Social Movement Appreciation Project
In our rapidly destabilising world, it's clear that nothing will get better without large numbers of people working together. But social movements remain mysterious and under-studied creatures: the Social Movement Appreciation Project aims to shine a warm and loving light on today's many efforts at collective agency and system transformation.
Episodes
13 episodes
Organising Les Résistantes: secret sauce and looming storms
Les Résistantes was a beacon of joyful social movement ambition. Something like 10,000 people came together representing struggles from across not only France but Europe and beyond. An activist event of this scale and substance must be seen to ...
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Season 3
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Episode 5
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49:52
The French anti-nuclear movement
You might be as surprised as me to learn the anti-nuclear fight is one of the biggest social movement scenes in France. I sat down with Pauline Boyer to learn about France’s current nuclear crossroads and its peculiar economic, cultural and geo...
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Season 3
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Episode 4
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57:47
The Movement Hub, Greenpeace and NGOs
In an age of sinister international connivance, have you ever wondered where *our* shadowy networks are? Wonder no longer!Ok not really, but the Movement Hub is a rare and brilliant case of social movement internationalism: alongside muc...
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Season 3
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Episode 3
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1:06:29
Soulèvements de la Terre and the Battle of Sainte-Soline
Soulèvements could lay a claim to be the hottest eco-action group not just in France but all of Europe. Their approach of bundling local environmental struggles into bigger efforts has paid off in several actions with numbers in the tens of tho...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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41:18
Anti-fascist football and the Slovak climate movement
For our first entry at Les Résistantes I talk to Mikhail about his activist career, which begins with the onset of far-right violence in early-2000s Slovakia, runs though the world of football ultras, and ultimately brings him to the climate mo...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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1:18:28
Fascism and Fossil Free London
Robin Wells, director of Fossil Free London, joins me to reflect on Green Gathering and the movement evolutions on view there: namely the increasing relevance of fascism to the climate movement, and broader frame/vibe-shift towards a *collapse*...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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52:31
Activism since the 80s and intentional communities
Clifford offers an awe-inspiring tour through four decades of change-making. Starting in Greenham Common in 1981 and running through the Miners’ Strike, the anti-roads movement, Earth First, to Extinction Rebellion and beyond.This wide s...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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1:01:42
Hospicing Modernity and Transformative Adaptation
Coming from a teepee in a mysterious village at the heart of Green Gathering, Paul Mather tells us the story behind this congregation of yurts and ideas: a combination of climate collapse and countercultural experimentation.But the ‘Tran...
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56:53
Climate Camp Ireland
Climate Camp Scotland is one of many kindred efforts. Douglas sits down with organisers Emma and Eimear to learn that Climate Camp Ireland is very similar in some respects (organising culture, general strategy) and very different in others (pol...
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1:02:12
Nuclear weapons, families and community gardens
Movements bring people together, and some people bring movements together. Lynne Jamieson is a Professor of Sociology of Families and Relationships at the University of Edinburgh, and president of the British Sociological Association. She’s als...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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56:03
Reflections: somatic workshop
In which I reflect on Henna-Elise’s workshop: The Body as Ally: Building Collective Power and Resilience in Climate Justice Work.I try to cast a bit more light on what somatic practices can look like, why they work, and how this success ...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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13:14
Somatics and Justice
What happens when you ask people to embody climate change? Can embodiment practices help us prevent burnout and channel our values? What do these practices look like in practice? And why does the world seem to resist us maintaining them?...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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46:51
Climate Camp Scotland
What is Climate Camp Scotland actually like? What’s the strategic thinking behind the whole camping thing? How is the European climate movement doing generally? Is climate still a relevant framing in the context of a polycrisis and a genocide? ...
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Season 1
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Episode 1
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1:06:04