A Seeds for Change podcast, in conversation with community organisers. From stopping immigration raids on their streets to building renters unions, people are organising in their communities to take collective action against poverty, policing and the hostile environment. As well as fighting to improve the conditions of our lives now, these are struggles for a different future - for economic justice, decolonisation and abolition.
In this podcast we explore the theory and practice of community organising, and its role in bringing about political transformation. In each episode we bring people together to discuss a different question about how we fight to change the systems we live in.
In this episode we discuss what community organising is, and the argument for it as a political approach. We talk about the growing forms of community organising happening in Britain, how people are attempting to politicise everyday life, and the infrastructure we need for a community to exist.
Episode 1In this episode we talk more about the political questions involved in community organising, from sharing power to dealing with conflict and harm. We discuss the role of the organiser, the new wave of British abolitionism, and what it means to have an abolitionist approach.
Episode 2How does a community organise itself to survive in the face of state violence and neglect? In this episode we discuss how asylum seekers and refugees are directly creating the things they need to survive.
Episode 3In this 2-part conversation we meet organisers in Brighton to discuss political education. In this episode we talk about what we mean by political education, the forms it can take, and the role it has played in movements around the world.
Episode 4In this episode, we hear more about the Kurdish context, including the huge role of political education in the trajectory of the Rojava revolution. We talk about commitment, comrades, and the need to take time to develop an analysis together, from which we can act.
Episode 5This 2-part conversation focuses on love as a political force, with Balraj and Nuradin from Kids of Colour, an anti-racist youth organisation in Greater Manchester.
In this episode they introduce the Boys and Love project, where they run sessions with boys of colour exploring themes of love, solidarity, masculinity, feminism and community. We talk about the oppressive environment of schools and the policing of racialised young people, and how to disturb those hierarchies and build solidarity. We discuss how dialogue sustains and transforms our communities, and think about love as a humanising force against state violence and punishment.
Episode 6
