Webinar – Radical “Municipalism”: Resistance and Systemic Change from the Ground Up

Who and what are these progressive forces growing in urban and regional environments from Rojava, Kurdistan to Hong Kong, from Richmond, California and Jackson, Mississippi to so many cities in Europe – Barcelona, Naples, Messina, Grenoble, Zagreb, Belgrade… and beyond?

Where do they come from? How are they changing the nature of relationships between social movements and public institutions? What political programs are helping them gain electoral power, and how are they implementing progressive policies in the face of entrenched corporate and other vested interests? Taking up these questions will allow us to better understand this new age of political strategies and culture, in which a growing number of grassroots post-capitalist movements seek to transition from the streets to the town halls, organizing around true commitments to internationalism, feminization of politics, anti-racism, a commons oriented economy – and radical pragmatism.

This invigorated translocal cities-based movement, sometimes referred to as “municipalism”, offers powerful tools for building both resistance – and systemic alternatives from the ground up. To share insights from the movements and how philanthropy can support these initiatives, on February 20th, EDGE organised the Just Transition Collaborative webinar on Radical ‘Municipalism’: Resistance and Systemic Change from the Ground Up. Laura Roth, from the International Group of Barcelona en Comú, shared some challenges and the accomplishments of their endeavours, while a group of funders shared their practices in supporting local initiatives and fostering a global connection amongst platforms.

Watch the recording of the webinar and use the comments field below if you have any questions or if you want to engage in the conversation.

*Correction: Grassroots international has been in partnership with the Zapatistas communities since 2006.

With:

LauraRoth Laura Roth, coordinator of the Participation Committee and member of the International Group of Barcelona en Comú, she helps to build an international municipalist network. Laura currently works at the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (which depends on the United Cities and Local Governments network and Barcelona City Council). She also coordinates the Facilitation Group at FundAction.

Romy Krämer with Guerrilla Foundation and Jovanna Garcia Soto with Grassroots International shared insights why and how their foundations aligned and partnered with movements like these. They also shared reflections on why this is an essential piece of systemic change philanthropy.

Arianne Shaffer of the Indie Philanthropy Initiative and facilitator of the EDGE’s six-month co-learning Global Engagement Lab (GEL) facilitated our discussion about lessons learned from civil society allies as well as philanthropic craft, digging into how funders can deepen their own learnings to become activist organizers, shifting portfolios, colleagues, and the field as a whole.

Following the initial presentations and questions, we reserved time for all participants to share examples of your own philanthropic efforts and initiatives you are involved with that further systemic change philanthropy, conversations we will continue and build on at the annual EDGE conference in April.

This monthly Webinar Series is open to all EDGE members and interested funders who wish to deepen their understanding of theoretical principles of systemic change, and develop practical, strategic applications for grantmaking.

Mark your calendars for our March and April webinars!

March 20th – Join us to talk about Gender Justice and Just Transition
April 10th – We’ll be exploring issues of Culture and Narrative

César Valdivieso

Hi! Edge Funders people This is an idea that might fit somehow into the proposal of Radical Municipalism:
A VIRTUAL RADICAL GREEN CITY TO SAVE THE REAL WORLD
Despite the high quality of life that some of the so-called developed nations have achieved, the truth is that the world, considered as a group of countries located in a fragile and geographically limited biosphere, is threatened with extinction due to human conflicts and the depredation of the environment.
Notwithstanding the good and very important actions taken by groups and individuals in favor of a better world, deterioration at all levels continues to increase dangerously.
After more than thirty years dedicated to these matters, and since “an image is worth a thousand words” we have come up with a novel idea of designing a self-sufficient and sustainable model city that has all the characteristics of infrastructure and organization inherent to the peaceful and sustainable society that we want for ourselves and our descendants, whose representation in the form of scale models, animated series, feature films, video games and theme parks, would constitute a model to follow to generate the necessary changes.
The prototype that we present has some characteristics that are opposed, sometimes in a radical way, to the religious, economic, political and educational traditions and customs that have been transmitted from generation to generation, yet are the causes of the aforementioned problems, and therefore must be transformed.
If you are interested in knowing about this project, or even participating in it, we invite you to visit our website https://elmundofelizdelfuturo.blogspot.com/ (written in Spanish and English), where we are working in that sense.

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