I don’t generally pay a lot of attention to transitions dictated by the calendar. I don’t do much to mark my birthday, for instance, and I’ve never been given to making resolutions just because the count of years clicks up by one. I’m not claiming that this is any better than any other way of …
(Originally published at The Breach) As 2024 draws to a close, there are many good reasons for liberation-minded people to feel concern about the state of the world. But there are also many victories to celebrate—victories that were achieved by ordinary people joining together to fight for a better future. With right-wing forces celebrating their …
For the last few years, I’ve written an article each December looking back at social movement victories in so-called Canada over that year. In the last week or two, I’ve been working on the version for 2024. As is true every year, I’m finding it inspiring. Even though this is something I track throughout the …
I like fanfiction. That’s perhaps something that someone who wants to be taken seriously as a reader, as a writer, and as a sayer-of-things about the state of the world shouldn’t admit, but it’s true. I’m not going to say what fandoms I enjoy, but I read a fair bit of it, and I’ve (pseudonymously) …
(Originally published at The Media Co-op.) Emma Jackson is an organizer, trainer, and occasional writer based on Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton, Alberta. She first began organizing over a decade ago in the student fossil fuel divestment movement and has since become involved in climate, migrant justice, Indigenous rights, and Palestine solidarity organizing. Interviewing and …
I’ve been very conscious, in the last couple of weeks, of the distinction between making things and circulating them. The kinds of things that I mean are, of course, the kinds of things that I make myself. So I don’t mean widgets or washing machines or ice cream cones or garden gnomes – I mean …
I’ve been thinking a lot, in the last couple of weeks, about social media. This is, I suppose, not an unusual state of affairs. As is true for lots of people in North America, social media went over the years from something I had vaguely heard of, to something I was suspicious of and reluctant …
It feels weird to be me and to not know what to do in this moment. And I think that feeling points to a larger problem. Let me explain. I have been involved in social movements in one way or another for, oh, almost 30 years now. I’ve never been a high profile leader. I’ve …
I make things. It’s what I do. Mostly, I make things with written words. Sometimes those things involve audio, and occasionally photos or video. But always words. This piece of writing is intended as the first in a new, ongoing practice. Well, I say “ongoing,” but I don’t actually know that. I may decide that …
Tara Ehrcke of Victoria, BC, was initially politicized as part of the global justice movement in the 1990s. As that movement faded after 9/11, she was peripherally involved in anti-war organizing, but put more of her energies into local political work. In the early 2000s, she became a teacher, and for a decade and a …