Fermento at European Summer University of Social Movements

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ATTAC, Asta and Bikoop are organizing #ESU2022, the European Summer University of Social Movements, between August 17 – 21 in Mönchengladbach, Germany.

In tens of workshops, social movements will share experiences and discuss strategy.

Fermento is hosting a session too!

Theories of Change and Conflict Escalation

August 18th, 10:00am

How does change happen? How do we think change happens? How do we think that this particular change will happen? What do we need to do to make that change happen? In this strategy workshop the participants will explore what their underlying assumptions about activism are and whether their activities have been in accordance with their assumptions.

In this workshop we will discuss different theories of change that organisations have regarding different issues and analyse the strategies and tactics they use to achieve their goals. Then we will talk about conflict escalation, a tool that various “momentum-driven” movements have used in recent years.

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.”

(Excerpt from a letter from Birmingham Prison, 16 April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr.)

More information, full program and registration: https://www.esu22.eu/en/