Do you have a nagging feeling that all the EDI/DEI and sustainability ambitions in the world
Do you wonder how you can effect
This space is for sustainability professionals grappling with systemic constraints, and those questioning their roles within DEI/EDI, aid, academia, or non-profits - and more broadly, anyone wondering if the most radical change might come from stepping outside dominant paradigms.
This workshop offering grew from reflections and questions raised during and around POSSIBLE FUTURES' Intro to Decolonial Sustainability course. While not part of the formal course curriculum, this workshop builds on the emergent concerns of past cohorts.
from within the EDI/DEI, sustainability, or aid industries, academia, or the nonprofit/ nongovernmental industrial complex? Do you ever wonder if you might be better placed to effect change from outside dominating entities and ideas in the above fields? What scares you about this? What excites you?
This workshop is designed to bring together sustainability and/or related fields like the development / aid sectors, social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion, etc. for a space of reflection, peer exchange and critical engagement. It builds on previous workshops and dives into the complexities of navigating the status of the sustainability / development industries while somehow balancing personal and systemic integrity.
to a thriving society or livable climate?
we will dive into the following:
Peer coaching sessions using Liberating Structures to collaboratively unpack challenges and discover insights between peers;
Critical interrogations and discussions on topics like
What exactly is wrong with Sustainability, Inc.?
Greenwashing tactics and systemic barriers within the sustainability industry
Existential questions on staying, leaving, or transforming within the field of sustainability and in adjacent fields
Interactive breakouts: thought-provoking activities that open pathways for radical thinking and feeling
Lavinia has 15 years of experience in the field of sustainability in fashion & agriculture, having transitioned from roles rooted in compliance and auditing. She has grappled with her own challenges, recognizing the limitations of the traditional sustainability narrative. Lavinia has also witnessed the pitfalls of engaging in what she refers to as "stewardship superiority" during her years of advising farming communities, textile factories and fashion brands and retailers around the world. She is currently in the process of getting divorced from so-called Sustainability Inc.
Through her participation in the POSSIBLE FUTURES course Intro to Decolonial Sustainability, Lavinia has come to understand the importance of social justice and environmental justice, embarking on a journey of questioning power structures within the context of sustainability. She now works as a freelancer, dedicated to diverse projects focused on justice issues in the consumer goods sector and is also on the way to decolonize her personal yoga practice.
To get in touch with her: https://www.laviniamuth.com/
Vidhya is an interdependent, intersectional, and interdisciplinary evaluation practitioner, scholar, organiser, and activist. She has spent the last 20 years sustaining her family and a larger community by selling her intellectual labour—research/evaluation services and knowledge products—to organisations and governments within the nonprofit/ nongovernmental industrial complex. She started her own practice by necessity, upon being fired at the height of COVID and in the midst of the 2020 uprisings because her last employer objected to her public discussion of the dissertation research that they had actively recruited her for two years before. In response to countless experiences like this, she founded The May 13 Group, which is a still-emerging ecosystem among those of us seeking to repair the harm caused by this kind of exploitation of racially otherized evaluators through a cooperative, solidarity economy.
She has a Master's degree in Public Affairs, concentrating in Nonprofit Management, which she supplemented with a self-designed secondary concentration in Race, Class & Gender in Global Perspective. An artist first, she brings her training in Fine Arts and Art History with her everywhere.
You can reach her at vidhya@whyisevaluationsowhite.info or read/ watch/ listen to her work in/on/through/around research & evaluation on LinkTree.
Now open for registrations at flexible pricing:
Saturday 28th December, 10.30am - 13.30pm UTC
Friday 10th January, 10.30am - 13.30pm UTC
Sunday 16th February, 4.00pm - 7.00pm UTC
Friday 14th March, 4.00pm - 7.00pm UTC
We are offering this workshop on a sliding scale fee, using the practice of radical relationality. Radical relationality invites us to reflect on our positionality within systems of exploitation and extraction and to move capital in ways that repair, reverse, redress and regenerate from harm. This involves:
Placing ourselves explicitly in relationship to others and naming the nature of that relationship.
Recognizing how economic, political and social structures mediate the flow of capital and privilege.
Moving away from static identity-based notions of privilege toward relational and contextual understandings.
We ask registrants to consider their position within these systems to determine a fair contribution. For a few more pointers on this, scroll down to the frequently asked questions.
To support accessibility and sustainability, the minimum fee is USD 25, and the suggested maximum fee is USD 500. If USD 25 is still not feasible, please specify this your registration form - we’ll ensure you can join.
Payment is made at the end of the registration form, where you will be able to manually enter a price that suits you.
Q: Who is this workshop for?
A: Anyone who is currently working in any role, at any level, in academia; development aid; corporate sustainability; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) consulting or reporting; impact investing; sustainable finance; or other "business/academia as a force for good", including the philanthro-capitalist nonprofit/nongovernmental industrial complex, is welcome and who we designed this session for.
Q: What languages and formats will the workshop take place in?
A: The workshops will take place in English, in multiple time zones, at multiple times of day and days of the week by video conference using the Zoom platform's meeting format, whose accessibility features are listed here. If Zoom is new to you, we suggest downloading the platform and practising to use it in advance. In our Zoom sessions, participants will be muted when they are not speaking, will not be required to be on video, and can hide self-view if desired. We will refrain from using flashing or strobing animations. We will enable closed captioning. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, a transcript of the session will not be available afterwards (nor will the session be recorded). During each session, we will share our screen for a short amount of time to present a slide deck.
Please indicate on the registration form if you would like the content of the slides translated into a language other than English.
The meeting format allows for interaction by chat. Participants may also call in. Facilitators will describe and read the content of the slides and periodically summarise the chat for those who may be joining by phone, visually impaired, or otherwise hindered from engaging with the chat function during the call.
The facilitators also aim to speak clearly and enunciate. Pauses are included to allow time for people to think before sharing and 10-minute comfort breaks are provided around each 60-minute mark.
This workshop involves English-language peer coaching. We are happy to offer German or Spanish sessions should there be sufficient interest (min. 10 pax). Please indicate your interest below.
Q: Where does my registration payment go?
A: All registration fees will be disbursed as follows:
approximately 12% will go to POSSIBLE FUTURES for administration of the events
26% will be donated to POSSIBLE FUTURES’ indigenous rights partner organisations in West Papua, and
the remaining 62% will be divided amongst the facilitation team.
Refund requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Q: Do I need to prepare anything ahead of time?
A: Please download the Zoom app on your mobile device or computer as preparation, familiarise yourself with the audio settings and be online about 5 minutes before the start.
You may also like to familiarise yourself with the co-facilitators by reading their bios above and exploring their work.
Registration closes 12h prior to the start of each session.
Q: How much should I pay? How might I consider the sources of each type of capital I have access to and how we are each related through patterns of extraction and exploitation?
A: The following prompts may be helpful:
Land(s) of your ancestry, birth, training, residence, and work: What lands are you connected to and disconnected from? What have they gone through? What condition are they in now? Who cared for them or worked on or lived in them for generations? Who was ripped apart from them or from their intimacy and mutuality with them? How are you related to each of these peoples? Think about colonisation, forced migration, segregation, redlining, gentrification, pollution, deforestation, mining, and climate shocks.
Place(s) you work/ed: To what extent have you needed to work for wages to pay your bills? To what extent have you been able to find and keep work that pays your bills? Reflect on the history, location, pay structure, and decision-making roles of any places that you may have worked. What institutions did they replace/displace? How many times more does the highest-paid position make compared to the lowest-paid? How much control have you had over the work that you do? The work that others do? Who all has been affected by decisions you have been responsible for through your work?
Person(s) you partner/ed with (if applicable): Think about your access to healthcare, retirement, and legal and economic protections, especially in relation to the institution of marriage. Do you have a partnership in which one person can focus on paid work while the other focuses on unpaid (devalued) work? Do you calculate how your individual or combined earnings may affect your access to public benefits, subsidies, or assistance? Can one or both of you earn higher wages or enjoy leisure time because you rely on lower-paid labour for certain types of work?
People you were born to/raised by: Account for all that was available to you growing up. What kinds of work did it come from? Who performed that work? Who profited from it? To what extent do you, or did your family, depend on family and friends during an emergency or for financial survival? To what extent could you or did you depend on the State? To what extent did your family and/or the State invest in filling your childhood with resources such that your adult "success" appears to be "independent?" To what extent did others depend on your family, or do they depend on you now? What financial transfers of wealth have you received from your family for big expenses that allow you to avoid destitution or to generate income or accumulate wealth? These may include educational credentials, a vehicle, or housing. What such transfers have you made or prepared to make?
Once you've had a chance to reflect, specify an amount that feels right for you to pay.
