“This is a critical moment in history. We face multiple crises: environmental, growing social, economic, and political divides, and a slide toward fascism, economic instability, and war. There is an urgency to both resist these trends, and to build an alternative system for a just and sustainable future.
Resistance without a clear vision of the alternative, risks merely reforming the current system, while building the alternative without roots in movements of resistance, with leadership from those on the forefront of struggle, risks both being exclusionary to these folks and their communities, and being co-opted by reactionary/status quo forces.
While there is a growing overlap between the resist and the build movements, there is still too much distance between the two.”
That was the initial invitation shared by the US Solidarity Economy Network before the first Resist & Build Gathering in 2020.
Throughout this season of The Response podcast, we’ve been exploring various methodologies and ethos working to address the polycrisis’ of our times. From Anarchism to Decolonial Marxism, and from Agroecology to Organized Labor.
On this week’s show, we turned our focus towards the Solidarity Economy and what is meant by ‘Resist & Build’; the practice of resisting the systemic forces causing harm to people, planet, and place while simultaneously building alternatives that can eventually replace them.
Joining us for this conversation is Emily Kawano, Co-Director of the Wellspring Cooperative Corporation and Coordinator of the US Solidarity Economy Network, Matthew Slaats, co-director of the Solidarity Research Center and the founder of the Virginia Solidarity Economy Network, and Edget Betru, an attorney who is on the boards of Community Movement Builders and the Organization for Human Rights and Democracy in Atlanta, GA.
Together, we unpack what ‘Resist & Build’ looks like in practice, discuss the necessity of cross-movement dialogue and collaboration, and explore pathways for scaling up (and arguably, more importantly, scaling out) the solidarity economy.
Resources:
- Resist & Build
- People’s Network for Land and Liberation
- Stop Cop City Solidarity
- The Response: Stop Cop City with Jesse Pratt López & Nolan Huber-Rhoades
Episode credits:
- Hosted and produced by Tom Llewellyn
- Edited by Robert Raymond
- Theme Music by Cultivate Beats
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The Response is an award-winning podcast series produced by Shareable exploring how communities respond to disaster — from hurricanes to wildfires to reactionary politics and more.
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