We spent Wednesday looking at ‘social movement ecology’. This way of looking at participating in a movement with the intention of seeking a collaboration between lots of diverse groups. In this way a broad range of knowledge can be shared and groups don’t have to work against each other.
Joe and Nils organised a storyline game where we were given a range of groups we could use to cause a large mass movement in a specific area of social justice. The two teams were given consequential outcomes every round based on the actions they made e.g. hacking into self driving trucks to prove they were hackable. It was interesting analysing the impacts that including or excluding groups had on communities e.g. the reaction from people that felt they weren’t being represented.
Then we were given a tour around Pier’s garden to complete our day of ecology thinking. He only uses hay and leaf mulch to grow thousands of potatoes, as well as his onions, hops and beetroots just to name a few crops.
The beautiful oak trees on his land were planted by his family in 1970 and we came just as the acorns were falling from the tree - Here's Freya and Winnie sitting listening to Piers explaining the use of the old hops houses across the lane.
There are also so many dragonflies, we were finding the shells of the nymphs as well as exoskeletons on the filtration system beds of the bio pool - one even landed on Freya's hand while munching on a ladybug! It's easy to feel the living spirit of nature through these beautiful creatures and the fact there are so many here must mean they love the habitat that Piers is creating - so much so in fact, that this dragonfly was laying eggs all over the pool...
Our final discussion built on the roleplay game of the morning asking us to explore the existing youth movement within the frame of Movement Ecology so as to better place ourselves as a group. It also gave us the chance to imagine the shape/diversity of such a movment and treinforce the need to support a truly radical youth movement taking shape!
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Love and Power from the RR Crew!
