[PeDAGoG] Global Tapestry of Alternatives's Newsletter #01 - July 2020

[Shrishtee Bajpai]

Dear everyone,
Please see below 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's Newsletter #01 - July 2020

Editorial

Dear readers,

It is our pleasure to share Global Tapestry of Alternative’s 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

[image: "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
<contact at globaltapestryofalternatives.org>*

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<https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/contact>

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

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