[WSMDiscuss] Fwd: Global Tapestry of Alternatives' Newsletter #01 - July 2020

Sun Jul 19 13:27:42 CEST 2020

Friends, this may be of interest, with perspectives and news from 
Gustavo Esteva, Defend the Sacred, Vikalp Sangam, Crianza Mutua, Local 
Futures, May First Movement Technology, and PeDAGoG.
ashish

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Global Tapestry of Alternatives's Newsletter #01 - July 2020
Date: 	Sun, 19 Jul 2020 11:49:43 +0530
From: 	Shrishtee Bajpai <shrishteebajpai at gmail.com>
To: 	Ashish Kothari <ashishkothari at riseup.net>

Dear everyone,
Please see GTA's first newsletter capturing inspiring perspectives, 
visions, news, from many regions of the world. Hope you enjoy reading 
them ...
For more info pls contact: contact at globaltapestryofalternatives.org

Regards,
shrishtee

  Global Tapestry of Alternatives' Newsletter #01 - July 2020

    Editorial

Dear readers,

It is our pleasure to share Global Tapestry of Alternatives' first 
newsletter with you. The Global Tapestry of Alternatives or GTA as a 
process or a dialogue began in 2014. Through dialogues and deliberations 
with several networks across the world, it was felt that there is a need 
of a process to facilitate the emergence, visibility and interweaving of 
networks of collectives and groups on radical alternatives to the 
dominant regime, contesting their roots in capitalist, patriarchal, 
racist, statist, and anthropocentric forces. In 2018, a group of 
activists, academics, researchers, and students came together to form an 
interim as well as a continuously evolving team to hold the process. In 
early 2019, the process was officially launched seeking endorsements and 
support from organisations and individuals working on wide-range of 
alternatives across the world.

This newsletter comes to you at times of immense uncertainties that pose 
very serious challenges and have social, economic, political, cultural 
and ecological implications for most of us. The attempt of this 
newsletter is to bring to you the news, perspectives, thoughts, ideas, 
reflections, and dialogues on alternatives to the dominant regime and 
how can they offer us pathways towards more just, equitable and 
ecologically wise futures. It is a humble attempt to bring together the 
collective envisioning of these pluriversal alternatives by creating a 
space for sharing and dialoguing.

We intend to share this newsletter every month to share perspectives, 
news on activities being seeded through GTA, as well as 
perspectives/news/thoughts/questions from tapestry weavers and endorsing 
organisations and networks. We do not see it as a newsletter that is 
simply a conglomeration of news/updates but rather as a process of 
knowing each-others' work, engaging with ideas, facilitating 
collaborations and initiating co-writing and co-learning processes. Yes, 
the objectives are ambitious and that is why we need your support, your 
contributions and engagement. We invite you to this sharing, reflecting, 
dialoguing, healing, and envisioning space.

GTA’s interim core team 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/core_members>

Note: this newsletter is compiled by Shrishtee Bajpai, Anna Hedin and 
Franco Augusto

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    About the GTA

The Global Tapestry of Alternatives seeks to build bridges between 
networks of Alternatives around the globe and promote the creation of 
new processes of confluence. You can know more about the project, *in 
our introductory note 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/introduction>*.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#about_the_gta>*

      Some of our alive definitions

In the context of the GTA, we defined different concepts as 
“Alternatives” and others to clarify the use we give to them.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/newsletters:01#some_of_our_alive_definitions>*

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    News from GTA

      Webinars

Post the Covid crises and dramatic change in our plans of activities, 
GTA initiated the process to facilitate sessions with activists, 
scholars, researchers, mobilisers and practitioners across the world who 
have engaged on exploring systemic alternatives to the dominant regimes, 
contesting its roots in capitalist, patriarchal, racist, statist, and 
anthropocentric forces. The fortnightly conversations aim to 
collectively explore with a range of initiatives a possibility of a 
just, life-centred and respectful transition into the future. It is 
important to explore not only what can be done, but also the tough 
question of how, and by whom? And where possible, to make the discussion 
relevant to the current crisis.

We have had six dialogues until the end of June exploring the 
opportunities of promoting and creating systemic alternatives.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#webinars>*

      PeDAGoG (Post-Development Academic-Activist Global Group)

PeDAGoG <https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/pedagog> is a global 
network of academics and academic-activists interested in 
post-development, radical alternatives, and related themes, initiated in 
early 2020. The main idea is to: share existing course curricula, 
materials, methods/pedagogy, and approaches; propose new ones; 
coordinate programmes across different geographies and cultures; and be 
able to offer learning experiences to people in various parts of the 
world, especially the global south. And through all this, contribute to 
the movements for radical, systemic transformation. We are collecting 
course materials, individual self-introductions, and links to related 
initiatives at a shared doc accessible at this shared document.

Our mailing list currently has 105 members from around the world, with 
regular discussions on new courses, pedagogy in the time of covid, and 
shared writings. You are invited to join the group 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/pedagog>.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    News from the Weavers

      Vikalp Sangam in India

By: *Sujatha Padmanabhan* (For Vikalp Sangam, India)

Over the last few months, the world has been dealing with a multiplicity 
of crises that COVID-19 has brought upon it. The perils of a 
hyper-globalized world have never been starker.

In India, as in all other countries, marginalized sections of society 
have most astutely experienced the fallout of the pandemic. Groups such 
as migrant workers, senior citizens, sex workers, farmers, transgender 
people, people with disabilities and their care givers have suffered 
isolation, starvation, insecurities and economic hardships of an 
unprecedented nature. In these times, there seems to be a realization 
that humanity has reached a tipping point. There are greater awakenings 
to a need for a different world, a world that is far more just and 
equitable, far more ecologically resilient.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#vikalp_sangam_in_india>*

      Crianza Mutua in Mexico

CRIANZA MUTUA 1- dismantling all hirarchies, reconstructing autonomy, 
healing and learning

By: *Crianza Mutua, Mexico*

Some of us are convinced that the best way to resist a system that is 
based on the precarization of life, dispossession and aggression, as 
well as patriarchal domination, is to build alternatives. This article 
provides an introduction to Crianza Mutua, a network of collectives in 
Mexico constructing alternative, creative and autonomous ways of facing 
up to the health and economic crisis aggravated in the wake of the 
COVID-19 pandemic.

Crianza Mutua is an initiative that proposes to identify entramados 
comunitarios2 that have created innovative and radical alternatives for 
life i.e. broken away from the dominant regime. The idea is to link them 
so that they learn from each other and offer each other solidarity, as 
well as become a source of inspiration for those who are unhappy with 
the current situation but do not yet know how to resist or create 
another possibility for life.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#crianza_mutua_in_mexico>*

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Perspectives from GTA core team

"Dandelion Floating Flower" by ArtCoreStudios

      The day after

By *Gustavo Esteva*

        No future

We lost floor underfoot.

Our world was reasonably predictable. Suddenly, from one day to another, 
deep trends that allowed us to anticipate the general and probable 
course of events and behaviors disappeared. We can no longer foresee 
what will happen. We are facing radical uncertainty.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#the_day_after>*

    News from the endorsing organisations

      Coherence, Prayer & Active Solidarity: Learnings from the emerging
      “Defend the Sacred Alliance”

By *Defend the Sacred Alliance*

The crises we are facing as a civilization are not simply economic, 
political, ecological or just related to this latest pandemic. These are 
all symptoms of a greater polycrisis rooted in our separation from the 
natural world and expressed through a dominant culture that is sick at 
its very core.

The response from those entrenched in power has been to reassure the 
public that more economic growth will alleviate our problems. The 
response from “progressive” factions, including the large majority of 
activists, has been to fight back with anger, facts, and action. But 
what if part of the crisis is how we, as activists, are responding to 
the crisis? As many elders remind us, it is our best thinking that has 
gotten us into this mess.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#coherence_prayer_active_solidaritylearnings_from_the_emerging_defend_the_sacred_alliance>*

      Local Futures- showing pathways to the resilient and just futures

By *Alex Jensen* (Local Futures)

Local Futures was founded in the late 1970s as The Ladakh Project by 
Helena Norberg-Hodge. It was based upon her experiences of both learning 
from a then-largely-intact agrarian society in what would conventionally 
be considered a ‘harsh’ environment (Ladakh, located in the 
Trans-Himalaya on the Tibetan Plateau), and witnessing first-hand its 
rapid deterioration under the pressures of sudden modernization as it 
was officially opened-up for ‘development’ by the Indian government. 
Helena’s experiences in Ladakh, later chronicled in her book /Ancient 
Futures/ (and in a documentary film of the same title), can be 
considered broadly part of the early wave of what became 
post-development studies. She used the term ‘counter-development’ to 
describe the work in Ladakh, focused on supporting Ladakh’s indigenous 
culture by bringing information to balance the idealized images of 
Western culture flooding into the region through tourism and development.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#local_futures-_showing_pathways_to_the_resilient_and_just_futures>*

      May First Movement Technology: Technology for Transformation is
      the Path Forward

By *Alfredo Lopez* and *Melanie E L Bush* (May First Movement Technology)

These days are filled with intensity and uncertainty. Frustration, fear 
and confusion emanate from the smoldering shambles of capitalism that 
makes it difficult to map a future by those who seek fundamental and 
radical change.

In times such as this, it is important to recognize and remember the few 
certainties we have. For example, that information technology is 
center-stage in the struggle for saving humanity and building a better 
world. The protests and resistance that we are witnessing and 
participating in all over the globe, are taking shape as a result of the 
mass and effective communications of this technology. That truth bears a 
certainty: this technology must be protected, expanded and creatively 
re-framed to better serve the needs of contemporary movements. 
Structural inequalities embedded within society are reflected in access 
to technology and must be considered in our strategic plans for building 
forward.

*Keep reading ➝ 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/?id=newsletters:01#may_first_movement_technologytechnology_for_transformation_is_the_path_forward>*

*Global Tapestry of Alternatives*
/contact at globaltapestryofalternatives.org 
<mailto:contact at globaltapestryofalternatives.org>/

To subscribe and get our updates, visit this link 
<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/contact>

---
-- 
Shrishtee Bajpai
Kalpavriksh/Vikalp Sangam/Global Tapestry of Alternatives

http://kalpavriksh.org
www.vikalpsangam.org <http://www.vikalpsangam.org>
www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org 
<http://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org>
www.globaltapestryofalternatives.org 
<http://www.globaltapestryofalternatives.org>

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