We’ve been exploring the notion of Community as a way of understanding this critical component of resistance to the dominant culture. One outcome of these explorations is that we Community builders better understand where our collectives are – see our earlier post describing Functional vs. Conscious vs. Deep Community, and the notion of Radical Community.
A more important outcome of these explorations is that Community builders can determine whether there is a gap between where their collective is now and where the collective aspires to be, and to then craft a plan to move forward.
Community is sharing. This is not merely an aspect of a strong Community; it’s more or less a definition. At the very least, Community implies sharing. As a starting point, consider the Miriam Webster English Language Learners Definition of commune (Entry 2 of 2):
a group of people who live together and share responsibilities, possessions, etc.
The devil, as they say, is in the details. Here, it’s in the “etc.”. So, what more could there be to share besides responsibilities and possessions? And what aspects of sharing make a collective a CPR collective?
Communities offer an essential source of power to protect and resist. CPR collectives serve as a front line source of resistance, as well as behind-the-lines support for resistance warriors. This notion is the basis for Premise 1: CPR as Resistance Collectives: Communities provide a fundamental unit of opposition, based on shared interests and identity, and/or a common landbase.
CPR-type collectives offer an aggregated level of force of and for resisters unlike any others. These collectives are, in our view, a major source of strength to resist and dismantle the dominant culture; they may be our only real source of power. We need to leverage their potential more than we have.
Let’s not put the cart before the horse, however. For CPR collectives to be effective as sources of power for resistance externally, they first need to be strong (powerful) internally. We need to talk about power within collectives. CPR collectives are strong because they share power among themselves.
Invoking the dictionary definition of community highlights the importance of sharing, but it serves best as a conceptual foil. We view ‘shared possessions’ as immaterial in characterizing a CPR collective. While we abhor the consumerist ethos that taints this toxic culture, how and when possessions are shared make little difference in whether a Community serves to Protect and Resist. Rather than conceptualize a sharing algorithm describing who gets what stuff, then, let’s agree that if your Community is truly committed to resisting the dominant culture, you’ll minimalize possessions as a rule, but share essentials like food, shelter, and social support.
Generally, mainstream writers on community building focus on practices when discussing sharing as a critical characteristic. Rather than possessions, e.g., sharing practices seems a more effective avenue, and one that scholars on Community general agree about. Shaffer & Anundsen list ‘participate in common practices’ as a basic building block of Community, as do Briand, and Morse.
In fact, whether and how a collective shares in the first place determines, according to Shaffer & Anundsen, whether that collective is a Full Community or ‘merely’ a proto-community (see our post, “What is Community?” https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/ctpr.home.blog/181). For example, “Breadth” consists of how many facets of life members share (such as personal information and aid in times of crisis), while “Depth” is how deeply and thoroughly members share.
Understanding Shared Power
There’s an element of common sense to this sharing notion, and it comes from the leadership literature. Kouzes & Posner, for example, explain that effective leaders continually develop comrades and cultivate their confidence and self-efficacy. They strengthen others by sharing power and discretion. When leaders coach, educate, enhance self-determination and otherwise share power, they demonstrate profound trust in and respect for others’ abilities. In turn, shared power enables others to develop greater individual capacity, self-efficacy, and persistence. They are, and feel, more powerful and able to make things happen on their own. These capacities lead to a Community in which members are committed to the joint vision, are more capable of struggling for it, and able to collaborate with others. This is one reason why we refer to effective leadership as a force multiplier, and a fundamental component of an effective Community.
When we share power at the individual level, we become more powerful at the Community level.
Shared Power is Shared Decision Making
Foremost among the shared aspects of a Full Community is the decision making process. Perhaps this reflects the significance of sharing power among members of the collective. In fact, it’s not unreasonable to assert that shared decision-making is shared power.
Shaffer & Anundsen list inclusive decision making as a prerequisite for individuals who want to build Community. In Mattesich & Monsey’s model of effective Community, success relies on the “Ability to discuss, reach consensus, and cooperate” (p.24). Critical activities in such collectives “offer community members the opportunity to practice open dialogue, develop trust, and increase group decision-making skills” (p.24).
Michael Briand’s ‘fundamental task’ for every community is ‘how to make decisions that lead to actions that are effective” (p.20). Among the principles Briand invokes in this pursuit are Inclusion – “involving not just people who have a clear stake in the matter at hand, but also those ‘ordinary folks’, those members of the ‘silent majority’.” (p. 23) Briand understands that to be effective, a Community’s decision-making process must include participation by all [members].
Suzanne Morse lists “Mechanisms for Deciding” (dialogue and deliberation) to find the common good as an element of the framework of successful communities of this century. Kouzes and Posner talked about trust in interpersonal leadership: Morse makes the same point for communities – “involving people in the decisions that affect their lives is not only good civic business but a critical way to build trust, relationships, and networks among citizens. A challenge, per Morse, is to develop a social infrastructure to ensure an accessible community life, to connect neighborhoods and the people within them to each other and to the larger civic life. This accessibility means inclusion, and the practices that allow every Community member to participate in the direction of her or his Community.
Inclusive decision-making (which relies on active and deep listening) maximizes the chances for wisdom and engenders wider support, and we don’t take issue with this. We wish, though, to extend the argument a bit.
Shared Power is Justice
In a CPR-type collective, when power is shared, all members, human and otherwise, exert power simply by being in the natural order. Members exercise the ability and freedom to interact with and among others in a way that allows each to “mutually exist, flourish, regenerate, and naturally evolve” (Falk, 2019, p. 51). As implied, Community members do not simply bask in this power and freedom; while they enjoy the fruits of this order, they are also held to uphold it, as responsible members and Community guardians.
The assertion that each Community member is gifted with this capacity (and accountable for this responsibility) seems a form of distributive justice (see, e.g., Sandel, 2009), in which “resources” are allocated justly. In our egalitarian perspective on this, we borrow from Elizabeth Anderson:
“the positive aim of egalitarian justice is…to create a community in which
[members] stand in relation of equality to others” (p. 288-289)
What must a member do to merit power? It’s not complicated; as long as one is willing to cooperate with members according to these expectations, one is entitled to their benefits. This is a tenet of the philosophy of justice outlined by John Rawls (in Sandel).
To illustrate, here’s an example of how a Community that shares power with e.g., women, benefits.
“The Water and Development Alliance (WADA) released research findings revealing the compelling link between safe, clean water access and women’s empowerment. Globally, while women remain those most deeply impacted by the lack of access to clean water, they are least likely to control or manage water infrastructure. Water is a key lever for advancing women’s rights, well-being, and opportunity. Ensuring women’s participation and opportunity to design and manage water access allows them to ensure their own protection and livelihood, and leverages this simple investment for exponential ripples of impact.
In locations in Rwanda and Uganda where water accessibility is limited, Global Grassroots helps undereducated women to design, construct, and implement their own water solutions that improve safety, health, and educational and economic opportunities for women and girls. By implementing their own non-profit enterprises, these women demonstrate their value to their communities, realize their leadership potential and, using our unique methods, build inclusive and sustainable local institutions that foster greater collective stability.
Women who manage their own clean water access not only ensure the most vulnerable women and girls are no longer subjected to the violence and exploitation inherent in water collection, but also enable girls’ access to education. The opportunity for women to lead fosters greater confidence, self-efficacy, and engagement in their communities as change agents. Over time, their leadership and value to their communities shift gender relations, roles, and behavior. Further, women-led water infrastructure provides women with significant time savings, allows a sustainable source of income for their own livelihood, and generates revenue that they will invest in other urgent needs facing the community. Our experience has shown that one successful experience as a change agent is quickly followed by expansion and/or an iterative problem-solving process where women take on the other challenges in their communities.
When women lead, communities succeed.”
http://www.globalwaterchallenge.org/blog/when-women-lead-communities-succeed
A more radical (fundamental) perspective on justice comes from the Rights of Nature (RON) movement. As the Community Environmental Defense Fund (CELDF) describes the construct, and the movement:
Environmental degradation is advancing around the world. The United Nations has warned that we are heading toward “major planetary catastrophe.” For this reason, there is a growing recognition that we must fundamentally change the relationship between humankind and nature.
Making this fundamental shift means acknowledging our dependence on nature and respecting our need to live in harmony with the natural world. It means securing the highest legal protection and the highest societal value for nature through the recognition of nature’s rights.https://celdf.org/advancing-community-rights/rights-of-nature/
CELDF has worked with the first U.S. communities and the first country to establish the rights of nature in law – recognizing the rights of ecosystems and natural communities to exist and thrive, and empowering people and their governments to defend and enforce these rights.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/CELDF/about/?ref=page_internal
What the RON movement recognizes is that Communities have the right, and obligation, to protect all life within their respective collectives. In our model, this means ensuring that all forms of life are granted power. What CELDF and other organizations do is take this philosophy a step further by working to instill in Communities the power to Resist, from a legal orientation, the dominant culture’s toxicity and extractive ideology.
We’ll have more to say about justice in a later post.
Shared Power is the Absence of Class.
“Class”, whether sex, race, or socioeconomic status, e.g., is a social construction used to label, demonize, extract from, and oppress others. Class is about power. In this sense, though, it is about denying power to oppressed groups for the benefit of oppressor classes. “Class” allows oppressors to dominate, to steal entire communities and landbases.
This confession from a former cop (an enforcer of class domination) underscores how class serves to delineate the powerful from the oppressed:
“What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.” https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759
What may be lost in this statement is that it’s not a vague, New Age appeal for shared power – it’s a recognition that in the real world, Communities that share power are safer.
Mariame Kaba of Chicago Incite! Complements this perspective.
“We believe that at its roots, violence against women is based in and relies on the maintenance of oppressions, including but not limited to colonialism, racism, sexism, … imperialism, …, and classism that cannot be separated because they work in concert to reinforce each other. Hence, we are committed to ending violence by confronting and dismantling all of these systems of oppression.” https://www.transformativejustice.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/communities_engaged.pdf
In the event our readers believe these calls for dismantling are pie-in-the-sky, childish dreams of a reality that will not work, consider that there have been uncounted Communities, over thousands of years, that thrived without patriarchal governance, for example. A recent account, “6 Matriarchal Societies That Have Been Thriving With Women at the Helm for Centuries”, provides a brief introduction to Communities in which women generally oversee everything from politics, economics, and the broader social structure.
But over the course of history, societies across the globe started to bend towards a more patriarchal structure, which is pervasive in most communities in modern times. However, there are still surviving matriarchal societies to be found where women, literally, are the dominant steering factor in all matters, social, political, and economical. Read up on how these six individual communities across the globe and how they have diverged from the western-patriarchal architecture that is pervasive throughout most of the world.
The Communities: Mosuo, China; Bribri, Costa Rica; Umoja, Kenya; Minangkabau, Indonesia; Akan, Ghana; and Khasi, India
You might argue that since these Communities are generally overseen by women that there is in fact not an erasure of class. We’d respond first that a matriarchal Community is a giant first step away from the patriarchal dominant culture and worthy of pursuit on its own merits. Second, we note that the Akan Community is in fact not purely matriarchal in the sense of being dominated solely by women.
“the social organization of the Akan people is built around the matriclan. Within the matriclan, identity, inheritance, wealth, and politics are all decided. As the name would have it, matriclan founders are female. However, it must be noted that with in the Akan Matriclan, men do hold leadership positions.” https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/g28565280/matriarchal-societies-list/
“Classless” Communities work. And other Communities are working to realize this vision for a just future. We talked about the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), an intentional community, in our first post of this series. WoLF is an example of a potential oppositional Community; it is a radical feminist organization dedicated to the total liberation of women. WoLF fights to end male violence, regain reproductive sovereignty, and ultimately dismantle the gender-caste system. (http://womensliberationfront.org).
For Communities to effectively Protect and Resist, they must leverage power. That power already exists in its members, and it needs only to be identified, and freed. We can do this by sharing decision-making, sharing power, and dismantling class.
Building Shared Power
- Deconstruct class in your Community. Educate yourself and all members on what class means and how it has been used to oppress and extract in the name of the dominant culture. Actively ensure that all members enjoy full membership and equal status in your collective.
- Building Community Consciousness will move you along this path. https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/ctpr.home.blog/243
- Drive ‘classlessness’ deep into your Community culture through effective leadership, establishing supportive and consistent rites and rituals, stories, and heroes, for example.
- Construct or revise your social infrastructure so that all members have equal access to information, deliberation, and decision making. If you rely on digital social media, for example, many members will not be able to participate in these activities. Instead, wherever possible convene sessions that involve those activities in public spaces that allow for face-to-face interaction.
- Do not assume members will be able to access whatever mechanisms you set up. Dedicate resources and allow all members to access digital media, or to attend public meetings.
- Review your mechanisms for deciding. If you discover that your governing bodies are primarily comprised of men, or upper socioeconomic classes, or white members, and these characteristics do not represent the vast majority of your Community members, you are doing something wrong. Decolonize your infrastructure. Guarantee power to all classes in setting the direction for and maintaining the integrity of your Community.
- Don’t stop with guaranteeing power for human members. Understand, appreciate and materially protect the natural world in which your Community is embedded. Listen to what your land needs, and act to protect it. The Rights of Nature movement will help you understand the rationale for this, but legal remedies are insufficient, and they are easily discarded by the dominant culture when it is convenient for them to do so. Be ready to defend your land with your life, because without the land, you are dead anyway.
- Invest in developing ‘prosaic’ skills, such as effective listening, conflict management, building trust, effective messaging, and the like, And then practice them, with all members, including non-human residents of your Community. Ensure all voices are heard.
Communities that Protect and Resist 