GLOSSARY

Individuals and groups who take action to shift their communities away from extractive economic models, namely capitalism, and towards economic models that honors all life. Elements include shared ownership, accountability, and resources for the many as a central value.

Interconnected individuals, groups, and communities who are working towards liberation. Being in a movement ecology means you are aware of your role within social change efforts and are connected to other communities working for justice and liberation locally, regionally, and beyond. Learn More

Seeks to change the root causes, social structures, and circumstances that lead to harm/oppression. It attempts to address the root causes and create healing and accountability for both those harmed and those who have caused the harm as opposed to relying on punitive and/or state-sanctioned consequences.

two way accountable and authentic relationships between ally/accomplice groups and groups led by people most impacted by oppression.

Our spiritual fabric is woven together by repeating patterns that can be considered our spiritual practices. The strength of the fabric is directly connected to the integrity of spiritual practice.

Sharing similar risk (taken from Augusto Boal)

Intergenerational wealth and income inequality arise out of centuries of extractive practices that continue to this day such as colonization, imperialism, slavery, and systemic disenfranchisement. Resource redistribution happens when wealth and resources are distributed to communities most directly impacted by systems of oppression, from whom it was stolen from.

Can be described as the conditions that exist prior to or in preparation for fascism – a form of radical authoritarian ultra-nationalism.

a system of control that keeps our movement fragmented and competitive rather than cooperative and in solidarity and community. The non-profit industrial complex does to activists and the movement what the prison industrial complex does to Black and Brown and poor folks.

People in mutually accountable relationship with each other, including relationships across oppressed and oppressor identities.

Marginalized communities that are impacted by systemic oppression and are doing something about it.

Birthed from the LGBTQ+ movement, an ally is someone who does not identify as part of the affected community who is in solidarity but without accountability.

an understanding that systems of oppression work together and reinforce each other across identities, and that our movements of resistance and creation must do the same for us all to get free.

a person who uses their power and privilege for justice, in solidarity with, in relationship to, and following the leadership of people most impacted by oppression while taking risks.

“…is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions” (Nick Obolensky, Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (Burlington, VT: Gower, 2014) – quoted in Emergent Strategy “…emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships, listening with all the senses of the body and the mind.” ( adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy)

“people who are drawn together by something that they have in common that has both personal and community consequences, and grant themselves the authority to solve the problem they are facing or create the future that they desire” – Janis Foster Richardson former Executive Director of Grassroots Grantmakers