conversational style of speaking where people talk over each other rather than waiting politely. So I've definitely heard people say like, I don't want to use it for that reason. Yeah.

Sami: Big air quotes around “waiting politely”, politely. You had a you had a story, I think Ali your story around.

Ali: Yep. So the first time I came across hand signals, or one of the first times was that my first anarchist bookfair, which was in Cape Town, and my friend ran a workshop in the morning. I can’t remember what it was on maybe, like, anti oppression or something. And it was fine and interesting. But at the end of it, this big guy, suffer looking guy kind of stood up and said, like, this was really bad, like, really poorly facilitated, I'm really not happy. And I've been told these camps, like Occupy in the States, and if like, we should be using all these hand signals. So anybody who wants to learn how to do a meeting properly, come and meet me outside, and I'll talk you through it. And thankfully, no one really went to meet him. Which is funny, because he's being a bit of an idiot. But what I think it kind of illustrates is this idea of like, using all the hand signals all the time, and yeah, not really knowing why. So I think I think that was like a interesting example.

Sami: A real fetishizing of hand signals.

Ali: Yeah, when it was just like a chat, if any hand signal was required, it was just like, put your hand up to speak. And that was totally fine.

Sami: Yeah, I think in that, like, what not wy thing, the thing which I have seen happen a lot, which again,

Episode 7 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview D and Dot from The Classwork Project.

“Thinking that we can just, because we've read some Marx or wherever, that we can start acting in a non capitalist way all the time is silly”

- Dot

Show notes, links

You can find The Classwork Project online, plus specifically:

the Lumpen journal

their class workshops

Dot's poetry

D's books

Some of the academics and philosophers mentioned were: Stephanie Lawler; Nancy Fraser; Bordieu; Marx.

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Kat: Welcome to the Resist and Renew Podcast. Today we're joined by Dorothy Spencer and D Hunter from the Classwork project. It's really great to have you both.

Kat: Dorothy is an editor of the Lumpen journal and member of the class work project. She was born in London and has a background in community and mental health work. Her first book of poetry was published this year with Lumpen publishing titled “see what life is like”. And D is an ageing chav and anarchist inspired community worker. He is the author of two books “Chav solidarity” and “Tracksuits, traumas and class traitors”, auto ethnographic examination of poverty, trauma, community organising and social movements. He is a member of the Class Work Project workers Co Op. And what is too much football. Great to have you both, very welcome.

D: Thanks for having us.

Kat: So first question is what's the context that you're organising in? And why did you choose to focus on this?

D: So I said I take this one. Not that you gave us questions in advance. So I guess there's two contexts, it's probably worth talking about first. I think the bigger one first, which is, you know, the global class, global and national class systems, which we're all like, anyone who's listening to this exists within which, I guess this is a tricky thing. And once one of the parts where,

like, as a coop we’re still having conversations about, but we also have these conversations with the writers and the, you know, people who write for them, and they participate in that conversation. But I suppose it is like, what's the analysis of class? There's definitely like, some hard and fast dogma going around out there are people saying this is what a class analysis is In fact, I think we got a tweet response, not so long ago, when we were publicising it was do they use class analysis, as if it's a singular thing. But what we have is like different competing analysis, analyses And I guess that's part of the context we're looking at, like, we're thinking about class as purely this like relationship to production. Like you're working class, if you don't own the means of it, you're the owning class, if you do. That's one analysis, that's fine. It's useful in some contexts. And I don't think any of us who are part of Classworks think that's the whole and simple answer to it. There's also like the relational aspects of, you know, how class is lived, how class impacts our interactions with the social world and the cultural world. I think some of us might, I think everyone in the class works, again, pays a little bit more attention to that analysis. But fundamentally, like it, I think, Nancy Fraser talks about, like, the recognition versus the redistribution, and I guess those two analyses kind of fit roughly along that kind of paradigm. And whilst whilst we probably spend more time within Lumpen, particularly, the journal and the workshops, thinking about the recognition, but we also like we do, you know, we've literally got a redistribution project going, we had a redistribution project, we also think a lot about that. But this, whatever this analysis in individual might have, and they are living in a classed society, and class society has like global and national dimensions to it, which, you know, have a level of like, the best way to think about it, have similarities and are interlocked, but also like, exists in a in their own discreet ways, like the UK has a very particular class context because of like, the cultural dimension is historically how it's been shaped. The birth of the middle, so I'm using inverted speech marks because I'm on camera. The people listening to this can't see that. Like the middle class, like the creation of the middle class, slowly over time, and what that might mean, does it actually exist or whether it's just a label? And but for us, the point is, it's it's part of that conversation.

D: In the sort of like 80s, 80s and 90s that was a big push for like, are we living in a classless society. Which I guess for me, I like a writer called Stephanie Lawler, who says that class is really about is like, when we talk about class we were talking about is like inequality, whether it's economic, social, or cultural inequality classes, like the weights, the gamut, we hold that in the mix. We hold that in, that question. So the idea that we live in a classless society, which suggests we live in it in an equal society, which is like, I've not met anyone who thinks we do. But maybe they're out there. And if they do, they're on the same kind of drugs I was on not so long ago.

D: Because we do live in an incredibly unequal society in many ways. And that kind of brings me into like, the second part of this that was like the national and social, but there's, international, but it's also the question of within our social movements, and

participation, and how those social movements have formed. And I feel like we spent, particularly with the workshops, and we spent a lot of time trying to think about how is how does class manifest itself within these social movements?

D: Well, I think a lot of people like to talk about, about cultural behaviours, and, you know,

working class people, like, speak loudly, and shout and a passionate, middle class people are deeply repressed and really organised. And, you know, that they may, that might, that may represent some people, but I don't think any of working class middle class or any class position, doesn't within it hold like set characteristics that personality traits, you know, that’s bullshit, but what they do have is, like, they represent different different levels of power. Within our workshops, we talk we use sort of Bordieu formation of like, social, economic, and cultural capital, and like the different levels of that. And I think that gives us like a better barometer, when we're like, working on like how class is reproduced, and how class manifests itself within our social movements. And I think a lot of the, when we when so so the workshops that we do, started when myself and Shan who's another member, were invited to one up in Scotland, two or three years ago. And, like, we were both people from different parts of the working class and Shan is a blue collar Canadian, I'm, like, trashy English underclass. And we both like entered into social movements and being faced with this like, level of resource, people with these resources and social capital that we haven't come close to, in our life so far, like, quite weird and unusual. And we're both like, had spent a decade within those social movements like responding to that with like, different levels of like, anger and fury and sadness and bitterness and all that. So before, you know, so we tried to like unpack some of that within the workshops and found more and more that there were people from different parts of the working class who were feeling the same, who had been responding the same to this like, incredibly unequal like distribution, just within a segment of the population that is, works towards social injustice, or whatever, however you want to think about it.

D: And the social movements for us had like, become these spaces were very similar class class dynamics played out as they did in like, academic spheres or in engagements with different state apparatus, in which people who had resources, who had capital, were able to make decisions and make choices and have control and power within social movement spaces that those without those resources, and those capitals, were unable to do. So the workshops have tried to unpick up, and but you know, we've only done a handful of them, not many so far. So they've had very little shift in the social movement terrain, so that that situation remains within social movements. And at the same time, like we have, within social movements, like a level of critical reflexivity, about different other social characteristics or social identities. I know there'll be some people listen up who weren't going, but class isn't a social identity. And that's, that can be debated. I'm not sure I'm convinced either way. And I recognise that tension, referring to class as a social identity. But there are other social identities, gender and race being two most familiar with folks. And we also have to think about how gender bias interacts with Class and Class interacts with gender and race.

D: And for us, it's an ongoing conversation. It's like bringing this stuff up and trying to do sensitively and delicately. Because what we have at the moment is incredibly binary and divisive, divisive conversations, which like a completely unhelpful by the, the level of frustration I have with the identity, “identity politics” in scare quotes, versus the “class reductionists”, in scare quotes and like that kind of like hostility towards each of those. Yeah, I don't have much time for that. But we can we can do better. In fact, being in social movements, we should be trying to do better than that stuff. Because it is. It's Yeah, it can be it's incredibly personal. But it's incredibly political.

Episode 6 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we get into "fishbowls" as a facilitation tool: what they are, when they're useful, and their limitations.

'That's a key component - you go into it expecting to listen 80% of the time.' - Ali

Show notes, links

Find "Fish bowl" on Seeds for Change's tools page. See Training For Change's tool description for an example of how to use fishbowls in practice.

See our "What is facilitation?" podcast episode page for more general facilitation resources.

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Ali: So welcome back to the toolbox as part of the Resist and Renew podcast. This is where we geek out and look at what might be in your facilitator's toolbox, looking at different tools, what they're good for, why you might use them, and what their limitations are.

Kat: And this week, we're going to be looking at the fishbowl. And I'm going to start us off by explaining a bit about what the fishbowl is. And so fishbowl is when you want to have a conversation between a few people when you've got a larger group, and you would set up the room with two circles, a large circle where most people would sit and then a smaller circle in the middle. And this allows for a few people to be having a conversation while everybody else is able to observe and sometimes interact with that conversation. So there are two main kinds of fishbowl that I want to talk to us about. One is an open fishbowl and the other is a closed fishbowl. So the closed fishbowl is when the seats in the middle circle stay the same. So you have the same people having a conversation for the duration. And it's not possible for anybody else to join that conversation, which means everybody else on the outside is just in the listening and observer role.

Kat: Then you can also have an open fishbowl where you have one seat in the middle that is there that people can use on the outside circle to join the inside circle. And that allows for different people to move in and out of the conversation for the duration, which can make it much more interactive, and then that a closed fishbowl but which one you want depends a little bit on what you're trying to do with the conversation.

Ali: Sweet. I guess the only other thing to add is that you can have like choices on how those people move in and out. Sometimes it's like an empty seat, which is a bit then it puts the onus on like the people in the middle to decide who's gonna leave. And sometimes you tap the person on the shoulder who you want to kick out of the middle circle which requires a bit more guts, but I like it because you get to like get rid of someone who's spoken a lot.

Sami: Like going right into the conflict.

Kat: Who taps out? Someone from the outside circle goes in and says I want you to leave?

Ali: Yeah. I like bold, bold,

Sami: Beef, beef. So, example of fishbowl in practice. So in 2016 am in a few people organised an event called “Building effective solidarity”, which was bringing together a lot of people that do things that could broadly return solidarity work from a lot of different kind of environments, with the aim being like bringing together different people from different backgrounds and seeing how they could work together and learn from each other. And one of the aims for that day was we wanted to make sure that we centred voices that aren't always listened to or heard in a lot of the like kind of conversations that happen around solidarity and like the what I see as the mainstream of like grassroots political organising in London in the UK. And so what we thought a great tool for that would be was having a fishbowl. And so we had a few hand selected people that sat in the centre. So ran it an open fishbowl and in the language that Kat was using before so and made sure that we were very clear in terms of what kind of voices we were welcoming into the centre of the circle to say like you are welcome to join. But remember what the space is for this is to centre voices who want normally heard or listened to. And, and it worked quite well. And specifically because it meant the people who wouldn't have had the confidence to speak on what would have been more like a panel felt more able to engage. Creative an environment, there's a lot more like chatty and backwards and forwards rather than like a person a talk for five minutes Person B talk for five minutes and minimise the thing that people often worried about with panels, which is like more hostile questions from the audience. And, and I think that was really brought out there was a person that wanted to drop out of being one of the speakers in the fishbowl because they felt worried about talking in front of that group of people, or more accurately any group of people, they've not done it before, but me and one of the people that was going to be like a participant in the closed centre of the fishbowl, talked to that person about like, how it was going to go and how we'd be up for supporting them if they still wanted to take part and they did. And so that's like an example and other thoughts in terms of how we structured it is it was part of a one day event. So it's all people that didn't really know each other had out maybe only been together for a few hours, some of them. So we thought it would be good to put it not right at the start of the day. So once there been a bit more of that kind of culture of trust built up in the space, and, and so we put it after lunch when we thought some people may appreciate sitting and listening space.

Ali: Sweet. Great, I definitely like the I agree the bit about the chattiness. And like more of a conversation, because panels can be like very static, and just especially yeah, they can just be like people monologuing. And that's really boring, but fishballs kind of, they have that element for like the first couple of minutes, and then people like, dive in, and then start actually talking to each other. So I feel like it's really, really good tool for that.

Sami: More of a facilitated conversation. Yeah, which I think is a nice vibe. And also and if there's something about like, really the physicality of it like that you like, if you're sitting in a circle in the centre with maybe four other people, like it doesn't, obviously, you know in the back of your mind that you are surrounded by potentially 40 or 50 people, depending on the space that are listening to you. But you do it feels a lot more like you're having a conversation with the small people around you rather than a panel where no matter how you set it up, it always has the kind of lecture people at the front facing out vibe.

Ali: Yeah, totally. So I guess limitations of fishballs. I think I didn't hear about them for ages. And then I used them a few times. And then I kind of heard they came become kind of became like a go to tool in conflict situations. And a lot of times in like a retreat II, five day course vibe, when things have gone a bit off the rails. And I feel like it sometimes works. And sometimes it doesn't. And I guess things that are required for it to work are kind of like a lot of time, so like giving it enough time to go into the conversation and kind of like a lot of flexibility around how long it's gonna last because sometimes it'll go really deep, and people will get into something, and sometimes it just won't go anywhere. So it might need to shorten. And like one that I was part of that was quite short, I don't know how long it was like might have been like an hour or less. It felt really rushed. And there was there was like tension on this course, like a residential course. And there was an older white guy who was talking a lot. And yeah, shock horror. Yeah. And one of the facilitators of the course kind of like tried to use the fishbowl moment as like a Oh, have you noticed, like, you're doing this thing. And I don't know, it just didn't feel like that was the collective holding of that space. And it didn't, it just didn't really happen like. So I don't know, like, I feel like time and trust, and just enough holding of it is a key thing. And if it's not there, then it just feels feels a bit flat sometimes.

Sami: Which I guess links into one or potentially like, obviously, it depends on like how you do it like was placed at the start by Kat. But I think the if you do run a closed fishbowl, there is always the risk, especially if you're doing it in the context, like I mentioned before, it's people that don't know each other, where potentially you’ve never tried to have a conversation as that group before, you don't know how much it's going to flow. And you don't know how much of a struggle it's going to be. So having a closed fishbowl can be quite, the word that's coming to my mind is like ossifying, it can really like lock it down into like, a group of a few people. And you can't open it up by the structure of the conversation. So you're just kind of you're locked in.

Kat: Yeah, and I think a risk with the open fishbowl is that it's still a very observed seat, even though you're not in a panel, you're still in the middle of potentially 50/60/70 people if you're doing two groups split in circles. And that can be quite intimidating, which means only certain people will choose to go into that position. And I really like what you said, Sami and the example you gave around like actually naming who you want to be encouraging into that space. Because I think that does a lot to overcome that problem of who is likely to put themselves in the middle. But it only goes so far potentially because it is still a very watched space.

Sami: And I guess that maybe highlights a thing,

Episode 5 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview Peninah from the Racial Justice Network (RJN).

“We have race at the core of the work and then see how it intersects with other other struggles or identities.”

- Peninah

Show notes, links

Racial Justice Network website + Twitter. A few slices of their work:

The Collective Conversations project

Stop the Scan

13th Recommendation on climate justice

Black and Brown community space

Unlearning Racism Collective

International solidarities with Brazil and Kenya

COVID Response

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me, Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Ali: So welcome everybody. Welcome back to the Resist+Renew podcast. Sami and I are interviewing Peninah Wangari-Jones today from the Racial Justice Network. And we're really excited to have you. Thanks for joining us.

Peninah: Thank you for having me.

Ali: So a little bit about Peninah. Peninah Wangari-Jones is an anti racist activist organiser and director of the Racial Justice Network, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Manchester, focusing on how coloniality shapes black activism. Peninah was born and raised in Kenya, her experiences of discrimination and racism, after migrating to the UK became a catalyst for fighting for racial and social justice. She is interested in race equity, intersectionality, migration, coloniality and internationalising social movements, what a great list of things to be interested in, like, so excited to see where we go from here. So thank you. Um, to kick us off, we would love to know a bit about the contexts you are organising. And so like, what do you see as like, the issues that are of, like, the most urgent or the most pressing things that you're focusing on right now? And how do you choose those things?

Peninah: Yeah, I think perhaps it just kind of fits all within the interest. And so yeah, race equity, race. Raising awareness, raising awareness about racism and stuff like that. It's kind of where we sit. And definitely the organisation, but I know the organisation has been informed by like it says there a bit of my own journey. And so part of it right now, I think, as we know, these would not just got COVID, we had the murder of George Floyd, which is kind of more recently just pushed a lot of things out there. But we also know, like, in terms of the treatment of black and brown people, is this kinda goes on centuries. And so the choice to kind of the question was around how do we tackle racism, because there's a sentiment that we kind of go into the spaces, and everybody's talking about equality and diversity, and that nobody's kind of really like bold or courageous enough to kind of go down the race route. And we felt a little bit of that was intentional, but the consequences of that, we will feeling those consequences. So the desire to push, race and colour, make race, like bit more mainstream, was something that we wanted, but also kind of, to build solidarities across. So sometimes, there's a feeling that if somebody is working on this just doing race, as opposed to race and other oppressions and struggles. So it felt right, and he felt fair to kind of really start to begin to connect these struggles in terms of who really interested in tilting or dismantling, they're not just the white supremacy structures, but imperialism, capitalism, and all of that stuff. We needed to kind of do the interconnectedness of race and class and, you know, a migration, gender, sexual orientation and all of those things. And so at the moment, that's kind of where we are. That's what we do. And it's not been easy for sure. And but we also, I think there was an another angle, maybe just to add was around how people who do, I don't know, not just equal opportunities, and equality and diversity training. There was something about we're not really addressing the root cause of a lot of these things. And so the desire to pull in colonialism. And the desire to kind of talk about the enslavement of people was to say, this is the way that this starts - of the root causes. So we cannot just because we have the Race Act, we have the Equality Act to have all sorts of things, but the one we'll be addressing what where is it that it comes from this fear, anxiety, hatred, treatment of people just on the basis of a were the born this, you know, the colour of their skin and things like that, so, but there was also another angle, of course, the focus, which we have is, is we predominantly black and brown communities. So I'd say 80% of our work is with those communities, and and part of it was just being tired of being spoken for, or, you know, assumptions of solutions or been made or started off elsewhere, as opposed to coming from us in terms of what do we really want? What do we consider a way forward. And so the angle of like mobilising black and brown communities, was somewhat unique of a time when we started. And, and that's kind of what's made things different, including now, what we see is what we're working on at the moment, it's definitely come from focusing on black and brown communities and then building outwards, because there are people out there who care but who haven't known, including because I mean, I'll talk about it later on, the allies who have wanted to, but not sure what to do, because not just the PCness. So by opening this door of race analysis, really recently, teacher or listen, race literacy, we've we've allowed for people to step in and really began to practice anti racism from somewhere where it really attacks and tackles the systemic stuff.

Ali: Amazing. I'm curious about some, I feel like there's some juicy stuff in the equality and diversity training stuff. I think maybe we'll circle back to that in a little bit. But you mentioned George Floyd, and obviously, Breonna Taylor as well, like a lot of like, the murders in the US police, police violence and the uprisings that have been happening in there. And that spread worldwide, which has been fantastic. And like, amazing to watch. And I'm also curious about what do you see as like, different to the US here in the UK? What's like, how does racism or white supremacy show up in the UK? And like, what's, what's the similar similarities? And what are the differences you see here?

Peninah: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think I should know it like it should just roll off my tongue now. Because I see the difficulty with the UK the fact that racism is quite subtle, and and we're also quite good at pointing to the US where a) people are dying at the hands of the police and other white supremacist including armoured... So over here, it's different because there's the niceties that we see but in terms of can of if we look at white supremacy as a conduct prison, we cannot focus and think racism is the overt stuff, as opposed to the covert stuff, like policies like treatments that you have, or you experience when you're kind of getting around employment, housing, and, and all of those things. I think, a bigger part has been the fact that that the UK, not just the education system, has completely ignored and whitewashed or distorted the history of Empire, their history, colonial history, in terms of the hands that happened, that continue to impact until today. The hams that continue on in terms of treaties that were signed, and that mean that corporations are still like completely ruling over debt that they you know, the majority world have relating to that colonial legacy. So when we see migrations not just connected to conflicts that were started by me, nor like the institutions around the colonial legacy, the divide and conquer divide and rule, we also see, for example, climate damage, or climate, people having to been forcibly displaced because of climate. When we come here, there's a sentiment that or we should be grateful that we're here as opposed to actually be here has had a big role to play in the fact that we've coming back whether it's industrialization and the damage to the climate, and whatever else will we talk about climate debt. And so that in itself, so by the time you come here, you're almost, the system itself treats you so badly. So we work a lot with communities who are seeking asylum, are destitute, are refugees, and they're just going through the process is one of the most humiliating dehumanising thing ever. And that's because you're not coming in almost as entitled. And for me, because I talk about my own family history. My granddad was resisting the occupation in Kenya, I grew up in Kenya, as we said before, and there is a part of me that really feels I have every right to be here. Our ancestors contributed to this, you know, gold paved pavements is some politicians would like to see it. And so we come here and we are entitled, or we should be entitled to some of whatever it is, is here, but when you come and you have the policies, so in the US, you might, yes, the police have guns, and they'll do whatever they need to do, or what they feel they ought to do. Which is not right. But over here we have policies were just killing people in the same manner. You know, we've had deaths, for example, in Scotland, Manchester, people migrated and held in these horrible conditions. People can't work, people who can deteriorate not just the mental well being, but everything else around you. Because you think parents who come in a) emasculated, because you can't work and you can't provide for your family, and you're living on five pounds a week, but then that what do you do you punch down, so then you have cases of domestic abuse. And then because of the hostile environment,

Episode 4 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we get our nerd on about "check-ins" as a facilitation tool: what they are, when they're useful, and their limitations.

'Notice what intention you have when you're trying to do a check in, and bring that intention as much as you can into the way that you hold the space.' - Katherine

Show notes, links

Find "Check-in" on Seeds for Change's tools page.

See our "What is facilitation?" podcast episode page for more general facilitation resources.

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Sami: Okay, so welcome to the toolbox from Resist + Renew. This is a podcast where we geek out about different tools in our facilitation toolbox, what they are when they’re useful, and their limitations. And today we are talking about check ins. So first things first, what are check ins. So like check ins are a name that we use for kind of tools where people can share how people are doing. And within the context of a meeting or a workshop. often they're used at the start of a workshop, but not entirely. And they can also be a useful tool to check in on how people are feeling in the middle of something after lunch after something stressful happened at the end, etc. And they are generally used to help facilitators and potentially other people get an eye on how people are doing and like how people engage how people respond to questions, etc. and can be depending on how they are used a good way to like build connection within groups and build that relationship with them groups. And one thing that people often do, which is like a crossover between check ins and icebreakers is often people will as a check in have a kind of like icebreaker question, because it's a very low intensity way into a workshop. So for example, like, What's your favourite vegetable? Or why'd you like autumn, or whatever? And so that's what a check in is. Anyone else have anything else to describe the check in before we move into a little bit of an example?

Ali: Often, like a go round format as well, it's not, it's usually not just like, open space, and everyone chuck in and stuff. It like tends to be in a circle format. Just I think that's mostly to make it flow easier, and to make the threshold for speaking as low as possible, as well. So that's what a check in is. And yeah, I'm just going to share a little story about like examples of when, or an example of when we've I've used one. So a couple of years ago, a few friends came over to my mum's farm in Wales, and it wasn't like a workshop thing. But it was kind of hybrid holiday hybrid hangout and work, have discussions kind of space. So it's pretty low pressure situation. Yeah, we had, we had offerings of discussions, we had fun tasks to do around but it wasn't like, there was any, like, major purpose. And every day, we just had a check in for like, an hour or two is pretty chill. And I think it just added to the vibe, changed it from like just hanging out to something a bit more collective, something a bit more hearing about where everyone is at. And yeah, that was good. And I think, though there was no, there was no intention to do anything particularly difficult. But like people did bring up some like, intense stuff. And I think that's like, partly because we had a space for that. So yeah, it's kind of nice. Anyone else want to add anything? example wise?

Kat: I mean, I feel like that is a really lovely example. And I wonder like whether those people that were there maybe had some experience of check ins and, and why we might use them. And I guess a lot of the experience I've had of check ins in groups where they've not worked so well, has been like, maybe people don't really know what they're for, or don't really feel maybe safe enough to share, or don't really want to share anything other than quite a surface level. And then if you do a go round, and everyone says I'm fine, great I’m glad, is that true? And if it isn't true, is there a way that attacking is going to help you share deeper, like it's almost like it's a signal for where the group is at in terms of how much it wants to share with each other. And then in that sense can be useful. But sometimes it can get quite formulaic because I kind of wonder what the conditions might be that help a check in do what it's supposed to do. And if there if there was anything you noticed about that group in Wales, or the way you use check ins when they do work is to what makes them work.

Ali: Hmm, good question. I guess I'm glad what comes up for me and that is like the context so like, I can imagine and maybe I've seen it many Yeah, I haven't but like in like a work setting where there's like a hierarchy, and there's like a expectation to be productive and expectation to, like, perform a certain way like that there's less of bandwidth for bringing your whole self and the negative stuff that you're having that day. So if you're gonna say, like, I feel like total shit, and I don't want to do my work, your boss isn't gonna want to hear that, I guess, like the willingness for the group to be able to hear it or like the perception that the group is able to hear it is maybe a condition.

Sami: And I think it kind of goes back to that question of what the purposes right like, often the purpose of check ins is not necessarily to know how people are doing, it's to know how, how much people feel able to or into the idea of feeling how they're doing. Like, and that's, you don't necessarily get an eye on how they're feeling and their internal state, but you do get an eye and are willing to share their internal state they are, which is a useful thing as a facilitator in terms of and how you frame the rest of the workshop. And if your plan was to do loads of like, kind of, to go straight in quickly to some kind of like, quite experiential, like feelings based stuff, and you did do a go around that everyone was like, I'm fine, then you'd be like, Okay, I think maybe we're gonna need to get any to add some stuff in and maybe do some kind of breathing stuff, make people feel settled, blah, blah, blah, I don't know, whatever. And, and the thing, actually, like a thing, which comes to mind based on these stories is like, I was part of a group once a group of people who I didn't know around like a kind of squatted social centre project. And, and one of the things that we did coz, it was like, a, it was like a 24 seven, like, political squat. So it's like quite an intense time - ntense, kind of arena. And, and one thing that we did was at the end of every kind of like we, in the day, we do like activities, workshops, things like that. And then like, at the end of the day, we'd all have a little check in just in terms of like, how we're doing etc, before we go into like, any kind of like, dinner, or also like evening discussions and whatever. And that was often the thing, that one that people said that they like, valued most about the space was just being involved in a space where people actually give a shit about how other people were feeling. Like, and that was one of the things that then like the people that came out of that space, like then did a lot of other things afterwards, etc, together, because like the kind of bond that was created by actually just giving a shit about each other as people, even if you'd haven't met the person before, like a couple of days ago, just like really helped kind of like lay that groundwork. So that's, I guess, one of the examples of where it can build connection. But there is a willingness there, right, like people are also open to it.

Kat: Absolutely. I mean, that that sounds really great. I guess, there's some scenarios where it can be pitched in a way that can feel like limiting of connection. And so there was a group I was part of, once we're in the check in meetings, the pitch of what you were allowed to share in the Tekken was explicitly named as like, not too intense. And, and examples were given around the not too intense level of check in, which was like, “I went to the dentist today, and it was a bit uncomfortable”. And it's that sense of like, oh, wow, I'm really not allowed, like, even if I wanted to, I'm really not really supposed to share very much. And so there's also some questions, I would say if like, if you're really not up for hearing, don't do a check in as like a sham form of like wanting to care for each other if you're not really interested. Because I think that's more harmful than not having the check in at all. So yeah, getting clarity around the purpose of the check in and if you're really up for whatever comes. And I think it's really important.

Ali: Yeah. And I guess that leads to the next point we had, which is around when things do come up, then what you do with it is important. So like, if everyone says they're tired, and can't focus, and then the facilitator is just like, “Okay, thanks for that. Next point on the agenda”. Let's, we've got five things to talk about, we have to do it. That kind of invalidates the whole point of doing it. And it just shows it to be a sham, like you said, so I think like, yeah, we have to be, should be responsive to like what people say, and like, if everyone's on a bad on a bad day, then maybe we just don't, don't have a meeting or do something different. And if you're listening to our podcasts, and you can check out our episode from Josina from LION, because they gave a example of that where they were going to have a strategy session. And it was a really intense time. And then they were like, we don't want to do this. Let's have some connection, spiritual time. Can’t remember what they did,

Episode 3 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview Josina from Land In Our Names (LION).

So yeah, I mean ending racism, loads of black farmers, lots of use of the land that's in accordance with spiritual practices or farming practices from places where we have heritage.

- Josina, on LION's vision for land justice

Show notes, links

Land In Our Names: website; Instagram.

Willowbrook Farm

Aweside Farm

Black Girls Hike

Black Girls Camping

Land for the Many report

Oxford Real Farming Conference

Soul Fire Farm

Transcript

Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Ali: Welcome back, everybody. Thanks for joining us again at the Resist and Renew podcast. This week we are joined by Josina Calliste from Land in our Names and we're going to be talking about land inequalities, race, and visions for a more just relationship to land here in the UK and more broadly.

Ali: So Josina Calliste is a health professional, a community organiser, and after burning out of academia, she began thinking more deeply about food growing and land justice. Under an apple tree in June 2019, she co founded Land in our Names a Black led collective addressing land inequalities affecting black people and people of colour, his ability to farm and grow food in Britain. She loves forest works and hopes one day to set up an eco village. Thanks so much for joining us, Josina.

Josina: Thanks for having me.

Ali: So we're going to talk about a lot of different things today. But if you could kick us off by talking about, you know, kind of what's the context that Land in our Names is organising in, why why land justice? And why coming at it from like a race perspective? And yeah, what's what's kind of the context that we're, we're in?

Josina: Oh, so just small questions, then. Yeah, there's huge inequalities in terms of land ownership in Britain, which is sort of only vaguely aware of, but land ownership is very invisiblised in this country. We do know that half of all land in England is owned by 1% of the population. And it's concentrated into the hands of the elite, the crown, the royal family, aristocrats, and other random sets of oligarchs from various places, the church, universities. But lots of people don't know this. And it seemed important to approach land injustices using a racial justice lens, because of the effects of those inequalities on the health and well being of Black people and people of colour in Britain. And the more that I go into food growing, and the farming world, which can mean that you're in very white spaces, particularly in permaculture, and, you know, lots of lovely hippie New Age environments, aren't necessarily engaged with those racial justice issues.

Josina: But it did seem really important because of how food inequalities affect black people. And women of colour who experience hunger or, you know, using food banks disproportionately. Health inequalities due to living in very polluted areas or in overcrowded areas of Britain. And those inequalities have become more stark due to COVID and lock down conditions and to the inequalities in access to green spaces. And yeah, outdoor environments, particularly parks and inner cities.

Ali: Hmm. Yeah, I think that's really important. I don't think many people necessarily draw those two aspects together. I think farming, like in most people's mind, or is like a mainstream narrative is, is quite white. And it's quite, mostly just about like countryside and maybe it's like nice nature and food. But I think drawing that with the structural inequalities you were talking about is really important.

Ali: Yeah, my mom is actually a farmer. So I grew up around the countryside and land and yeah, as a person of colour, it's not the necessarily the easiest place to to interact with things. So I am very much value the work that you're doing. I'd be really keen to hear about like, how did you come along this path like what brought you to to land work and land justice issues?

Josina: Yeah, it's funny because there's so many people that do have family histories in their families, and I grew up with a Grenadian dad who took care of me, and would always be talking to me about his experiences with farming or nature in Grenada where he grew up. And

obviously, it's a massively different context to be hearing about cocoa trees, mango trees, nutmeg, iguana hunting to Britain, or where I grew up in London, and it was my mom that would be gardening with me, and working with a very sort of dense clay that grew not as many things as fertile soils in Grenada would. And I was very lucky to have access to gardens and parks, from where I grew up, and not everyone has that. And not everyone has the kind of opportunities where they're encouraged to do stuff outdoors. So I do think that yeah, I had two parents that encouraged me to learn about nature or lean into what what my interests were in terms of wildlife and animals. And I grew up wanting to be a vet, which I think pushed me into farming a little bit. Obviously discouraged from that.

Josina: And, yeah, it's sorry, repeat. Can you repeat the question? Again, I just wanna make sure I've answered it fully. It was just like, what, what was your path to getting into, like, farming or land justice? Ah, yeah. So I started really far at the beginning. But more recently,

everywhere that I lived in, so I moved out of my family home, where where I was helping in the garden, we did grow a bit of food, not very much. But everywhere since then, I was the person that was growing or gardening,, often the only person in a house share that was doing that.

And I got more conscious of that as something that I was doing while I was burning out of a sexual health, PhD. And I enrolled on different permaculture courses. And I think that there were lots of people in the last few years who've been sort of going, Oh, yeah, nature, oh, yeah. I want to be outside more, or I want to grow food more. And so it began to be like drawing a network of that and meeting up with friends to go on these nature walks, or doing permaculture courses with friends. And I went to Portugal to do a month-long food forest course. And moved into a permaculture project for a year in London, and just was making it more embedded in my life. Also still working in sexual health, then. But I think there's a lot of people now who sort of might read the news about climate change, or environmental degradation and think, Oh, right, well, my day to day is commuting into London, although we don't do that anymore. But you know, getting my Pret sandwich and working in a way that doesn't address this. So how can I increase that bit of my life, but where I want to feel like I'm doing something rather than just waiting for fire to engulf us all. And I felt like my way to not worry as much about changing climate environment was to heal the planet, or be part of the healing of the planet by getting into sustainable regenerative farming. And while I was living in a permaculture project, last year, I read the Land for the Many report, which touched on a lot of issues that were connected to racial injustice, but didn't really directly address how land injustices are racialized. So that felt like the right time to co-found Land in our Names. And I was really lucky that I started to build a network of people, people of colour, Black people who were also interested in this. And I do still have moments and I Oh, wow, people are wanting to listen to me talk about this or wanting to listen to LION or get LION to do things. But there is a real appetite for it. And in some ways, the land sector and the land justice movement, haven't paid attention to enough to racial injustice as a facet of its activism organising. So I think that means there's like a real appetite now for for LION to say what? To say, well, we want to say well, we need to, you know, like we've got an audience ready and waiting.

Kat: Yeah, absolutely. And it's really amazing to see how many spaces that you're speaking in and and really being heard it feels like people are sitting up and wanting to hear now and that's Yeah, late but but really good that it's starting. And and I guess it'd be really wonderful to hear a bit more about kind of what LION and Land in our Names is all about. And, and yeah, maybe a little bit about how it came into being?

Josina: Yeah, sure. So, okay, I'll start with how it came into being. And I had read the Land for the Many report and was planning to go to soul fire farm, which is a farm in upstate New York, which organises to end racism in the food system. And they talk a lot about land reparations. And it's just sort of fermenting in my brain and like, sort of gone through a bereavement just a few weeks before that. And so I was really mulling over like, what am I doing in my life kind of thing. And woke up one day and thought of Land in our Names as a name for something to do. And it was a great acronym, I'm really good acronyms. Okay, gotta keep going with that, and thought of the logo, and then sat with Ola who I'd met only a couple of weeks before. And he works at a organisation that's in the land sector, and just said, Hey, this is what I'm thinking. And, you know, we really bounce good ideas off each other. And under this apple tree in South London, this is where land in our names was co-founded. And then I got to go to soulfire farm and keep hearing about the stories of Black and African Americans who've been fighting to keep their land or to get land reparations and the ways that they've done that. And the context of America is just so vastly different in so many areas,

Episode 2 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we get our nerd on with an overview of facilitation, and why it's important.

'There is no such thing as no design, just bad design. The same is true with facilitation' - Sami

Show notes, links

Other facilitation collectives:

Seeds for Change

Navigate

Tripod

Rhizome

Organising for Change

London Roots

Some facilitation resources:

Facilitation tools hand out

Online facilitation tips (R+R mutual aid session video)

Doing virtual trainings: top tips; a sample online meeting agenda

For the nerds who really want detail: a 50 page online facilitation guide; a 40 page general facilitation guide.

Transcript

Kat: This is Resist + Renew. A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Sami: So welcome everybody to the toolbox. This is a podcast where we geek out about different tools in our facilitator toolbox, where they are, when they're useful, and their limitations. But today, for this first one, we are going to do something a little bit different. This chat may be slightly longer than the normal toolbox episodes, because we're not just going to talk about one specific tool, but we're going to talk about facilitation in general. Because this is a podcast about facilitation tools, so probably/ makes sense to start with what is facilitation? So who's going to start? Facilitation? What is it?

Ali: I can start us off. So I guess the first point is facilitation, mostly just about making it easy for a group to do whatever it's set out to do. Facilitation, if you like, etymology comes from the French word “facile”, which is like to make easy. So it's basically just like, a group has an idea of like, what it wants to do. And we're facilitators, like, sets out about making that possible. That's step number one.

What else is it?

Kat: I guess it's also about making space for participation, and thinking about what are the kinds of things we can do that ensure everybody who is in the meeting or in the workshop or in the group can participate as much as they want to. And so in order to do that, we want to think about a few different things. So taking some time at the beginning and throughout the meeting, to build trust, to make people feel safe enough that they can share what they need to share. And so this could include things like doing a go round, where we find out a little bit about each other. So we might share our name, our pronoun, maybe where we've travelled from, maybe how we're feeling that day, maybe something that's happened in our week. I've also been in meetings where people have been asked to share things about like the history of their name. So you get a bit more information about people than just an initial just name check. And can also be really useful to give clear instructions, and so that everybody in the session or in the meeting knows what's being asked of them. And when you have that clarity, it's a lot easier to contribute. And then also asking open ended questions. So a closed ended question would be something that has maybe a yes or no, or a very specific short answer, but an open ended question let’s people just share whatever it is that they want to share in response to that question. And that can be a really good way of getting people talking, especially people that might not talk very much at other times. What else is facilitation good for?

Sami: So I think, as a way of doing things, and what a facilitator will often try and do is make sure that meetings, workshops, etc, are engaging, and by mixing up different activities, and different ways of engaging with different parts of the meeting, or workshop or whatever. So that could be making sure there's different mediums media, like text based stuff, and like visual stuff, pictures, drawings, etc. And maybe like videos and things where the audio stuff may be more sensory based things like touch, smell, etc. Harder to coordinate in this digital world, but possible. And then there's also the kind of like the practical bare bones, stuff of like, facilitation often involves, like having some kind of plan for what the meeting is going to be, which may take the form of like an agenda, and may involve like trying to keep to time and trying to do those things to make sure that I guess, 1. to be clear on what the purpose of the agenda, what the purpose of the thing is that you're doing and then 2. making sure that you can hold everybody accountable to achieving that purpose.

What else?

Ali: So I guess within our facilitation and a lot of the other facilitation collectives that we're aware of, like, and friends with, it's, it's also about keeping an awareness of power dynamics because as we spoke to a second ago, a lot of facilitation is about participation and allowing space for different people to participate. And because we have like a radical perspective on society and structural oppression that is throughout society, whether that's around racism, around gender around disability, or class or other forms of oppression that kind of make up the society we live in, like those dynamics inevitably show up in the groups that we organise in, even if they are groups that are against those, those structures. So I guess part of what a facilitators role is, is to keep an eye on those dynamics, and to name them when they arise and find ways to move through them that don't just allow them to be and allow them to, like, make the space an oppressive space. This is a really big one. And it's like something that just takes time and takes like experience to like, think about and practice and learn from, but I think it's like one that I personally, like want to constantly reflect on and constantly try and hone my, my approach to it.

Ali: So yeah, what would be some some good tips for someone getting started if this is the first time they're hearing about facilitation?

Sami: Yeah, so I guess, maybe, I think it's worth being super clear. Because we've kind of talked around like what is involved in facilitation, so maybe to be concrete, like facilitation is a practice of like, kind of, like, maybe, maybe a better way of explaining it, ignore that, is around like kind of clarifying facilitation by what it isn't to, like facilitation is a way of like, kind of running meetings and workshops, etc. And some things which aren't like facilitation, is like ways of like chairing a meeting is a different way of running a meeting, which is around more like having a person who is kind of the centre of the meeting, maybe conversations will go through that person, if there are questions, maybe that role will answer them, etc. Versus facilitation where it tries to be a lot more decentralised. As an example. But it's all around those kind of, it's a role that is tasked with trying to achieve some kind of meeting or workshop purpose.

Sami: And some things you can do try and do that often involves planning ahead in some way, and so that you can make sure, if you're going into something, you need to know what the purpose is, and you want to make sure you've got a plan for how you're going to stick to it. Try. Generally, these things are best not to just try and wing it. On the day, though, in practice, actually, I think, which is also useful as making sure you can stay reactive to the needs in the group and wherever they are. And if you want to get started doing like being a facilitator and facilitating some stuff away, that can be quite good, as facilitation works quite well as a thing you do with other people. And so and buddying up with somebody who's more experienced, and then like they can support you through doing that role. And you can divide up those kind of different tasks of being a facilitator, for example, and taking notes and keeping time and a thing which within facilitation, people often collect “vibe watching”, just like keeping an eye on the kind of tone over the room, and how it seems that people are feeling or people engaged people, not people, angry, people, sad, are people stressed what's going on?

Sami: And I guess, things like listening to these podcasts, and getting training from other facilitation collectives of which Resist Renew is one. And those are some other ways about how you could get started in the world of facilitation.

Sami: Well, should we maybe talk about what is it that drew us to facilitation, then? Who wants to start?

Kat: I can have a go. And so when I was a student, I was part of an activist group. And we would have weekly meetings sometimes more than once a week, and didn't really facilitate those meetings. And it was a bit of a mess. And, and we got some training from Seeds for Change who still around doing amazing facilitation trainings. And they were teaching us about how to hold a space and, and how to run a process basically, within the meetings that we were having. And something I really took from that was getting really clear about what it was we're wanting to do in those meetings. And I remember us coming up with two different kinds of purposes. So we had one that was much more about feelings and how we were doing and often needing to just rant and get a lot of stuff off our chest, and building relationships with each other. And the other was much more of a kind of organising type task sort of meeting where we had action points that we needed to check in on and support each other with and through learning these skills around facilitation, we were able to develop into a really effective and really effective group, able to do a lot of different things together.

Episode 1 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview Kelsey from Community Action on Prison Expansion (CAPE).

Show notes, links

Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol)

Community Action on Prison Expansion (CAPE): website; Instagram @no_more_prisons; their "Defund the prison estate" petition

Abolitionist Futures' abolitionist reading groups

Sisters Uncut

Port Talbot super-prison proposals axed (BBC News)

Transcript

Kat: This is Resist Renew. A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Ali: Alright, welcome to the first episode in the resist and renew podcast. Today we are going to be talking about abolishing prisons in the UK. And we are happy to be joined by Kelsey from CAPE. So a little bit about Kelsey. Kelsey is a prison abolitionist, organiser and freelance facilitator based in London, and as part of Community Action on Prison Expansion, which is a network of grassroots groups fighting prison expansion in England, Wales and Scotland. Prior to COVID, Kelsey has been travelling the UK and abroad delivering workshops and trainings to build collective power in resisting and dismantling the prison industrial complex. Kelsey is also part of Cradle, a transformative justice collective, and also happens to be part of Resist and Renew, which is why we're interviewing her first. Thanks for joining us, Kelsey.

Kelsey: Thanks for inviting me.

Ali: We had to.

Kelsey: Great.

Ali: Yeah, I know Sami is dying to jump in straight into things. But before we do that, just a little note to say this episode's gonna be slightly different to our future episodes in that, normally there will be two hosts. But because this is the first one, we're all just excited to jump in. So all three of us myself, Ali, Sami, and Katherine, or Kat, will be here. And you can hear a bit more about us as people in our teaser, if you haven't listened to that.

Sami: Now is it the time to get into it?

Kat: Yeah,

Sami: I think it is. Okay. So to kick us off. Kelsey, could you tell us a bit about the context that you're organising in with CAPE? Like, why is it that you chose this work specifically?

Kelsey: Thank you for that question, I guess. Well, so I, I'm a prison abolitionist, which means that I fundamentally don't think that our society needs or should have prisons or policing or function with these systems of punishment. And, but it also means that I look critically at what violence itself means. And, and so I include state violence within like that analysis. And so I kind of came to this work first through doing feminist anti violence organising. And through that kind of began to further understand the role of the criminal justice system in the supposed support that survivors receive, particularly in this country.

Kelsey: And yeah, and I basically got involved in a local campaign around Holloway prison, which is a campaign that really shows like so many intersections, I think of this work where it was the biggest women's prison in Western Europe. It was closing down, it was closed in 2016. But that doesn't mean that all of the people who are held in that prison were actually released, it means that they were just shipped off to different prisons around the country. And in fact, Holloway, because it was the only women's prison that's actually really in London, you know, it's in Islington and so many people who held there, were actually still quite close to their communities, it's much easier for people to visit prison in London than one in rural Surrey, or elsewhere on the English countryside. Right. And so it the kind of impact that that has on a community. And the way that that is actually tied to what do they want to use that land for? And where is that money going to go? Right? And so, upon learning a bit more about that, and that campaign, realising that this is very much tied to gentrification, like they want to use that land for maximum profit with luxury flats. While the community really wants to have more social housing, you know Islington is a council borough that has over 10,000 people on the council housing list. We know that the money that was going to be made from that site, you know, originally was planned to just go into building more prisons. And so it didn't feel like this was going to be a positive move in any direction, basically.

Kelsey: And it just really started to help me connect a lot of the dots in learning from lots of the people organising around that issue and, and on connected issues. And so while I, you know, I have family who is in the US and is impacted by the criminal justice system, and have seen how that system has worked to impact their lives and the communities over there, firsthand. And started to really see from that moment, kind of how it is and how it was acting out like in in London, and in this place that I wasn't quite at quite as familiar with, you know, and so, basically got involved in the work here, realised that, at the same time, as they were closing Holloway prison, they are announcing that, for the first time the prisoners state transformation programme, which will, which is a government scheme, basically, to build 10,000 new prison places, originally, by 2020. None of those prisons have been built yet so far, which is great news for us. However, you know, that that is still very much their intention, and they have re announced that plan in various forms. You might remember, last summer, Boris was like, we're gonna build 10,000, new prison places, well, those were plans where they were already like, on the way, and then now, with COVID, and the kind of economic recovery scheme, project speed. Now these prisons have been tied up in that as part of a way to, in some way, bolster the economy. Yeah. But I mean, I don't even really know what the logic is, and how they find it to tie that to be honest. But essentially, they just keep re announcing these same prisons, and two of them are in the process of being built in the Midlands. And one of them has been approved through like sort of one set of planning permissions with the local council in East Yorkshire. And then the others are sort of still in the process, potentially, one, two or three more depending on what they can, what they can manage, essentially, and so on.

Kelsey: And so basically, CAPE is an organisation that tries to connect with people local to these new prison sites, and to support the collective power and campaigning, to resist those sites, not because only people local to a prison will be impacted by that prison, people get moved from prisons across the country and end up very incredibly far away from home. It's not the end up just local to you. But because the legacy of community organising that we follow has found strategically that organising with communities local to disrupt things like planning permission and environmental impact assessments and sort of connecting with the people who actually live close by to friends and sites is a really strong strategic move. And also, because obviously, there are often people who will also be impacted and feel strongly about about these things. And so we're not we're not there to just fly in and be like, this is what we think. So, yeah, we've been doing that since sort of 2016 focusing on these mega prisons that they're trying to build around the country, as well as other iterations of prison expansion. So that means new types of prisons for young people, which they're now calling secure schools, they're trying to trying to open one of those up in Kent at the moment, as well as plans for what would be women's prisons but are being called women's residential centres, which are following a slightly different kind of model, but are still prisons.

Ali: Yeah, thanks for that overview is really good to get a picture of like, what the current situation here is in the UK in regards to like expansion. I feel like it's something that I hear about every now and then like I remember hearing about big grand plans for a prison and mega prison in Wrexham. I think it was,

Kelsey: yeah, yeah,

Ali: then it kind of went quiet. So it goes off off my radar. So it's good to get touched back in on that. I had a question around. Yeah, like the context specific to the UK because like you mentioned America, and you mentioned like friends, family and other organisers, you're in touch with their. And I feel like the US is like, the example for abolitionists like, prisons are bad in America, the police kill people more violently with guns and stuff. And I just want to know, like, what's specific to prison contexts in the UK?

Kelsey: Yeah, I think often when we talk about prisons, we often - er people kind of get by by being like, well, at least we're not America, you know, and like, like, that's where they... and they do that with racism, too, right. And they try and kind of like, say that these these are things that are less of an issue as if they aren't issues that were actually created by the British. And in many ways, yeah, things that were exported to the US in their original forms. And what I mean by that is that so in the UK, or, well, so in England, and Wales has its own prison system, and Scotland has its own devolved criminal justice system. However, many of their laws and kind of like the conditions and such are very similar. It's unfortunate that we compare ourselves to America because we have a very different population in the UK as well, like, so we actually have a very white population, you know, and like, particularly, if you look at Scotland, we know that people of colour, maybe like 2% of the population, even so we know that so in England and Wales,