Writing with Movements Posts

A few weeks before the 1999 Seattle WTO shutdown actions, Punk Planet Magazine circulated a call for someone to cover the protests for their next issue. I eagerly volunteered and was delighted when they asked me to do it. In the following weeks, I filled a waterproof notebook with notes…

Canadian Dimension just posted this piece, my latest “writing with movements” column. I’m re-posting it here. This article is part of the Shutdown WTO Organizers’ History Project, a collection of histories and reflections from people directly involved in organizing the Seattle mass direct action in 1999. November 30, 2019, will…

Organizing for the mass direct action against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999 was one of the most important experiences of my life. For this reason, I have been delighted to spend the last few months working with some other co-founders of the Direct Action Network on the…

The Summer 2019 issue of Canadian Dimension features this piece, my “writing with movements” column for the magazine. I’m reposting it here with links included. I’ve recently returned to a something I wrote in my twenties. Back in 2005, I contributed a “Letter to older activists” to the book Letters from Young…

The work of INCITE! and Critical Resistance has crucially propelled the development of anti-racist feminist and prison abolitionist politics over the last two decades. But as most experienced activists know, these politics have much longer lineages, which are well worth exploring and learning from. Emily Thuma’s book All Our Trials:…

The Winter 2019 issue of Canadian Dimension features this piece, my “writing with movements” column for the magazine. I’m reposting it here with links included. We can learn a lot about movements by looking at how – and how much – they train people. Many activist spaces these days spend time developing…

I was so honored to make another appearance on Against the Grain, one of my top favorite shows! AtG host Sasha Lilley invited me on to offer a basic introduction for U.S.-based listeners to the groundswell of struggle in the Canadian context against resource extraction and for climate justice. Anyone…

The Fall 2018 issue of Canadian Dimension features this piece, my “writing with movements” column for the magazine. This one is co-written with Alexis Shotwell. I’m reposting it here with links included. Climate change is hitting hard. The heat waves and fires of this past summer – and this fall’s storms and tornados…

Thanks to determined grassroots Indigenous efforts, there is a growing public discussion in the Canadian context about what is known as the “60s scoop.” This was the period, starting in the late 1950s, when over 20,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families, lands, and cultures and trafficked across provinces,…

As a faithful subscriber to make/shift magazine for its decade-long run, I was really sad when it ended in 2017. The magazine was a crucial, if underappreciated, anti-racist feminist space for discussion and experimentation. That’s why I’m so grateful to the former editors, Jessica Hoffman and Darla Yudacufski, and to…