Some of my favourite words in the title of an academic article - ecosystem, constellations, typology - squee!! (yes, I know, I should get out more). And, thank goodness, it lived up to expectations. They take their big database of social innovation networks, with lots of specific projects, and they bash the database against some... Continue Reading →
Ignore my snark later on - this is a good article, that you should take the time to read. Crucially though, understand that the authors - like most academics - are addicted to trying to play what Haraway calls "the God Trick" and has also been called "cockpitism". To be expected, I guess, since the... Continue Reading →
So, as promised, I am going to start "looting the ivory tower" for useful work on social innovation (despite my reservations about the term - see here and here). First up, well - a brilliant article ... The title: “Between innovation and restoration; towards a critical-historicizing understanding of social innovation niches” The authors: Bonno Pel &... Continue Reading →
This is a direct follow on from an initial rant about "social innovation". At the end of that I went on a rant about how social change is a marathon not a sprint and that the 'load' has to be shared. There's an article, very astute, by a Development Aid specialist that I read as... Continue Reading →
So, my intellectual energies have been mostly devoted to the Active Citizenship Toolkit, which is a project of the group I am part of - Climate Emergency Manchester. I've researched and written a couple of novice's guides - to Manchester City Council's budget process, and to the thorny question of allyship. Other two page guides... Continue Reading →
If you suck at designing and facilitating meatspace meetings, then - everything else being equal - you are probably going to suck big hairy dog's balls at online meetings. Is it just me? (1) Am I the only one who has been in several really painfully bad online meetings during this lockdown? Where the organisers... Continue Reading →
Think in systems, dammit. When I am frustrated (i.e. always) with the "left" endlessly reheating and repeating the same things ("wasn't 1970s social democracy great?", "the main problem is we don't have enough diverse voices" (1) ) through truly wretched online events that are every bit as stultifying and wrist-slashingly excruciating as their meatspace equivalents,... Continue Reading →
I attended portions of a zoom seminar this morning on "activist self-care." Portions not because I flounced (this, as those who know me will attest, does happen) but because of technological issues and my steam-powered laptop not letting me into the break-out groups. So my "criticism" of the seminar (which was on the whole good!)... Continue Reading →
Let’s start with the joke. No, I don’t mean the last 10 years of non-dealing with climate change at a local authority level. That’s not funny. Let’s start with this: A physicist, a chemist and an economist are stranded on a desert island, with a large can of soup. The physicist says “We could drop... Continue Reading →
A superb novel about climate activism (and much more) was released earlier this year. It is by Rosemary Randall, a retired psychoanalyst who has written a great deal (of extremely useful) work on the psychodynamics of meetings, and on climate change. You can read a 2013 interview I conducted with her for Manchester Climate Monthly.... Continue Reading →
