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Building Solidarity & Connection Across Movements

We want to emphasise the theme of “Connecting Movements” throughout the entire Food Autonomy Festival. To achieve this, we believe it would be beneficial to  establish a framework that promotes such connections.The idea is to facilitate connections between individuals from various movements in spaces outside of workshops or presentations, through the use of various tools to encourage conversations during breaks between workshops, panels, and presentations. The ultimate objective is to cultivate trust between people and movements, creating an fertile ground for future collaborations.

What’s the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy & how do we challenge it?

Divide and conquer is a commonly used tactic to promote conflict among the general population and prevent the building of unity against oppressive systems.

The divide and conquer strategy originated in slavery, where slave owners created divisions by promoting white supremacy and a social hierarchy that placed white people at the top and BIPOC at the bottom. By creating divisions between racial groups, they prevented a unified opposition to slavery.

Nowadays, politicians and media outlets often use divisive language and promote extreme viewpoints to create a sense  of “us vs them.” This can make it harder for people who suffer under the same oppressive system to find common ground and work together towards shared goals.

Unfortunately, this strategy of disconnection and the resulting fragmentation of social movements succeeds in obstructing genuine progress towards social and environmental justice.

 

How can we challenge this disconnection?

There are various strategies to challenge the divide-and-conquer tactic.

Cultivating solidarity and focusing on our shared values are crucial to nourishing the foundation for building collective power.

To achieve this, we must foster spaces and environments that invite people to come together.

These spaces should serve as fertile soil, providing an opportunity to sow new ideas, exchange knowledge, and build relationships.

 

Have you encountered spaces like that? What has your experience been organising or connecting with other movements?

ASEED aims to facilitate such a space at this year’s Food Autonomy Festival that fosters connection and bridge-building between movements, much like a mycelium network that has the transformative potential to uproot and challenge the current system.

Our vision is to cultivate a strong civil society movement rooted in the climate justice, anti-gas, and agroecology movements. This movement recognises the shared threat the fossil fuel industry and the agro-industry pose. It aims to develop integrated strategies and narratives to leverage these links in the fight against climate change and toxic agrochemical impacts. We emphasise the need to address neocolonial dependencies associated with these industries to support a transition towards a  sustainable, autonomous, and just food system.

 

We thus invite you to join this year’s Food Autonomy Festival, participate in this movement connecting process, and be part of an expanding mycelium network that is actively challenging the ”divide and conquer” strategy by building collective power for a sustainable, just and autonomous food system.

 

Do you have a campaign, an initiative, a project or a performance that you would want to share with all participants? We are currently finalising the program, but there is space for additional contributions! Contact us via a dm or at info@aseed.net before the 21st of May.

 

Compost agribusiness! Compost the fossil industry! Fossil Free Agriculture now!