Posts Tagged: favourite - (47 found)

Merdeka and the Morning Star: Civil Resistance in West Papua

Merdeka and the Morning Star: Civil Resistance in West Papua

By: Jason Macleod

Jason Macleod is a member of the Change Agency team: a dedicated activist educator, mentor and strategist. Having dropped out of university in 1991, Jason hitched to northern Queensland then made his way to Papua New Guinea.  Hiking and paddling the Sepik, he made his way into a remote part of West Papua where he contracted malaria….

People Power Manual: Campaign Strategy Guide

People Power Manual: Campaign Strategy Guide

By: Jason MacLeod & James Whelan

The Campaign Strategy Guide was the first instalment of the People Power Manual, a resource created for organisers, activist educators and facilitators. Campaign strategy needn’t be mystifying, lonely or stressful. Social movements become more powerful as more people are equipped to analyse their political context, consider paths to change and mindfully plan tactics. This Campaign Strategy…

Developing a strategy: Advocacy’s road map

A good strategy, like a good route through new terrain, doesn’t just rely on the roads you know. It starts where you are, ends where you want to go and provides a good, plausible route in between… Without a strategy, or with a poor one, you are more likely to get lost and accomplish very little. [Chapter 6 of The Democracy Owners Manual by Jim Shultz, 2002, Rutgers University Press.]

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Core dilemmas of organizing: How do community organizers think?

Every tradition of social action has its own ways of making sense of the world. Community organizing, for example, generally understands social action as an ongoing series of battles over power and resources and the less powerful as a repository of potential agency.  When social service agencies look out at the world, in contrast, they see suffering, a vast collection of people in need of help.

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Why opinion polls may not matter as much as you think on climate change. Or much else besides

Winston Churchill said:  “There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion”.   Any opinion poll, or a report of a poll, is not a reality of raw public opinion but a processed, manufactured product.  The polling process, the publication process, the reporting process and even the process of subsequent debate and word of mouth, all manufacture the meaning that we think an opinion poll shows us.

The report notes how back in 2002 Pollster Frank Luntz successfully lured climate campaigners into trying to win the argument over climate change – in which ‘climate polls’ play a pivotal role – and even today, more than a decade later, many fall for his ploy, when all the fossil fuel lobby needed to succeed, was to keep the debate going.

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Handbook for nonviolent campaigns: War Resisters International

There are many dramatic images of nonviolent action. Indeed, the ability to dramatise an issue is one of the strengths of nonviolence; it tries to make people see and act on what often passes unnoticed. However, this drama doesn’t just happen. It gestates—in groups or cells of activists, in discussions, in training sessions, in reflecting on previous experiences, in planning, in experimenting, in making contacts. That is why this Handbook is grounded in what groups have done and how they have done it. We are not attempting to present a definitive model, but to suggest methods that have worked in various contexts and that can be adapted by creative nonviolent activists in their own situations. (Book available for free download)

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Mike Newman’s texts on social movement education

Michael Newman writes about adult education and social and political action. This website has been set up to provide free access to three of his books, and to provide information on some of his other publications. The books you can access free of charge are: ‘Maeler’s Regard: Images of Adult Learning’; ‘Defining the Enemy: Adult Education in Social Action’; and ‘The Third Contract: Theory and Practice in Trade Union Training’. The site carries information on Mike’s book ‘Teaching Defiance: Stories and Strategies for Activist Educators.’

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The Citizens Handbook: Practical assistance for those who want to make a difference

An excellent and extensive collection of resources on: planning and acting; getting noticed; evaluating;  getting and keeping people; leading; meeting and deciding; facilitating; fundraising; group structure; door-knocking; conflict resolution;  listening projects; nonviolent communication; Gandhi’s methods; and strategic thinking.

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