We are on our Way; Already existing Internal Structures

“I believe that everything good, true and beautiful came originally from a social movement.”

(interviewee B)

A lot has been said about those aspects where the CJM has room for improvement and could more strongly “walk its talk”. Shortly I also want to address some structures that already exist. It seems important to not only criticise what needs to change, but also recognize those structures that are already today helping to make the CJM more sustainable. From the interviews I gathered that these existing structures have not always been there and I got the

impression that there is actually already a lot of thought (at least by some individuals) being put into coming up with strategies about how to lift our activism onto more sustainable pillars.

5.8.1. Hierarchies

In a lot of aspects the movement already tries to “be the change” and act out what we would like to see in the world. One key element in this is hierarchy and the intention to work on a horizontal level.

For example the yearly climate camps aim at providing platforms where everybody can participate in decision-making processes and reduce hierarchy. So-called “neighbourhoods”

and daily plenaries are by now reliable institutions that have proven to be very useful for breaking up hierarchies and reaching collective decisions. Even so, as the feminist, political scientist, writer and attorney Jo Freeman puts it: “There is no such thing as a structureless group” (1970). Trying to avoid hierarchy and leadership, many activists disarm each other when it comes to identification and removal of obstacles for effective collective action.

Especially in bigger groups the intention of distributing responsibility and allowing autonomy can imply an excessive demand on the individual. This can be seen with every year that climate camps get bigger and attract more people, and the neighbourhood plenaries get increasingly complex to coordinate. It becomes very visible that we have not grown up with learning how participatory democracy looks and works like. Not everybody is prepared to get involved in decision-making processes and sit through, sometimes quite lengthy, plenaries. As a consequence, the oftentimes slow process of collective decision making gets disregarded as tiring and time-consuming. On the one hand, this can be seen as a valuable process, in which we experience and practice how participatory democracy can feel like and what it also requires in terms of personal efforts and contributions. At the same time, it might be useful to start a more general debate around the question of whether and where it might in fact make sense to avoid involving the big collective but rely on the expertise of some. Especially when it comes to organizing the various “to-dos”, clear division of work and transparent workloads are essential in order to avoid overwork of some.

Even so, it seems to be worth the effort of practicing and establishing alternative forms of internal organization; decentralised decision-making processes and horizontal structures are less prone to corruption, and the more people are included in the process and feel empowered, the greater the chance that long-term and profound change will happen. This will then in turn also fall back on our everyday behaviour.

5.8.2. Emotional Rounds

Doing emotional rounds¹⁴ is still an integral part of plenaries or group processes or sometimes simply a way to collectively start into the day. From my point of view this is already an important feminist step towards valuing the emotions of the individual, improving our communication culture and practicing collective mindfulness.

5.8.3. Yoga at the Climate Camps

It is a common institution that at every climate camp there are some yoga sessions being offered for everybody to participate. This is a unique moment where activists come together to do something for their physiological and psychological health. I hadn’t been reflecting so much on the importance of the yoga classes on the camp up to the moment where I told the yoga teacher about the topic of my thesis. She told me that she still remembers one moment where we bumped into each other on the camp. I had thanked her for her yoga classes and told her that these 1,5 hours are in fact the only time during the week-long camp that I was explicitly taking for myself and was making sure that I made no other commitments for that time. Apparently it stroke her how grateful I was for this time and the incentive to make space for “a date with myself” to look after my own well-being. I’m sure I wouldn’t have taken that time had the yoga class not pushed me to do it. One aspect that is special about yoga is that it falls into the category of “preventive” measures that people can practice both collectively and individually.

5.8.4. Out of Action

Out of Action is a structure that provides support from activists for activists and accompanies stressful experiences before, during and after an action. The emotional first aid group is usually present at big climate mobilizations. My experience is that it is a structure that people make use of when there is already a need. It seems to focus less on large-scale structural changes to support people avoid or prepare for negative experiences¹⁵. Out Of Action seems

14 An emotional round is a collective practice where everybody shares his*her current state of mind. Those rounds can take various forms, from being extremely long and intimate to simply functioning as a quick check-in.

to be an important step towards a movement that engages in more sustainable activism overall, but in my opinion the structure will need to be expanded and become more visible and involved in the overall set-up of a climate camp or action campaign.