Divisiveness is rife in our society.
In our tech-driven culture, we have fewer and fewer opportunities for meaningful interaction. Algorithms govern our online lives and silo us with like-minded individuals or prioritise conflict to keep our attention.
Our leaders gain power by utilising ‘divide and conquer’ fear-mongering tactics, exemplified by politics that drive citizens to take sides with no centre ground.
We need to take every opportunity to build solidarity
What might happen if we get diverse individuals to listen and understand each other? What if we paid attention to the power dynamics and harnessed them to serve everyone present? Might we counter the divisive forces in our society?
Let’s use the precious opportunities presented when we convene. We need to understand how to facilitate in ways that empower, break down silos, flatten knowledge hierarchies and build relationships and trust.
This Playbook is a way for people who work on social change efforts to strengthen their facilitation skills to counter the disempowering forces in our society. It is where we share exercises and methodologies that empower collective action. It supports being intentional about Power, understanding who has it, why they have it, and who doesn’t but should. We must be aware of our privilege, role as facilitators, and accountability to those we convene.
Content without convening is dead content.
The playbook isn’t just about the content. It’s also about how we, as collective power facilitators, come together to share our experiences. The content drives dialogue, and the dialogue drives the content. We are running regular contributor sessions to facilitate knowledge exchange.
The content will use Creative Commons licensing to enable modifications and reuse. If anyone takes the entirety of the playbook and modifies and repurposes the content for their communities and networks, we take that as an indicator of success.
There is no finish line for collective power.
The playbook will always be a work in progress.
