The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives - User contributions [en]

Contribute/OpenCall

2026-09-03T13:59:51Z

Carlos:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Open Call 2026}}

=New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations: WE ARE RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL DECEMBER 1st 2026=

[[Image:OpenCall2026.jpg|center|Open Call 2026link=#]]

What words, concepts, and practices can help us name the other worlds that already exist—and those we are collectively bringing into being?

''The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives, a project of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), invites movements, communities, activists, artists, researchers, and collectives from around the world to help us continue building this living and pluriversal resource.''

''The Dictionary brings together concepts, practices, and worldviews emerging from concrete experiences of resistance, autonomy, care, commoning, and the construction of alternatives. We hope to cultivate a space where different ways of naming, knowing, doing, and inhabiting the world can encounter one another, enter into dialogue, and multiply.''

== How to contribute ==

There are four ways to contribute:

'''1. Suggest a new concept'''
Do you know a word, practice, notion, or worldview connected to territorial struggles, social movements, or alternative ways of organizing and reproducing life that is not yet represented in the Dictionary?
* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]

'''2. Contribute a new definition'''
Concepts can include multiple definitions and perspectives. We invite contributions grounded in concrete experiences, struggles, and practices, written in clear and accessible language.
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]

'''3. Translate an existing definition'''
We want the Dictionary to travel across linguistic boundaries. We particularly welcome translations between Spanish and English, although contributions in other languages are also encouraged.
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]

'''4. Illustrate a concept'''
We also invite artists, illustrators, and visual creators to imagine and visually represent concepts already included in the Dictionary.
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]

Before contributing, explore the concepts already included in the project:
[[Concepts|Index of Concepts]]

The Dictionary is conceived as an open and continuously evolving project. We hope to keep expanding it through concepts and definitions emerging from different territories, languages, movements, and traditions of thought and action.

Help us find, recover, translate, illustrate, and share the vocabularies of other worlds.

== Doubts? Questions? ==

Contact us at [mailto:contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org]

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:45:50Z

Carlos:

'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.'''

'''Concepts'''

Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its meaning, origins, and relevance to radical alternatives. Concept overviews are not attributed to individual authors. Rather, they are conceived as collective and evolving entries that may be revised as new definitions, perspectives, and contributions are added to the Dictionary. You can find out more here: [[Contribute/Concept|Contribute/Concept]]

'''Definitions'''

Definitions are authored contributions that offer a particular interpretation, perspective, or account of a concept. Each submission is reviewed internally by at least two members of the Dictionary Working Group.

Definitions should follow the general guidelines provided here: [[Contribute/Definition]]

Following this initial review, we return the submission to the author with comments and suggested revisions. Authors may then incorporate this feedback before the definition is prepared for publication.

'''Illustrations'''

Illustrations are open to a wide range of forms, styles, and approaches. We welcome creative interpretations of the concepts included in the Dictionary and are happy to discuss any questions, suggestions, or possible revisions directly with illustrators and artists during the process. You can find out more here: [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute/Illustration]]

'''Translations'''

Translations are also reviewed by a member of the Working Group whenever possible. When none of our members is sufficiently familiar with the language of the submission, we may ask the translator or author to suggest an additional person who could help us review the translation if possible.

Please follow the specific instructions provided for each type of contribution: [[Contribute/Translation]]

''All submissions are evaulated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives.''

If you have any questions or would like to discuss a possible contribution before submitting it, please do not hesitate to contact us at [http://contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org]

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:44:56Z

Carlos:

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:44:23Z

Carlos:

'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.'''

'''Concepts'''

Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its meaning, origins, and relevance to radical alternatives. Concept overviews are not attributed to individual authors. Rather, they are conceived as collective and evolving entries that may be revised as new definitions, perspectives, and contributions are added to the Dictionary. You can find out more here: [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]

'''Definitions'''

Definitions are authored contributions that offer a particular interpretation, perspective, or account of a concept. Each submission is reviewed internally by at least two members of the Dictionary Working Group.

Definitions should follow the general guidelines provided here: [[Contribute/Definition]]

Following this initial review, we return the submission to the author with comments and suggested revisions. Authors may then incorporate this feedback before the definition is prepared for publication.

'''Illustrations'''

Illustrations are open to a wide range of forms, styles, and approaches. We welcome creative interpretations of the concepts included in the Dictionary and are happy to discuss any questions, suggestions, or possible revisions directly with illustrators and artists during the process. You can find out more here: [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]

'''Translations'''

Translations are also reviewed by a member of the Working Group whenever possible. When none of our members is sufficiently familiar with the language of the submission, we may ask the translator or author to suggest an additional person who could help us review the translation if possible.

Please follow the specific instructions provided for each type of contribution: [[Contribute/Translation]]

''All submissions are evaulated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives.''

If you have any questions or would like to discuss a possible contribution before submitting it, please do not hesitate to contact us at [[contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org]]

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:35:55Z

Carlos:

'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.'''

'''Concepts'''

Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its meaning, origins, and relevance to radical alternatives. Concept overviews are not attributed to individual authors. Rather, they are conceived as collective and evolving entries that may be revised as new definitions, perspectives, and contributions are added to the Dictionary.

'''Definitions'''

Definitions are authored contributions that offer a particular interpretation, perspective, or account of a concept. Each submission is reviewed internally by at least two members of the Dictionary Working Group.

Definitions should follow the general guidelines provided here: [[Contribute/Definition]]

Following this initial review, we return the submission to the author with comments and suggested revisions. Authors may then incorporate this feedback before the definition is prepared for publication.

'''Illustrations'''

Illustrations are open to a wide range of forms, styles, and approaches. We welcome creative interpretations of the concepts included in the Dictionary and are happy to discuss any questions, suggestions, or possible revisions directly with illustrators and artists during the process.

'''Translations'''

Translations are also reviewed by a member of the Working Group whenever possible. When none of our members is sufficiently familiar with the language of the submission, we may ask the translator or author to suggest an additional person who could help us review the translation if possible.

Please follow the specific instructions provided for each type of contribution: [[Contribute/Translation]]

''All submissions are evaulated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives.''

If you have any questions or would like to discuss a possible contribution before submitting it, please do not hesitate to contact us at [[contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org]]

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:34:56Z

Carlos:

'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.'''

'''Concepts'''

Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its meaning, origins, and relevance to radical alternatives. Concept overviews are not attributed to individual authors. Rather, they are conceived as collective and evolving entries that may be revised as new definitions, perspectives, and contributions are added to the Dictionary.

'''Definitions'''

Definitions are authored contributions that offer a particular interpretation, perspective, or account of a concept. Each submission is reviewed internally by at least two members of the Dictionary Working Group.

Definitions should follow the general guidelines provided here: [[Contribute/Definition]]

Following this initial review, we return the submission to the author with comments and suggested revisions. Authors may then incorporate this feedback before the definition is prepared for publication.

'''Illustrations'''

Illustrations are open to a wide range of forms, styles, and approaches. We welcome creative interpretations of the concepts included in the Dictionary and are happy to discuss any questions, suggestions, or possible revisions directly with illustrators and artists during the process.

'''Translations'''

Translations are also reviewed by a member of the Working Group whenever possible. When none of our members is sufficiently familiar with the language of the submission, we may ask the translator or author to suggest an additional person who could help us review the translation if possible.

Please follow the specific instructions provided for each type of contribution: [[Contribute/Translation]]

''All submissions and evaluations are evaulated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives. The Working Group as a collective is the collectively decides the acceptence/rejection of submissions and provides feedback to each submission.''

If you have any questions or would like to discuss a possible contribution before submitting it, please do not hesitate to contact us at [[contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org]]

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:34:40Z

Carlos:

'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.'''

'''Concepts'''

Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its meaning, origins, and relevance to radical alternatives. Concept overviews are not attributed to individual authors. Rather, they are conceived as collective and evolving entries that may be revised as new definitions, perspectives, and contributions are added to the Dictionary.

'''Definitions'''

Definitions are authored contributions that offer a particular interpretation, perspective, or account of a concept. Each submission is reviewed internally by at least two members of the Dictionary Working Group.

Definitions should follow the general guidelines provided here: [[Contribute/Definition]]

Following this initial review, we return the submission to the author with comments and suggested revisions. Authors may then incorporate this feedback before the definition is prepared for publication.

'''Illustrations'''

Illustrations are open to a wide range of forms, styles, and approaches. We welcome creative interpretations of the concepts included in the Dictionary and are happy to discuss any questions, suggestions, or possible revisions directly with illustrators and artists during the process.

'''Translations'''

Translations are also reviewed by a member of the Working Group whenever possible. When none of our members is sufficiently familiar with the language of the submission, we may ask the translator or author to suggest an additional person who could help us review the translation if possible.

Please follow the specific instructions provided for each type of contribution: [[Contribute/Translation]]

'''All submissions and evaluations are evaulated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives. The Working Group as a collective is the collectively decides the acceptence/rejection of submissions and provides feedback to each submission.
'''''Italic text''

If you have any questions or would like to discuss a possible contribution before submitting it, please do not hesitate to contact us at [[contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org]]

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:34:12Z

Carlos:

'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.'''

'''Concepts'''

Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its meaning, origins, and relevance to radical alternatives. Concept overviews are not attributed to individual authors. Rather, they are conceived as collective and evolving entries that may be revised as new definitions, perspectives, and contributions are added to the Dictionary.

'''Definitions'''

Definitions are authored contributions that offer a particular interpretation, perspective, or account of a concept. Each submission is reviewed internally by at least two members of the Dictionary Working Group.

Definitions should follow the general guidelines provided here: [[Contribute/Definition]]

Following this initial review, we return the submission to the author with comments and suggested revisions. Authors may then incorporate this feedback before the definition is prepared for publication.

'''Illustrations'''

Illustrations are open to a wide range of forms, styles, and approaches. We welcome creative interpretations of the concepts included in the Dictionary and are happy to discuss any questions, suggestions, or possible revisions directly with illustrators and artists during the process.

'''Translations'''

Translations are also reviewed by a member of the Working Group whenever possible. When none of our members is sufficiently familiar with the language of the submission, we may ask the translator or author to suggest an additional person who could help us review the translation if possible.

Please follow the specific instructions provided for each type of contribution: [[Contribute/Translation]]

All submissions and evaluations are evaulated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives. The Working Group as a collective is the collectively decides the acceptence/rejection of submissions and provides feedback to each submission.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss a possible contribution before submitting it, please do not hesitate to contact us at [[contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org]]

Contribute

2026-09-02T17:25:37Z

Carlos:

[[Image:OpenCall2026.jpg|center|link=Contribute/OpenCall]]

{{#if:{{#USERNAME:|}}|
As website administrator, you can directly:

* '''[[Contribute/List|Review existing Contributions]]'''
* [[Concepts|Create a new Concept page]]
* [[Definitions|Upload a new Definition for a Concept]]

-----
This Dictionary now open to contributions. You are invited to:

* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]
* [[Contribute/Evaluation|How do we evaluate submissions?]]

|}}

Contribute/Evaluation

2026-09-02T17:24:47Z

Carlos: Created page with "'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.''' '''Concepts''' Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its m..."

'''The evaluation process varies depending on the type of contribution.'''

'''Concepts'''

Concept submissions should provide a brief overview of the concept, including its meaning, origins, and relevance to radical alternatives. Concept overviews are not attributed to individual authors. Rather, they are conceived as collective and evolving entries that may be revised as new definitions, perspectives, and contributions are added to the Dictionary.

'''Definitions'''

Definitions are authored contributions that offer a particular interpretation, perspective, or account of a concept. Each submission is reviewed internally by at least two members of the Dictionary Working Group.

Definitions should follow the general guidelines provided here: [[Contribute/Definition]]

Following this initial review, we return the submission to the author with comments and suggested revisions. Authors may then incorporate this feedback before the definition is prepared for publication.

'''Illustrations'''

Illustrations are open to a wide range of forms, styles, and approaches. We welcome creative interpretations of the concepts included in the Dictionary and are happy to discuss any questions, suggestions, or possible revisions directly with illustrators and artists during the process.

'''Translations'''

Translations are also reviewed by a member of the Working Group whenever possible. When none of our members is sufficiently familiar with the language of the submission, we may ask the translator or author to suggest an additional person who could help us review the translation if possible.

Please follow the specific instructions provided for each type of contribution: [[Contribute/Translation]]

If you have any questions or would like to discuss a possible contribution before submitting it, please do not hesitate to contact us at contact@dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org.

Contribute

2026-09-02T17:02:47Z

Carlos:

Contribute/OpenCall

2026-09-02T17:01:20Z

Carlos: /* Open Call: New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations: WE ARE RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL DECEMBER 1st 2026 */

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Open Call 2026}}

=New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations: WE ARE RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL DECEMBER 1st 2026=

[[Image:OpenCall2026.jpg|center|Open Call 2026link=#]]

What words, concepts, and practices can help us name the other worlds that already exist—and those we are collectively bringing into being?

''The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives, a project of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), invites movements, communities, activists, artists, researchers, and collectives from around the world to help us continue building this living and pluriversal resource.''

''The Dictionary brings together concepts, practices, and worldviews emerging from concrete experiences of resistance, autonomy, care, commoning, and the construction of alternatives. We hope to cultivate a space where different ways of naming, knowing, doing, and inhabiting the world can encounter one another, enter into dialogue, and multiply.''

== How to contribute ==

There are four ways to contribute:

'''1. Suggest a new concept'''
Do you know a word, practice, notion, or worldview connected to territorial struggles, social movements, or alternative ways of organizing and reproducing life that is not yet represented in the Dictionary?
* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]

'''2. Contribute a new definition'''
Concepts can include multiple definitions and perspectives. We invite contributions grounded in concrete experiences, struggles, and practices, written in clear and accessible language.
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]

'''3. Translate an existing definition'''
We want the Dictionary to travel across linguistic boundaries. We particularly welcome translations between Spanish and English, although contributions in other languages are also encouraged.
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]

'''4. Illustrate a concept'''
We also invite artists, illustrators, and visual creators to imagine and visually represent concepts already included in the Dictionary.
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]

Before contributing, explore the concepts already included in the project:
[[Concepts|Index of Concepts]]

The Dictionary is conceived as an open and continuously evolving project. We hope to keep expanding it through concepts and definitions emerging from different territories, languages, movements, and traditions of thought and action.

Help us find, recover, translate, illustrate, and share the vocabularies of other worlds.

== Doubts? Questions? ==

Contact us at [mailto:contact@ditionaryofradicalalternatives.org contact@ditionaryofradicalalternatives.org]

Contribute/OpenCall

2026-09-02T17:00:39Z

Carlos:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Open Call 2026}}

=Open Call: New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations: WE ARE RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL DECEMBER 1st 2026=

[[Image:OpenCall2026.jpg|center|Open Call 2026link=#]]

What words, concepts, and practices can help us name the other worlds that already exist—and those we are collectively bringing into being?

''The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives, a project of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), invites movements, communities, activists, artists, researchers, and collectives from around the world to help us continue building this living and pluriversal resource.''

''The Dictionary brings together concepts, practices, and worldviews emerging from concrete experiences of resistance, autonomy, care, commoning, and the construction of alternatives. We hope to cultivate a space where different ways of naming, knowing, doing, and inhabiting the world can encounter one another, enter into dialogue, and multiply.''

== How to contribute ==

There are four ways to contribute:

'''1. Suggest a new concept'''
Do you know a word, practice, notion, or worldview connected to territorial struggles, social movements, or alternative ways of organizing and reproducing life that is not yet represented in the Dictionary?
* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]

'''2. Contribute a new definition'''
Concepts can include multiple definitions and perspectives. We invite contributions grounded in concrete experiences, struggles, and practices, written in clear and accessible language.
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]

'''3. Translate an existing definition'''
We want the Dictionary to travel across linguistic boundaries. We particularly welcome translations between Spanish and English, although contributions in other languages are also encouraged.
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]

'''4. Illustrate a concept'''
We also invite artists, illustrators, and visual creators to imagine and visually represent concepts already included in the Dictionary.
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]

Before contributing, explore the concepts already included in the project:
[[Concepts|Index of Concepts]]

The Dictionary is conceived as an open and continuously evolving project. We hope to keep expanding it through concepts and definitions emerging from different territories, languages, movements, and traditions of thought and action.

Help us find, recover, translate, illustrate, and share the vocabularies of other worlds.

== Doubts? Questions? ==

Contact us at [mailto:contact@ditionaryofradicalalternatives.org contact@ditionaryofradicalalternatives.org]

Contribute/OpenCall

2026-09-02T17:00:05Z

Carlos: /* Open Call: New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations: WE ARE RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL DECEMBER 1st 2026 */

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Open Call 2026}}

=Open Call: New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations: WE ARE RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL DECEMBER 1st 2026=

-

[[Image:OpenCall2026.jpg|center|Open Call 2026link=#]]

What words, concepts, and practices can help us name the other worlds that already exist—and those we are collectively bringing into being?

''The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives, a project of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), invites movements, communities, activists, artists, researchers, and collectives from around the world to help us continue building this living and pluriversal resource.''

''The Dictionary brings together concepts, practices, and worldviews emerging from concrete experiences of resistance, autonomy, care, commoning, and the construction of alternatives. We hope to cultivate a space where different ways of naming, knowing, doing, and inhabiting the world can encounter one another, enter into dialogue, and multiply.''

== How to contribute ==

There are four ways to contribute:

'''1. Suggest a new concept'''
Do you know a word, practice, notion, or worldview connected to territorial struggles, social movements, or alternative ways of organizing and reproducing life that is not yet represented in the Dictionary?
* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]

'''2. Contribute a new definition'''
Concepts can include multiple definitions and perspectives. We invite contributions grounded in concrete experiences, struggles, and practices, written in clear and accessible language.
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]

'''3. Translate an existing definition'''
We want the Dictionary to travel across linguistic boundaries. We particularly welcome translations between Spanish and English, although contributions in other languages are also encouraged.
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]

'''4. Illustrate a concept'''
We also invite artists, illustrators, and visual creators to imagine and visually represent concepts already included in the Dictionary.
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]

Before contributing, explore the concepts already included in the project:
[[Concepts|Index of Concepts]]

The Dictionary is conceived as an open and continuously evolving project. We hope to keep expanding it through concepts and definitions emerging from different territories, languages, movements, and traditions of thought and action.

Help us find, recover, translate, illustrate, and share the vocabularies of other worlds.

== Doubts? Questions? ==

Contact us at [mailto:contact@ditionaryofradicalalternatives.org contact@ditionaryofradicalalternatives.org]

Contribute/OpenCall

2026-09-02T16:59:50Z

Carlos:

Contribute

2026-09-02T16:38:41Z

Carlos:

{{#if:{{#USERNAME:|}}|
As website administrator, you can directly:

* '''[[Contribute/List|Review existing Contributions]]'''
* [[Concepts|Create a new Concept page]]
* [[Definitions|Upload a new Definition for a Concept]]

-----
|}}

[[File:Open Call.png|frame|center|Open Call ]]

'''Open Call: New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations'''

What words, concepts, and practices can help us name the other worlds that already exist—and those we are collectively bringing into being?

''The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives, a project of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), invites movements, communities, activists, artists, researchers, and collectives from around the world to help us continue building this living and pluriversal resource.''

''The Dictionary brings together concepts, practices, and worldviews emerging from concrete experiences of resistance, autonomy, care, commoning, and the construction of alternatives. We hope to cultivate a space where different ways of naming, knowing, doing, and inhabiting the world can encounter one another, enter into dialogue, and multiply.''

There are four ways to contribute:

'''1. Suggest a new concept'''
Do you know a word, practice, notion, or worldview connected to territorial struggles, social movements, or alternative ways of organizing and reproducing life that is not yet represented in the Dictionary?
* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]

'''2. Contribute a new definition'''
Concepts can include multiple definitions and perspectives. We invite contributions grounded in concrete experiences, struggles, and practices, written in clear and accessible language.
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]

'''3. Translate an existing definition'''
We want the Dictionary to travel across linguistic boundaries. We particularly welcome translations between Spanish and English, although contributions in other languages are also encouraged.
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]

'''4. Illustrate a concept'''
We also invite artists, illustrators, and visual creators to imagine and visually represent concepts already included in the Dictionary.
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]

Before contributing, explore the concepts already included in the project:
[[Concepts|Index of Concepts]]

The Dictionary is conceived as an open and continuously evolving project. We hope to keep expanding it through concepts and definitions emerging from different territories, languages, movements, and traditions of thought and action.

Help us find, recover, translate, illustrate, and share the vocabularies of other worlds.

This Dictionary is alive and open to contributions. You are invited to:

* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]

Contribute

2026-09-02T16:37:05Z

Carlos:

{{#if:{{#USERNAME:|}}|
As website administrator, you can directly:

* '''[[Contribute/List|Review existing Contributions]]'''
* [[Concepts|Create a new Concept page]]
* [[Definitions|Upload a new Definition for a Concept]]

-----
|}}

[[File:Open Call.png|frame|center|Open Call ]]

'''Open Call: New Concepts, Definitions, Illustrations and Translations'''

What words, concepts, and practices can help us name the other worlds that already exist—and those we are collectively bringing into being?

''The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives, a project of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), invites movements, communities, activists, artists, researchers, and collectives from around the world to help us continue building this living and pluriversal resource.''

''The Dictionary brings together concepts, practices, and worldviews emerging from concrete experiences of resistance, autonomy, care, commoning, and the construction of alternatives. We hope to cultivate a space where different ways of naming, knowing, doing, and inhabiting the world can encounter one another, enter into dialogue, and multiply.''

There are four ways to contribute:

'''1. Suggest a new concept'''
Do you know a word, practice, notion, or worldview connected to territorial struggles, social movements, or alternative ways of organizing and reproducing life that is not yet represented in the Dictionary?
* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]

'''2. Contribute a new definition'''
Concepts can include multiple definitions and perspectives. We invite contributions grounded in concrete experiences, struggles, and practices, written in clear and accessible language.
→ https://dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org/Contribute/Definition

'''3. Translate an existing definition'''
We want the Dictionary to travel across linguistic boundaries. We particularly welcome translations between Spanish and English, although contributions in other languages are also encouraged.
→ https://dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org/Contribute/Translation

'''4. Illustrate a concept'''
We also invite artists, illustrators, and visual creators to imagine and visually represent concepts already included in the Dictionary.
→ https://dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org/Contribute/Illustration

Before contributing, explore the concepts already included in the project:
→ https://dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org/Concepts

The Dictionary is conceived as an open and continuously evolving project. We hope to keep expanding it through concepts and definitions emerging from different territories, languages, movements, and traditions of thought and action.

Help us find, recover, translate, illustrate, and share the vocabularies of other worlds.

This Dictionary is alive and open to contributions. You are invited to:

* [[Contribute/Concept|Suggest a new Concept that is not currently included]]
* [[Contribute/Definition|Provide a new Definition of an existing Concept]]
* [[Contribute/Illustration|Contribute with a new Illustration for an existing Concept]]
* [[Contribute/Translation|Collaborate with a translation of an existing Definition]]

File:Open Call .png

2026-09-02T16:31:04Z

Carlos:

Contribute

2026-08-19T17:48:50Z

Carlos:

Concepts:Kotahitanga/Tukahia Ngataki, Karishma Kelsey

2026-08-19T14:45:14Z

Carlos:

{{Definition
|definition:concept=Concepts:Kotahitanga
|definition:summary=Kotahitanga is the heartbeat of collective life in te ao Māori—unity woven not from sameness, but from the strength of many threads moving as one. Rooted in whakapapa –the genealogical ties linking all beings back to a shared origin–, it binds people, whenua, waters, ancestors, and the unseen in a web of reciprocity and care. From Tāwhaki’s sacred ascent, sustained by ancestral guidance, to the Tainui waka’s ocean crossing, kotahitanga has guided survival, resistance, and renewal. It lives in the Kīngitanga’s call to stand together, in Dame Whina Cooper’s 1975 Land March, and in the 300,000 voices who opposed the 2024 attempt to weaken Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
|definition:author=Tukahia Ngataki and Karishma Kelsey
|definition:quote=Kotahitanga is grounded in a Māori worldview built on whakapapa (genealogical connection), pūrākau (ancestral narratives), and the interconnection of all life. It arises from a cosmology in which land, waters, people, ancestors, and atua (spiritual beings) exist in constant relationship.
}}
Kotahitanga is a Māori way of being meaning unity, collective solidarity, and togetherness. Derived from kotahi (one) and the suffix -tanga (a state of being), it speaks to becoming one — not through sameness or assimilation, but through whakawhanaungatanga (relationship building), reciprocity, and shared purpose. It affirms the strength that emerges when people move as one, each retaining their mana while contributing to a common kaupapa.

Historically, kotahitanga guided iwi and hapū collaboration, especially in times of challenge or decision-making. From constructing a waka taua (war canoe) to defending a pā (fortified village), collective efforts were essential to survival and resilience. These were not acts of blind consensus, but of deep relational accountability where every contribution mattered and every voice carried weight.

“Mā te kotahitanga e whai kaha ai tātau” — “in unity we find strength.” “Ki te kotahi te kākaho ka whati, ki te kāpuia, e kore e whati” — “a single reed will break, but a bundle is unbreakable”. These whakataukī (proverbs) carry the same truth found in the metaphor of the waka: many paddlers, moving in rhythm toward a shared horizon, each stroke vital to the collective journey.

Kotahitanga is grounded in a Māori worldview built on whakapapa (genealogical connection), pūrākau (ancestral narratives), and the interconnection of all life. It arises from a cosmology in which land, waters, people, ancestors, and atua (spiritual beings) exist in constant relationship. Unity is not an abstract ideal but a lived rhythm that sustains the mauri (life force) of collective wellbeing. For the Waikato–Tainui, kotahitanga is a living principle shaped by the legacy of the Kīngitanga movement. For tangata Tiriti allies, it is an active responsibility to walk alongside mana whenua in the work of healing and restoration. Today, it is renewed in movements for justice — from historic hīkoi to the recent nationwide marches opposing the Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Bill. These are not solely Māori struggles, but calls for an Aotearoa where Māori, Pasifika, and all immigrant communities live in balance, grounded in respect, relationship, and collective responsibility.

=== Philosophies and Practices ===

In te ao Māori, kotahitanga is not merely “unity” but a way of being grounded in a deeply relational worldview. Rooted in whakapapa (genealogical connection), tikanga (cultural protocols), and pūrākau (ancestral stories), it lives in the relationships between people, land, atua (spiritual forces), and generations past and future. Unity is never about conformity — it is about relationship, reciprocity, and collective purpose.

Traditional Māori life centred on whānau, hapū, and iwi — each with autonomy, yet ready to gather in times of need. From building waka taua (war canoes) and wharenui (meeting houses) to planting kai or defending a pā, survival relied on trust, shared responsibility, and interdependence. These were acts of deep relational accountability — everyone had a role, and each contribution held mana.

The pūrākau of Tāwhaki offers a sacred lens into this philosophy. According to Tainui (local tribe) Tāwhaki, a revered ancestor, ascends to the heavens seeking ngā kete o te wānanga — the baskets of sacred knowledge. His journey is not solitary; guided by his grandmother Whaitiri and sustained by whakapapa, he succeeds through relationships — with whānau, with atua, and with the world around him. The ascent teaches that great transformations require collective effort, humility, and ancestral alignment – acknowledge that collective part of ancestry and larger way of being that is interconnected to earth and all its systems–. In other words, kotahitanga in spiritual form: the power to rise together.
The migration of the Tainui waka further shows kotahitanga as a lived practice. Under rangatira Hoturoa, the voyage from Hawaiki to Aitutaki and on to Aotearoa across all of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa demanded navigation skill, endurance, and unity. Upon arrival in Aotearoa, Tainui descendants sustained kotahitanga through marae, whenua, and shared tikanga. The proverb “Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei” — “for us and for our children after us” — expresses this ethic of collective responsibility.

As whakataukī remind us: Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi — with your food basket and mine, the people will thrive. And in times of challenge: He waka kōtuia kāhore e tukutukua ngā mimira — a canoe bound together will not come apart at the seams.

=== Kotahitanga in Collective Movements ===
[[File:Kotahitanga 1.png|thumb|600px|Figure 1: : Symbol for Kothi tanga - the interlocking of two waves. Illustration of Tikanga Maori by Karishma Kelsey and Tukhaia Ngataki. Published 2023.]]
During colonisation, kotahitanga became a rallying principle for Māori resistance, governance, and renewal. As land was taken and sovereignty undermined, unity became a political and spiritual force. In 1834, northern chiefs selected a national flag — Te Waka Māori — for the newly formed United Tribes of New Zealand, affirming independence. The following year, they signed He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Niu Tīreni (Declaration of Independence), asserting Māori sovereignty before British annexation.

After the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840), the Kīngitanga (Māori King Movement) emerged in 1858 within Waikato, rooted in Tainui whakapapa. It sought to unify iwi under a symbolic leader to protect land, uphold mana motuhake, and offer spiritual leadership. The first Maaori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero of Ngāti Mahuta, offered the enduring whakataukī: “Kotahi te kōhao o te ngira e kuhuna ai te miro mā, te miro pango, te miro whero” — “there is but one eye of the needle through which the white, black, and red threads must pass.”

The Kīngitanga remains a pillar of Māori unity. In 2024, days before his passing, Kīngi Tūheitia urged: “Mana motuhake has room for everyone. Let’s get in the waka and work together.” In the 1890s, Te Kotahitanga — the Māori Parliament — brought iwi together to debate policy outside Crown control. In 1975, Dame Whina Cooper led the Māori Land March, uniting generations with the call: “Not one more acre of Māori land.” Today, kotahitanga thrives in iwi alliances, kapa haka, kaupapa Māori education, and environmental restoration. As Moana Jackson noted, Māori law and values are “built on a memory of relatedness,” where unity arises from deep respect and shared responsibility.

=== Challenges ===

In a colonised world, even sacred values can be hollowed out. Kotahitanga is sometimes invoked in speeches, policy, and branding — yet absent in practice. Calls for “unity” can mask inequity, reinforcing the dominance of one worldview.

In Aotearoa, the language of “unity” and “partnership” floats above an enduring reality: systemic inequity, racial hierarchy, and the dominance of one worldview over another. Te reo Māori is still not the language of the public square. Māori knowledge remains marginalised in many schools and institutions, treated as an optional extra rather than an equal foundation. Policy still reflects a logic of separation — one group leads, the other follows; one speaks, the other is asked to translate. This is not kotahitanga. This is control dressed in the language of togetherness.

The proposed Treaty Principles Amendment Bill (2024–2025) exposes the fracture. It seeks to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi through a singular, Pākehā lens — stripping away the relational, constitutional intent of the Treaty and replacing it with a framework of Crown dominance.. As many Māori leaders have warned, the bill is an attempt to silence Indigenous voices, re-centre power, and dismantle the very foundation of the Māori–Crown relationship.

Kotahitanga, in its truest form, was always woven into Te Tiriti. It was the relational promise that two peoples, each with distinct tikanga and ways of being, could walk forward together in mutual respect and shared guardianship of the land. That promise has never been fully honoured — and now, it is under direct threat.

Moana Jackson’s warning feels sharper than ever: “The problem with words like unity in a colonised context is that they can be used to demand silence, rather than invite justice.”

We are told to “come together” — but on whose terms? When unity is demanded without equity, it becomes assimilation. When Māori call for justice, we are met with delay, denial, or polite deflection. The risk is that kotahitanga becomes a performance,severed from the lived accountability it demands. Even in education, a sector that often claims to honour Māori worldviews, kotahitanga is too easily reduced to slogans: teamwork, harmony, collaboration. Rarely is it understood as the whakapapa-bound ethic of collective responsibility, interdependence, and intergenerational care that it truly is. True kotahitanga is not comfortable. It is not the easy agreement of the powerful with the powerless. It is a call to confront fractures, to face our histories, and to choose repair over rhetoric.

=== Opportunities ===

Despite the challenges, kotahitanga remains a source of strength, renewal, and radical possibility. When rooted in whakapapa and practiced with integrity, kotahitanga offers not only Māori communities, but the wider world, a vision for collective flourishing. Matike Mai Aotearoa envisions it as a pathway to shared authority grounded in tikanga and mutual accountability.n kaupapa Māori education, for example, learners and teachers co-construct knowledge in whānau-based environments that centre intergenerational trust, responsibility, and shared meaning. In kura kaupapa and wharekura across the motu, kotahitanga is enacted through collective inquiry, decision-making with tamariki, and collaborative care for whānau wellbeing. In environmental governance, kotahitanga is embodied through iwi-led partnerships that restore ancestral rivers, forests, and coastlines. The Waikato River Co-Governance Settlement (2010), for example, shows how tribal leadership and Crown bodies can share responsibility for ecosystem wellbeing, grounded in whakapapa and intergenerational accountability.

The annual Poukai, established by Kīngi Tāwhiao in 1885, embodies kotahitanga as manaakitanga and redistributive care. Youth-led movements, such as the Ihumātao occupation, have carried kotahitanga into new generations, weaving unity across iwi, cultures, and causes. In 2024, when the government sought to amend Te Tiriti principles, over 300,000 submissions opposed the bill, and the largest hīkoi since 1975 moved through the country — a living demonstration of kotahitanga in action. Kotahitanga offers an alternative to fragmentation. In a world facing climate collapse and disconnection, it teaches that healing lies in reconnection — to each other, to whenua, and to ancestral wisdom.

=== Further reading ===

* Angela Ballara — Te Kīngitanga: The People of the Māori King Movement (1996, AUP) A foundational history of the Kīngitanga from Pōtatau onward. Shows kotahitanga as a political–spiritual practice that unifies iwi while protecting mana motuhake—essential context for your Section 2.2 arc.

* Pei Te Hurinui Jones & Bruce Biggs — Ngā Iwi o Tainui (AUP) Authoritative Tainui whakapapa, migrations, and traditions. Grounds kotahitanga in the Tainui story—Hoturoa, settlement, marae networks—linking your Tāwhaki/Tainui philosophy to lived governance.

* Aroha Harris — Hīkoi: Forty Years of Māori Protest (2004) A richly illustrated account of collective action from the 1960s onward. Traces how kotahitanga is enacted in the streets—Dame Whina Cooper’s 1975 march, Bastion Point, and beyond—bridging history and present movements.

* Imagining Decolonisation (Abigail Shiu, Bianca Elkington, Moana Jackson, and others, 2020). This little book is like a gentle but powerful invitation into the journey of decolonisation. It brings together voices from across Aotearoa who share not just analysis, but heart — stories, visions, and pathways for imagining a different future. It’s both grounding and uplifting, reminding us that decolonisation is not abstract theory, but lived relationships and possibilities for healing.

==== Films / series ====

* Whina (2022, feature film) The life of Dame Whina Cooper culminating in the 1975 Land March. A moving portrait of intergenerational unity—kotahitanga on the whenua—and mana wahine leadership.

* Bastion Point: Day 507 (1980, documentary) Merata Mita’s landmark film on the occupation and eviction at Takaparawhau. A powerful study of pan-iwi solidarity and disciplined, relational unity under pressure.

Concepts:Kotahitanga/Tukahia Ngataki, Karishma Kelsey

2026-08-19T14:44:24Z

Carlos:

{{Definition
|definition:concept=Concepts:Kotahitanga
|definition:summary=Kotahitanga is the heartbeat of collective life in te ao Māori—unity woven not from sameness, but from the strength of many threads moving as one. Rooted in whakapapa –the genealogical ties linking all beings back to a shared origin–, it binds people, whenua, waters, ancestors, and the unseen in a web of reciprocity and care. From Tāwhaki’s sacred ascent, sustained by ancestral guidance, to the Tainui waka’s ocean crossing, kotahitanga has guided survival, resistance, and renewal. It lives in the Kīngitanga’s call to stand together, in Dame Whina Cooper’s 1975 Land March, and in the 300,000 voices who opposed the 2024 attempt to weaken Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
|definition:author=Tukahia Ngataki and Karishma Kelsey
|definition:quote=Kotahitanga is grounded in a Māori worldview built on whakapapa (genealogical connection), pūrākau (ancestral narratives), and the interconnection of all life. It arises from a cosmology in which land, waters, people, ancestors, and atua (spiritual beings) exist in constant relationship.
}}
Kotahitanga is a Māori way of being meaning unity, collective solidarity, and togetherness. Derived from kotahi (one) and the suffix -tanga (a state of being), it speaks to becoming one — not through sameness or assimilation, but through whakawhanaungatanga (relationship building), reciprocity, and shared purpose. It affirms the strength that emerges when people move as one, each retaining their mana while contributing to a common kaupapa.

Historically, kotahitanga guided iwi and hapū collaboration, especially in times of challenge or decision-making. From constructing a waka taua (war canoe) to defending a pā (fortified village), collective efforts were essential to survival and resilience. These were not acts of blind consensus, but of deep relational accountability where every contribution mattered and every voice carried weight.

“Mā te kotahitanga e whai kaha ai tātau” — “in unity we find strength.” “Ki te kotahi te kākaho ka whati, ki te kāpuia, e kore e whati” — “a single reed will break, but a bundle is unbreakable”. These whakataukī (proverbs) carry the same truth found in the metaphor of the waka: many paddlers, moving in rhythm toward a shared horizon, each stroke vital to the collective journey.

Kotahitanga is grounded in a Māori worldview built on whakapapa (genealogical connection), pūrākau (ancestral narratives), and the interconnection of all life. It arises from a cosmology in which land, waters, people, ancestors, and atua (spiritual beings) exist in constant relationship. Unity is not an abstract ideal but a lived rhythm that sustains the mauri (life force) of collective wellbeing. For the Waikato–Tainui, kotahitanga is a living principle shaped by the legacy of the Kīngitanga movement. For tangata Tiriti allies, it is an active responsibility to walk alongside mana whenua in the work of healing and restoration. Today, it is renewed in movements for justice — from historic hīkoi to the recent nationwide marches opposing the Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Bill. These are not solely Māori struggles, but calls for an Aotearoa where Māori, Pasifika, and all immigrant communities live in balance, grounded in respect, relationship, and collective responsibility.

=== Philosophies and Practices ===

In te ao Māori, kotahitanga is not merely “unity” but a way of being grounded in a deeply relational worldview. Rooted in whakapapa (genealogical connection), tikanga (cultural protocols), and pūrākau (ancestral stories), it lives in the relationships between people, land, atua (spiritual forces), and generations past and future. Unity is never about conformity — it is about relationship, reciprocity, and collective purpose.

Traditional Māori life centred on whānau, hapū, and iwi — each with autonomy, yet ready to gather in times of need. From building waka taua (war canoes) and wharenui (meeting houses) to planting kai or defending a pā, survival relied on trust, shared responsibility, and interdependence. These were acts of deep relational accountability — everyone had a role, and each contribution held mana.

The pūrākau of Tāwhaki offers a sacred lens into this philosophy. According to Tainui (local tribe) Tāwhaki, a revered ancestor, ascends to the heavens seeking ngā kete o te wānanga — the baskets of sacred knowledge. His journey is not solitary; guided by his grandmother Whaitiri and sustained by whakapapa, he succeeds through relationships — with whānau, with atua, and with the world around him. The ascent teaches that great transformations require collective effort, humility, and ancestral alignment – acknowledge that collective part of ancestry and larger way of being that is interconnected to earth and all its systems–. In other words, kotahitanga in spiritual form: the power to rise together.
The migration of the Tainui waka further shows kotahitanga as a lived practice. Under rangatira Hoturoa, the voyage from Hawaiki to Aitutaki and on to Aotearoa across all of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa demanded navigation skill, endurance, and unity. Upon arrival in Aotearoa, Tainui descendants sustained kotahitanga through marae, whenua, and shared tikanga. The proverb “Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei” — “for us and for our children after us” — expresses this ethic of collective responsibility.

As whakataukī remind us: Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi — with your food basket and mine, the people will thrive. And in times of challenge: He waka kōtuia kāhore e tukutukua ngā mimira — a canoe bound together will not come apart at the seams.

=== Kotahitanga in Collective Movements ===
[[File:Kotahitanga 1.png|thumb|600px|Figure 1: : Symbol for Kothi tanga - the interlocking of two waves. Illustration of Tikanga Maori by Karishma Kelsey and Tukhaia Ngataki. Published 2023.]
During colonisation, kotahitanga became a rallying principle for Māori resistance, governance, and renewal. As land was taken and sovereignty undermined, unity became a political and spiritual force. In 1834, northern chiefs selected a national flag — Te Waka Māori — for the newly formed United Tribes of New Zealand, affirming independence. The following year, they signed He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Niu Tīreni (Declaration of Independence), asserting Māori sovereignty before British annexation.

After the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840), the Kīngitanga (Māori King Movement) emerged in 1858 within Waikato, rooted in Tainui whakapapa. It sought to unify iwi under a symbolic leader to protect land, uphold mana motuhake, and offer spiritual leadership. The first Maaori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero of Ngāti Mahuta, offered the enduring whakataukī: “Kotahi te kōhao o te ngira e kuhuna ai te miro mā, te miro pango, te miro whero” — “there is but one eye of the needle through which the white, black, and red threads must pass.”

The Kīngitanga remains a pillar of Māori unity. In 2024, days before his passing, Kīngi Tūheitia urged: “Mana motuhake has room for everyone. Let’s get in the waka and work together.” In the 1890s, Te Kotahitanga — the Māori Parliament — brought iwi together to debate policy outside Crown control. In 1975, Dame Whina Cooper led the Māori Land March, uniting generations with the call: “Not one more acre of Māori land.” Today, kotahitanga thrives in iwi alliances, kapa haka, kaupapa Māori education, and environmental restoration. As Moana Jackson noted, Māori law and values are “built on a memory of relatedness,” where unity arises from deep respect and shared responsibility.

=== Challenges ===

In a colonised world, even sacred values can be hollowed out. Kotahitanga is sometimes invoked in speeches, policy, and branding — yet absent in practice. Calls for “unity” can mask inequity, reinforcing the dominance of one worldview.

In Aotearoa, the language of “unity” and “partnership” floats above an enduring reality: systemic inequity, racial hierarchy, and the dominance of one worldview over another. Te reo Māori is still not the language of the public square. Māori knowledge remains marginalised in many schools and institutions, treated as an optional extra rather than an equal foundation. Policy still reflects a logic of separation — one group leads, the other follows; one speaks, the other is asked to translate. This is not kotahitanga. This is control dressed in the language of togetherness.

The proposed Treaty Principles Amendment Bill (2024–2025) exposes the fracture. It seeks to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi through a singular, Pākehā lens — stripping away the relational, constitutional intent of the Treaty and replacing it with a framework of Crown dominance.. As many Māori leaders have warned, the bill is an attempt to silence Indigenous voices, re-centre power, and dismantle the very foundation of the Māori–Crown relationship.

Kotahitanga, in its truest form, was always woven into Te Tiriti. It was the relational promise that two peoples, each with distinct tikanga and ways of being, could walk forward together in mutual respect and shared guardianship of the land. That promise has never been fully honoured — and now, it is under direct threat.

Moana Jackson’s warning feels sharper than ever: “The problem with words like unity in a colonised context is that they can be used to demand silence, rather than invite justice.”

We are told to “come together” — but on whose terms? When unity is demanded without equity, it becomes assimilation. When Māori call for justice, we are met with delay, denial, or polite deflection. The risk is that kotahitanga becomes a performance,severed from the lived accountability it demands. Even in education, a sector that often claims to honour Māori worldviews, kotahitanga is too easily reduced to slogans: teamwork, harmony, collaboration. Rarely is it understood as the whakapapa-bound ethic of collective responsibility, interdependence, and intergenerational care that it truly is. True kotahitanga is not comfortable. It is not the easy agreement of the powerful with the powerless. It is a call to confront fractures, to face our histories, and to choose repair over rhetoric.

=== Opportunities ===

Despite the challenges, kotahitanga remains a source of strength, renewal, and radical possibility. When rooted in whakapapa and practiced with integrity, kotahitanga offers not only Māori communities, but the wider world, a vision for collective flourishing. Matike Mai Aotearoa envisions it as a pathway to shared authority grounded in tikanga and mutual accountability.n kaupapa Māori education, for example, learners and teachers co-construct knowledge in whānau-based environments that centre intergenerational trust, responsibility, and shared meaning. In kura kaupapa and wharekura across the motu, kotahitanga is enacted through collective inquiry, decision-making with tamariki, and collaborative care for whānau wellbeing. In environmental governance, kotahitanga is embodied through iwi-led partnerships that restore ancestral rivers, forests, and coastlines. The Waikato River Co-Governance Settlement (2010), for example, shows how tribal leadership and Crown bodies can share responsibility for ecosystem wellbeing, grounded in whakapapa and intergenerational accountability.

The annual Poukai, established by Kīngi Tāwhiao in 1885, embodies kotahitanga as manaakitanga and redistributive care. Youth-led movements, such as the Ihumātao occupation, have carried kotahitanga into new generations, weaving unity across iwi, cultures, and causes. In 2024, when the government sought to amend Te Tiriti principles, over 300,000 submissions opposed the bill, and the largest hīkoi since 1975 moved through the country — a living demonstration of kotahitanga in action. Kotahitanga offers an alternative to fragmentation. In a world facing climate collapse and disconnection, it teaches that healing lies in reconnection — to each other, to whenua, and to ancestral wisdom.

=== Further reading ===

* Angela Ballara — Te Kīngitanga: The People of the Māori King Movement (1996, AUP) A foundational history of the Kīngitanga from Pōtatau onward. Shows kotahitanga as a political–spiritual practice that unifies iwi while protecting mana motuhake—essential context for your Section 2.2 arc.

* Pei Te Hurinui Jones & Bruce Biggs — Ngā Iwi o Tainui (AUP) Authoritative Tainui whakapapa, migrations, and traditions. Grounds kotahitanga in the Tainui story—Hoturoa, settlement, marae networks—linking your Tāwhaki/Tainui philosophy to lived governance.

* Aroha Harris — Hīkoi: Forty Years of Māori Protest (2004) A richly illustrated account of collective action from the 1960s onward. Traces how kotahitanga is enacted in the streets—Dame Whina Cooper’s 1975 march, Bastion Point, and beyond—bridging history and present movements.

* Imagining Decolonisation (Abigail Shiu, Bianca Elkington, Moana Jackson, and others, 2020). This little book is like a gentle but powerful invitation into the journey of decolonisation. It brings together voices from across Aotearoa who share not just analysis, but heart — stories, visions, and pathways for imagining a different future. It’s both grounding and uplifting, reminding us that decolonisation is not abstract theory, but lived relationships and possibilities for healing.

==== Films / series ====

* Whina (2022, feature film) The life of Dame Whina Cooper culminating in the 1975 Land March. A moving portrait of intergenerational unity—kotahitanga on the whenua—and mana wahine leadership.

* Bastion Point: Day 507 (1980, documentary) Merata Mita’s landmark film on the occupation and eviction at Takaparawhau. A powerful study of pan-iwi solidarity and disciplined, relational unity under pressure.

About us

2026-05-16T16:47:37Z

Carlos:

The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives is a Project Hosted by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/ Global Tapestry of Alternatives]. The contents of the dictionary have been curated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the GTA which consists of:

Franco Augusto,
Matthew Burke,
Ashish Kothari,
Vera Kozak,
Lizah Makombore,
Vasna Ramasar,
Carlos Tornel,
Matías Vaccarezza.

The project was developed with the support of organization [https://oneproject.org/ One Project]

== List of Contributors ==

Academy of Democratic Modernity

Alberto Acosta

Alim Bandara

Arturo Escobar

Ashish Kothari

Breno Bringel

Carlos Tornel

Catherine “Katkat” Dalon

Deepika Nandan

Eleanor Finley

Gustavo Esteva

Hsar Doe Doh Moo

Jose Monfred C. Sy

Juan Pablo Soler

Karishma Kelsey

Lebohang Liepollo Pheko

Lizah Makombore

Mina Lorena Navarro

Miriam Lang

Mogau Kekana

Nicole Burton

Omar Valencia Pérez

Sabrina Fernandes

Şervîn Nudem

Silvia Marcos

Ted Rau

Tero Mustonen

Tukahia Ngataki

Verónica Barreda

Wangũi wa Kamonji

Yasnaya Aguilar Gil

Concepts:Ogonize/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T13:32:53Z

Carlos:

= Ogonize by Nnimmo Bassey =

== Introduction ==
Ogonize is a concept and call to action inspired by the historic resistance of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against environmental destruction and political marginalization. It represents a strategy of collective organizing, rooted in community solidarity, ecological consciousness, and nonviolent resistance. To “Ogonize” is to mobilise communities to defend their environment, assert their rights, and challenge systems of exploitation.
The concept draws from the legacy of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and the broader struggle against oil extraction that has devastated the region. Ogonize extends beyond Ogoniland, offering a framework for communities worldwide facing similar injustices. It emphasizes grassroots organizing, documentation of environmental harm, legal advocacy, and global solidarity.
In today’s context of escalating ecological crises, Ogonize serves as both a historical lesson and a contemporary strategy. It underscores the power of people-led movements in confronting entrenched systems and advancing environmental justice. By connecting local struggles to global networks, Ogonize transforms isolated resistance into collective action.

== Definition and Origins ==
To “Ogonize” is to organize from below in defense of land, water, life, and self-determination. The concept comes from the historic struggle of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against oil extraction, environmental devastation, and political marginalization. It is inspired especially by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, which was founded in 1990 as an Ogoni-based organization committed to nonviolent campaigning, democratic awareness, environmental protection, cultural rights, social and economic development, and self-determination.

Ogonize is simultaniosuly a concept and a call to action. It means mobilizing communities to defend their environment, assert their rights, document ecological harm, pursue legal advocacy, build solidarity, and challenge systems of exploitation. It is therefore not merely a reference to Ogoniland. It is a political verb. To Ogonize is to transform the Ogoni experience into a broader method of resistance for communities facing extractivism, sacrifice zones, and corporate-state violence.

The roots of the concept lie in the long history of oil extraction in the Niger Delta. The Ogoni people experienced oil spills, gas flaring, land contamination, water pollution, military repression, and the loss of farming and fishing livelihoods. Their struggle became internationally visible through MOSOP and through the leadership of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who helped make the Ogoni struggle a global symbol of environmental justice. The execution of Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders in 1995 by Nigeria’s military regime turned Ogoniland into a global reference point for the violence that accompanies fossil fuel extraction.

== Philosophies and Practices ==

The philosophy of Ogonize rests on four linked principles: self-determination, environmental justice, nonviolent resistance, and global solidarity. Self-determination means that communities must have the right to decide the future of their territories. Environmental justice means that the harms of extraction must not be normalized as the cost of development. Nonviolent resistance means that collective power can be built through organization, public testimony, protest, cultural mobilization, legal action, and international advocacy. Global solidarity means that local struggles must be connected across borders because extractive corporations, financial institutions, and fossil fuel infrastructures also operate transnationally.

In practice, to Ogonize involves several concrete actions. It means building community assemblies and local organizations capable of articulating demands. It means documenting spills, poisoned water, destroyed farms, health impacts, and abandoned infrastructure. It means challenging official narratives that blame communities for pollution while minimizing corporate responsibility. It means using courts, international human rights mechanisms, media campaigns, and alliances with environmental justice networks. It also means refusing the false promise that extraction can resume safely before cleanup, remediation, compensation, decommissioning, and ecological restoration have occurred.

The evidence supporting the Ogoni struggle is extensive. UNEP’s 2011 assessment found that pollution from more than 50 years of oil operations in Ogoniland had penetrated further and deeper than many had assumed. UNEP examined more than 200 locations, surveyed 122 kilometers of pipeline rights of way, reviewed more than 5,000 medical records, and engaged more than 23,000 people in local community meetings. It warned that restoring Ogoniland could become one of the world’s most wide-ranging and long-term oil cleanup exercises.

The practice of Ogonizing also includes resisting greenwashing. The call to “Yasunize and Ogonize the World” frames these struggles as part of a broader movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground. He explicitly connects Ogoni resistance to the courage of communities that halted crude oil extraction in Ogoni territory in 1993 and continue to reject attempts to reopen oil wells.

== Challenges and Opportunities ==

The challenges facing Ogonize are severe. The first is state repression. The Ogoni struggle has been marked by intimidation, criminalization, violence, and the memory of the Ogoni Nine. Communities defending land and water often confront security forces, corporate influence, and political elites who frame resistance as anti-development or disorder.

The second challenge is corporate misinformation and control over evidence. Amnesty International has documented how oil spill investigations in the Niger Delta have historically lacked transparency, with communities sometimes denied copies of investigation forms and with oil companies exerting disproportionate influence over the process. Amnesty also reported cases where Shell’s explanations of spill causes were contested by community evidence and independent assessments. This makes documentation, community science, independent monitoring, and legal literacy central to any Ogonize strategy.

The third challenge is delayed remediation. Nearly a decade after UNEP called for cleanup, Amnesty International and allied organizations reported in 2020 that work had begun on only 11 percent of polluted sites identified by UNEP, with no site entirely cleaned up at that time. They also noted continuing failures in emergency measures related to drinking water, health protection, and transparency.

A fourth challenge is the renewed pressure to resume oil extraction. HOMEF’s 2026 report on endless oil spills argues that Ogoniland continues to suffer from abandoned oil infrastructure and recent spills in B-Dere, Kpean, and Eteo-Eleme. It insists that oil operations must not resume until meaningful cleanup is achieved, aging infrastructure is decommissioned, affected communities are compensated, and ecosystems and livelihoods are restored.

Yet Ogonize also has major opportunities. Digital tools allow communities to document spills and amplify local testimony. Transnational environmental justice networks can connect Ogoniland with Yasuní, Standing Rock, the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Gulf Coast, and other frontline territories. Legal actions against corporations are increasingly visible across jurisdictions. Climate justice debates also make it harder to separate local pollution from global fossil capitalism.

== Case-study example: Ogoniland and the demand to keep oil in the ground ==

The central case study for Ogonize is Ogoniland itself. Beginning in the 1990s, MOSOP transformed local grievances into a globally recognized environmental justice struggle. It articulated the right of the Ogoni people to land, ecology, cultural survival, and political autonomy. Its strategy combined nonviolent mobilization, community education, documentation, international advocacy, and moral pressure against the Nigerian state and oil corporations.
The power of this case lies in the fact that Ogoni resistance helped halt oil extraction in the territory in 1993, even though pollution and abandoned infrastructure remained. That halt is politically significant because it shows that communities can interrupt extractive inevitability. Extraction is often presented as destiny: oil must be drilled, pipelines must be built, sacrifice zones must be accepted, and communities must adapt. Ogoniland shows another possibility. Communities can say no. They can refuse the conversion of their lands and waters into zones of death.
Today, the Ogoni case remains unfinished. Cleanup has been slow, justice has been partial, and renewed attempts to resume extraction continue. This is why Ogonize is not only a memory of past resistance. It is a present strategy. To Ogonize the world is to learn from Ogoniland that environmental justice requires organized people power, territorial self-determination, reparative cleanup, fossil fuel phaseout, and the defense of life against sacrifice.

[[File:Ogonize and Yasunize.png|thumb|Ogonize campaign]]
[[File:Ogonize and Yasunize campign 2.png|thumb]]

=== Refernces ===

* UNEP (2011). Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland
* MOSOP publications
* Amnesty International reports on Niger Delta
* Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission (2024) report

=== Further exploration ===

* Endless Oil Spills. Risks of resuming Oil extraction in Ogoni land: https://homef.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Endless-Oil-spills-Risk-of-resuming-Oil-extraction-in-Ogoniland-2.pdf
* Ecoinstigator No.48: https://homef.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Eco-Instigator-48-.pdf
* Ogoni, Yasuni at heart of new HOMEF environmental campaign: https://ashenewsdaily.com/environment-climate-change/ogoni-yasuni-at-heart-of-new-homef-environmental-campaign/
* Yasunize and Ogonize the World: https://nnimmobassey.net/2025/04/22/yasunize-and-ogonize-the-world

'''For futher enquiry kindly reach Nnimmo Bassey at nnimmo@homef.org'''

'''Precious Ucheawaji at precious@homef.org'''

Concepts:Ogonize/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T13:32:15Z

Carlos:

File:Ogonize and Yasunize campign 2.png

2026-04-29T13:27:42Z

Carlos:

Ogonize and Yasunize campign 2

File:Ogonize and Yasunize.png

2026-04-29T13:27:03Z

Carlos:

Ogonize and Yasunize campaign 1

Concepts:Ogonize/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T13:25:33Z

Carlos: Carlos moved page Contribution:20260429131450 to Concepts:Ogonize/Nnimmo Bassey

{{Contribution
|contribution:type=New Definition
|contribution:concept=Concepts:Ogonize
|contribution:name=Nnimmo Bassey
}}
= Ogonize by Nnimmo Bassey =

== Introduction ==
Ogonize is a concept and call to action inspired by the historic resistance of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against environmental destruction and political marginalization. It represents a strategy of collective organizing, rooted in community solidarity, ecological consciousness, and nonviolent resistance. To “Ogonize” is to mobilise communities to defend their environment, assert their rights, and challenge systems of exploitation.
The concept draws from the legacy of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and the broader struggle against oil extraction that has devastated the region. Ogonize extends beyond Ogoniland, offering a framework for communities worldwide facing similar injustices. It emphasizes grassroots organizing, documentation of environmental harm, legal advocacy, and global solidarity.
In today’s context of escalating ecological crises, Ogonize serves as both a historical lesson and a contemporary strategy. It underscores the power of people-led movements in confronting entrenched systems and advancing environmental justice. By connecting local struggles to global networks, Ogonize transforms isolated resistance into collective action.

== Definition and Origins ==
To “Ogonize” is to organize from below in defense of land, water, life, and self-determination. The concept comes from the historic struggle of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against oil extraction, environmental devastation, and political marginalization. It is inspired especially by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, which was founded in 1990 as an Ogoni-based organization committed to nonviolent campaigning, democratic awareness, environmental protection, cultural rights, social and economic development, and self-determination.

Ogonize is simultaniosuly a concept and a call to action. It means mobilizing communities to defend their environment, assert their rights, document ecological harm, pursue legal advocacy, build solidarity, and challenge systems of exploitation. It is therefore not merely a reference to Ogoniland. It is a political verb. To Ogonize is to transform the Ogoni experience into a broader method of resistance for communities facing extractivism, sacrifice zones, and corporate-state violence.

The roots of the concept lie in the long history of oil extraction in the Niger Delta. The Ogoni people experienced oil spills, gas flaring, land contamination, water pollution, military repression, and the loss of farming and fishing livelihoods. Their struggle became internationally visible through MOSOP and through the leadership of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who helped make the Ogoni struggle a global symbol of environmental justice. The execution of Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders in 1995 by Nigeria’s military regime turned Ogoniland into a global reference point for the violence that accompanies fossil fuel extraction.

== Philosophies and Practices ==

The philosophy of Ogonize rests on four linked principles: self-determination, environmental justice, nonviolent resistance, and global solidarity. Self-determination means that communities must have the right to decide the future of their territories. Environmental justice means that the harms of extraction must not be normalized as the cost of development. Nonviolent resistance means that collective power can be built through organization, public testimony, protest, cultural mobilization, legal action, and international advocacy. Global solidarity means that local struggles must be connected across borders because extractive corporations, financial institutions, and fossil fuel infrastructures also operate transnationally.

In practice, to Ogonize involves several concrete actions. It means building community assemblies and local organizations capable of articulating demands. It means documenting spills, poisoned water, destroyed farms, health impacts, and abandoned infrastructure. It means challenging official narratives that blame communities for pollution while minimizing corporate responsibility. It means using courts, international human rights mechanisms, media campaigns, and alliances with environmental justice networks. It also means refusing the false promise that extraction can resume safely before cleanup, remediation, compensation, decommissioning, and ecological restoration have occurred.

The evidence supporting the Ogoni struggle is extensive. UNEP’s 2011 assessment found that pollution from more than 50 years of oil operations in Ogoniland had penetrated further and deeper than many had assumed. UNEP examined more than 200 locations, surveyed 122 kilometers of pipeline rights of way, reviewed more than 5,000 medical records, and engaged more than 23,000 people in local community meetings. It warned that restoring Ogoniland could become one of the world’s most wide-ranging and long-term oil cleanup exercises.

The practice of Ogonizing also includes resisting greenwashing. The call to “Yasunize and Ogonize the World” frames these struggles as part of a broader movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground. He explicitly connects Ogoni resistance to the courage of communities that halted crude oil extraction in Ogoni territory in 1993 and continue to reject attempts to reopen oil wells.

== Challenges and Opportunities ==

The challenges facing Ogonize are severe. The first is state repression. The Ogoni struggle has been marked by intimidation, criminalization, violence, and the memory of the Ogoni Nine. Communities defending land and water often confront security forces, corporate influence, and political elites who frame resistance as anti-development or disorder.

The second challenge is corporate misinformation and control over evidence. Amnesty International has documented how oil spill investigations in the Niger Delta have historically lacked transparency, with communities sometimes denied copies of investigation forms and with oil companies exerting disproportionate influence over the process. Amnesty also reported cases where Shell’s explanations of spill causes were contested by community evidence and independent assessments. This makes documentation, community science, independent monitoring, and legal literacy central to any Ogonize strategy.

The third challenge is delayed remediation. Nearly a decade after UNEP called for cleanup, Amnesty International and allied organizations reported in 2020 that work had begun on only 11 percent of polluted sites identified by UNEP, with no site entirely cleaned up at that time. They also noted continuing failures in emergency measures related to drinking water, health protection, and transparency.

A fourth challenge is the renewed pressure to resume oil extraction. HOMEF’s 2026 report on endless oil spills argues that Ogoniland continues to suffer from abandoned oil infrastructure and recent spills in B-Dere, Kpean, and Eteo-Eleme. It insists that oil operations must not resume until meaningful cleanup is achieved, aging infrastructure is decommissioned, affected communities are compensated, and ecosystems and livelihoods are restored.

Yet Ogonize also has major opportunities. Digital tools allow communities to document spills and amplify local testimony. Transnational environmental justice networks can connect Ogoniland with Yasuní, Standing Rock, the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Gulf Coast, and other frontline territories. Legal actions against corporations are increasingly visible across jurisdictions. Climate justice debates also make it harder to separate local pollution from global fossil capitalism.

== Case-study example: Ogoniland and the demand to keep oil in the ground ==

The central case study for Ogonize is Ogoniland itself. Beginning in the 1990s, MOSOP transformed local grievances into a globally recognized environmental justice struggle. It articulated the right of the Ogoni people to land, ecology, cultural survival, and political autonomy. Its strategy combined nonviolent mobilization, community education, documentation, international advocacy, and moral pressure against the Nigerian state and oil corporations.
The power of this case lies in the fact that Ogoni resistance helped halt oil extraction in the territory in 1993, even though pollution and abandoned infrastructure remained. That halt is politically significant because it shows that communities can interrupt extractive inevitability. Extraction is often presented as destiny: oil must be drilled, pipelines must be built, sacrifice zones must be accepted, and communities must adapt. Ogoniland shows another possibility. Communities can say no. They can refuse the conversion of their lands and waters into zones of death.
Today, the Ogoni case remains unfinished. Cleanup has been slow, justice has been partial, and renewed attempts to resume extraction continue. This is why Ogonize is not only a memory of past resistance. It is a present strategy. To Ogonize the world is to learn from Ogoniland that environmental justice requires organized people power, territorial self-determination, reparative cleanup, fossil fuel phaseout, and the defense of life against sacrifice.

Contribution:20260429131450

2026-04-29T13:25:33Z

Carlos: Carlos moved page Contribution:20260429131450 to Concepts:Ogonize/Nnimmo Bassey

#REDIRECT [[Concepts:Ogonize/Nnimmo Bassey]]

Concepts:Ogonize

2026-04-29T13:22:41Z

Carlos:

{{Concepts
|concepts:summary=Ogonize is a concept and call to action inspired by the historic resistance of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against environmental destruction and political marginalization. It represents a strategy of collective organizing, rooted in community solidarity, ecological consciousness, and nonviolent resistance. To “Ogonize” is to mobilise communities to defend their environment, assert their rights, and challenge systems of exploitation.
The concept draws from the legacy of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and the broader struggle against oil extraction that has devastated the region. Ogonize extends beyond Ogoniland, offering a framework for communities worldwide facing similar injustices. It emphasizes grassroots organizing, documentation of environmental harm, legal advocacy, and global solidarity.
In today’s context of escalating ecological crises, Ogonize serves as both a historical lesson and a contemporary strategy. It underscores the power of people-led movements in confronting entrenched systems and advancing environmental justice. By connecting local struggles to global networks, Ogonize transforms isolated resistance into collective action.
|concepts:type=commonterms, praxes
|concepts:relations=Energías Comunitarias, Land Back, Swaraj, Radical Ecological Democracy
|concepts:categories=Decolonization, Futures, Re-Existence, Self Governance, Struggle
|concepts:relevant=yes
|concepts:country=NG
|concepts:region=Africa
|concepts:geolocation=4.50645, 6.73369
}}

Concepts:Ogonize

2026-04-29T13:14:06Z

Carlos: Created page with "{{Concepts |concepts:summary=Ogonize is a concept and call to action inspired by the historic resistance of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against environmental destructi..."

Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T13:02:51Z

Carlos:

= Eti uwen, by Nnimmo Bassey =

== '''Introduction''' ==

Eti uwem is an Ibibio concept from Nigeria that can be translated as “good life” or “good living.” Yet its meaning exceeds a simple idea of individual well-being. It names a way of living well with others, with the land, with water, with the more-than-human world, and with the generations that came before and will come after. In Nnimmo Bassey’s formulation, Eti uwem involves harmony with nature and all peoples, and incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity, solidarity, contentment, social justice, and communal ownership and control of local resources. It also refuses speculation, exploitation, expropriation, ecological destruction, and the placement of monetary value on life and nature.

The concept therefore provides a direct critique of capitalist development, including its contemporary “green” forms. It does not ask how nature can be better priced, traded, offset, or inserted into markets. Rather, it asks what kind of life becomes possible when communities defend the conditions of life from commodification. In this sense, Eti uwem is close to other concepts of relational well-being, such as sumak kawsay among Kichwa peoples, buen vivir in Latin American debates, and Ubuntu in African philosophical traditions. The shared thread is not cultural sameness, but a critique of the idea that the good life can be reduced to growth, consumption, accumulation, or monetary wealth.
Its contemporary significance is especially strong in the Niger Delta, where communities have experienced decades of oil extraction, toxic pollution, dispossession, and the erosion of livelihoods. In this context, Eti uwem is not a nostalgic return to a romanticized past. It is a living political and ethical proposal. It emerges from struggles for environmental justice and from everyday practices that maintain life despite extractive violence. The uploaded concept note rightly describes it as both reflective and practical: it is a philosophy, but also a set of practices such as agroecology, communal stewardship, sacred ecosystem protection, and intergenerational responsibility.

== '''Philosophies and Practices''' ==

The philosophy of Eti uwem begins from relationality. Life is not understood as a collection of separate individuals competing for scarce resources, but as a web of interdependence. Rivers, forests, soil, seeds, animals, ancestors, spirits, and human communities are not passive objects. They are part of the living fabric that makes existence possible. This challenges the modern extractive gaze that sees land as property, rivers as infrastructure, forests as carbon sinks, and communities as labor reserves or obstacles to development.

A central practice of Eti uwem is sufficiency. Sufficiency is not poverty. It is not deprivation. It is the collective capacity to ask what is enough and to organize life around limits, reciprocity, and care. In this sense, Eti uwem resonates with Vandana Shiva’s critique of capitalist development in Making Peace with the Earth, where ecological destruction is tied to the reduction of living systems to resources for accumulation. It also resonates with Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse, especially the idea that worlds are designed through everyday practices, and that alternatives are not merely policy models but different ways of inhabiting the Earth.

Eti uwem also overlaps with the idea of “resource democracy.” What is called a “resource” first belongs to Nature and then to the communities of species and peoples who live in and care for the territory where forests, rivers, grazing lands, soils, trees, crops, water, and wildlife exist. Resource democracy is therefore not simply about national ownership or state control. It is about stewardship, community rule-making, and the defense of life according to traditional and ecological knowledge.

In practical terms, Eti uwem can be seen in communal labor, agroecological farming, seed keeping, food sovereignty, protection of sacred groves, collective decision-making over land and water, and the refusal of extractive projects that destroy the ecological basis of life. It also appears in cultural practices that teach restraint, gratitude, and respect for the non-human world. These practices are not marginal. They are forms of ecological intelligence that challenge the dominant assumption that modern industrial systems are the only rational way to organize life.

== '''Challenges and Opportunities''' ==

The main challenge facing Eti uwem is the dominance of extractive political economies. In many territories, communities are not free to decide how to live with their lands and waters because state policy and corporate power prioritize oil, gas, mining, industrial agriculture, infrastructure corridors, and carbon markets. The green economy often becomes a euphemism for green capitalism, a system in which nature is assigned monetary value so that markets can continue to profit from ecological destruction.

A second challenge is cultural erosion. Indigenous languages, ecological knowledges, ritual practices, and community institutions are weakened by schooling systems, religious pressures, urbanization, migration, media, and the promise of modern consumption. When these practices are lost, communities also lose ways of recognizing limits, maintaining commons, and transmitting responsibility across generations.

A third challenge is policy. Most governments still define development through GDP growth, investment, infrastructure expansion, and resource extraction. Even when they use the language of sustainability, they often reproduce the same logic of accumulation. This creates a profound contradiction: the practices that sustain life are treated as backward, while the systems that destroy life are treated as modern.

Yet Eti uwem also opens important opportunities. First, it provides a language for connecting African ecological philosophies with global debates on degrowth, postdevelopment, buen vivir, rights of nature, food sovereignty, and environmental justice. Second, it gives younger generations a way to reclaim Indigenous ecological knowledge without treating it as folklore. Third, it helps reframe the climate and biodiversity crises not only as technical problems, but as crises of values, power, and ways of living.

== '''Case-study example: Resource democracy and agroecological stewardship in the Niger Delta''' ==

A useful case-study example for Eti uwem is the practice of resource democracy and community-based ecological stewardship in the Niger Delta. In a region marked by oil extraction, polluted waters, damaged farmlands, and broken livelihoods, Eti uwem offers a counter-principle: land and water are not sacrifice zones. They are living territories. They cannot be reduced to barrels of oil, carbon credits, or compensation payments.

Community agroecology illustrates this well. Agroecological practices regenerate soil, protect seeds, reduce dependence on corporate inputs, and rebuild local food systems. They also create spaces for intergenerational learning, where elders transmit knowledge of crops, seasons, medicinal plants, sacred places, and communal obligations. Such practices embody Eti uwem because they combine ecological harmony, sufficiency, and collective well-being.

Eti uwem entails a lived practice of repairing relations. It is the good life understood not as accumulation, but as the capacity to live with dignity, restraint, solidarity, and responsibility within the web of life.

[[File:Eti uwen 1.png|frame|center|eti uwen 1]]

=== '''References''' ===

* Shiva, V. (2013). Making Peace with the Earth
* Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse

'''Links'''

* https://nnimmobassey.net/about

* Between Eti Uwem and Green Capitalism (Green Democracy): https://homef.org/2013/06/25/between-eti-uwem-and-green-capitalism-green-democracy/

* Re-source Democracy: https://homef.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/resource-democracy.pdf

* The Eti uwen Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVwC7pR_GQ

Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T12:59:42Z

Carlos:

= Eti uwen, by Nnimmo Bassey =

== '''Introduction''' ==

Eti uwem is an Ibibio concept from Nigeria that can be translated as “good life” or “good living.” Yet its meaning exceeds a simple idea of individual well-being. It names a way of living well with others, with the land, with water, with the more-than-human world, and with the generations that came before and will come after. In Nnimmo Bassey’s formulation, Eti uwem involves harmony with nature and all peoples, and incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity, solidarity, contentment, social justice, and communal ownership and control of local resources. It also refuses speculation, exploitation, expropriation, ecological destruction, and the placement of monetary value on life and nature.

The concept therefore provides a direct critique of capitalist development, including its contemporary “green” forms. It does not ask how nature can be better priced, traded, offset, or inserted into markets. Rather, it asks what kind of life becomes possible when communities defend the conditions of life from commodification. In this sense, Eti uwem is close to other concepts of relational well-being, such as sumak kawsay among Kichwa peoples, buen vivir in Latin American debates, and Ubuntu in African philosophical traditions. The shared thread is not cultural sameness, but a critique of the idea that the good life can be reduced to growth, consumption, accumulation, or monetary wealth.
Its contemporary significance is especially strong in the Niger Delta, where communities have experienced decades of oil extraction, toxic pollution, dispossession, and the erosion of livelihoods. In this context, Eti uwem is not a nostalgic return to a romanticized past. It is a living political and ethical proposal. It emerges from struggles for environmental justice and from everyday practices that maintain life despite extractive violence. The uploaded concept note rightly describes it as both reflective and practical: it is a philosophy, but also a set of practices such as agroecology, communal stewardship, sacred ecosystem protection, and intergenerational responsibility.

== '''Philosophies and Practices''' ==

The philosophy of Eti uwem begins from relationality. Life is not understood as a collection of separate individuals competing for scarce resources, but as a web of interdependence. Rivers, forests, soil, seeds, animals, ancestors, spirits, and human communities are not passive objects. They are part of the living fabric that makes existence possible. This challenges the modern extractive gaze that sees land as property, rivers as infrastructure, forests as carbon sinks, and communities as labor reserves or obstacles to development.

A central practice of Eti uwem is sufficiency. Sufficiency is not poverty. It is not deprivation. It is the collective capacity to ask what is enough and to organize life around limits, reciprocity, and care. In this sense, Eti uwem resonates with Vandana Shiva’s critique of capitalist development in Making Peace with the Earth, where ecological destruction is tied to the reduction of living systems to resources for accumulation. It also resonates with Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse, especially the idea that worlds are designed through everyday practices, and that alternatives are not merely policy models but different ways of inhabiting the Earth.

Eti uwem also overlaps with Bassey’s notion of “resource democracy.” In the HOMEF publication Re-Source Democracy, Bassey argues that what is called a “resource” first belongs to Nature and then to the communities of species and peoples who live in and care for the territory where forests, rivers, grazing lands, soils, trees, crops, water, and wildlife exist. Resource democracy is therefore not simply about national ownership or state control. It is about stewardship, community rule-making, and the defense of life according to traditional and ecological knowledge.

In practical terms, Eti uwem can be seen in communal labor, agroecological farming, seed keeping, food sovereignty, protection of sacred groves, collective decision-making over land and water, and the refusal of extractive projects that destroy the ecological basis of life. It also appears in cultural practices that teach restraint, gratitude, and respect for the non-human world. These practices are not marginal. They are forms of ecological intelligence that challenge the dominant assumption that modern industrial systems are the only rational way to organize life.

== '''Challenges and Opportunities''' ==

The main challenge facing Eti uwem is the dominance of extractive political economies. In many territories, communities are not free to decide how to live with their lands and waters because state policy and corporate power prioritize oil, gas, mining, industrial agriculture, infrastructure corridors, and carbon markets. This is why Bassey’s critique of “green capitalism” is important. He warns that the green economy often becomes a euphemism for green capitalism, a system in which nature is assigned monetary value so that markets can continue to profit from ecological destruction.

A second challenge is cultural erosion. Indigenous languages, ecological knowledges, ritual practices, and community institutions are weakened by schooling systems, religious pressures, urbanization, migration, media, and the promise of modern consumption. When these practices are lost, communities also lose ways of recognizing limits, maintaining commons, and transmitting responsibility across generations.

A third challenge is policy. Most governments still define development through GDP growth, investment, infrastructure expansion, and resource extraction. Even when they use the language of sustainability, they often reproduce the same logic of accumulation. This creates a profound contradiction: the practices that sustain life are treated as backward, while the systems that destroy life are treated as modern.

Yet Eti uwem also opens important opportunities. First, it provides a language for connecting African ecological philosophies with global debates on degrowth, postdevelopment, buen vivir, rights of nature, food sovereignty, and environmental justice. Second, it gives younger generations a way to reclaim Indigenous ecological knowledge without treating it as folklore. Third, it helps reframe the climate and biodiversity crises not only as technical problems, but as crises of values, power, and ways of living.

== '''Case-study example: Resource democracy and agroecological stewardship in the Niger Delta''' ==

A useful case-study example for Eti uwem is the practice of resource democracy and community-based ecological stewardship in the Niger Delta. In a region marked by oil extraction, polluted waters, damaged farmlands, and broken livelihoods, Eti uwem offers a counter-principle: land and water are not sacrifice zones. They are living territories. They cannot be reduced to barrels of oil, carbon credits, or compensation payments.

Community agroecology illustrates this well. Agroecological practices regenerate soil, protect seeds, reduce dependence on corporate inputs, and rebuild local food systems. They also create spaces for intergenerational learning, where elders transmit knowledge of crops, seasons, medicinal plants, sacred places, and communal obligations. Such practices embody Eti uwem because they combine ecological harmony, sufficiency, and collective well-being.

Eti uwem entails a lived practice of repairing relations. It is the good life understood not as accumulation, but as the capacity to live with dignity, restraint, solidarity, and responsibility within the web of life.

[[File:Eti uwen 1.png|frame|center|eti uwen 1]]

=== '''References''' ===

* Shiva, V. (2013). Making Peace with the Earth
* Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse

'''Links'''

* https://nnimmobassey.net/about

* Between Eti Uwem and Green Capitalism (Green Democracy): https://homef.org/2013/06/25/between-eti-uwem-and-green-capitalism-green-democracy/

* Re-source Democracy: https://homef.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/resource-democracy.pdf

* The Eti uwen Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVwC7pR_GQ

Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T12:59:03Z

Carlos:

= Eti uwen, by Nnimmo Bassey =

== '''Introduction''' ==

Eti uwem is an Ibibio concept from Nigeria that can be translated as “good life” or “good living.” Yet its meaning exceeds a simple idea of individual well-being. It names a way of living well with others, with the land, with water, with the more-than-human world, and with the generations that came before and will come after. In Nnimmo Bassey’s formulation, Eti uwem involves harmony with nature and all peoples, and incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity, solidarity, contentment, social justice, and communal ownership and control of local resources. It also refuses speculation, exploitation, expropriation, ecological destruction, and the placement of monetary value on life and nature.

The concept therefore provides a direct critique of capitalist development, including its contemporary “green” forms. It does not ask how nature can be better priced, traded, offset, or inserted into markets. Rather, it asks what kind of life becomes possible when communities defend the conditions of life from commodification. In this sense, Eti uwem is close to other concepts of relational well-being, such as sumak kawsay among Kichwa peoples, buen vivir in Latin American debates, and Ubuntu in African philosophical traditions. The shared thread is not cultural sameness, but a critique of the idea that the good life can be reduced to growth, consumption, accumulation, or monetary wealth.
Its contemporary significance is especially strong in the Niger Delta, where communities have experienced decades of oil extraction, toxic pollution, dispossession, and the erosion of livelihoods. In this context, Eti uwem is not a nostalgic return to a romanticized past. It is a living political and ethical proposal. It emerges from struggles for environmental justice and from everyday practices that maintain life despite extractive violence. The uploaded concept note rightly describes it as both reflective and practical: it is a philosophy, but also a set of practices such as agroecology, communal stewardship, sacred ecosystem protection, and intergenerational responsibility.

== '''Philosophies and Practices''' ==

The philosophy of Eti uwem begins from relationality. Life is not understood as a collection of separate individuals competing for scarce resources, but as a web of interdependence. Rivers, forests, soil, seeds, animals, ancestors, spirits, and human communities are not passive objects. They are part of the living fabric that makes existence possible. This challenges the modern extractive gaze that sees land as property, rivers as infrastructure, forests as carbon sinks, and communities as labor reserves or obstacles to development.

A central practice of Eti uwem is sufficiency. Sufficiency is not poverty. It is not deprivation. It is the collective capacity to ask what is enough and to organize life around limits, reciprocity, and care. In this sense, Eti uwem resonates with Vandana Shiva’s critique of capitalist development in Making Peace with the Earth, where ecological destruction is tied to the reduction of living systems to resources for accumulation. It also resonates with Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse, especially the idea that worlds are designed through everyday practices, and that alternatives are not merely policy models but different ways of inhabiting the Earth.

Eti uwem also overlaps with Bassey’s notion of “resource democracy.” In the HOMEF publication Re-Source Democracy, Bassey argues that what is called a “resource” first belongs to Nature and then to the communities of species and peoples who live in and care for the territory where forests, rivers, grazing lands, soils, trees, crops, water, and wildlife exist. Resource democracy is therefore not simply about national ownership or state control. It is about stewardship, community rule-making, and the defense of life according to traditional and ecological knowledge.

In practical terms, Eti uwem can be seen in communal labor, agroecological farming, seed keeping, food sovereignty, protection of sacred groves, collective decision-making over land and water, and the refusal of extractive projects that destroy the ecological basis of life. It also appears in cultural practices that teach restraint, gratitude, and respect for the non-human world. These practices are not marginal. They are forms of ecological intelligence that challenge the dominant assumption that modern industrial systems are the only rational way to organize life.

== '''Challenges and Opportunities''' ==

The main challenge facing Eti uwem is the dominance of extractive political economies. In many territories, communities are not free to decide how to live with their lands and waters because state policy and corporate power prioritize oil, gas, mining, industrial agriculture, infrastructure corridors, and carbon markets. This is why Bassey’s critique of “green capitalism” is important. He warns that the green economy often becomes a euphemism for green capitalism, a system in which nature is assigned monetary value so that markets can continue to profit from ecological destruction.

A second challenge is cultural erosion. Indigenous languages, ecological knowledges, ritual practices, and community institutions are weakened by schooling systems, religious pressures, urbanization, migration, media, and the promise of modern consumption. When these practices are lost, communities also lose ways of recognizing limits, maintaining commons, and transmitting responsibility across generations.

A third challenge is policy. Most governments still define development through GDP growth, investment, infrastructure expansion, and resource extraction. Even when they use the language of sustainability, they often reproduce the same logic of accumulation. This creates a profound contradiction: the practices that sustain life are treated as backward, while the systems that destroy life are treated as modern.

Yet Eti uwem also opens important opportunities. First, it provides a language for connecting African ecological philosophies with global debates on degrowth, postdevelopment, buen vivir, rights of nature, food sovereignty, and environmental justice. Second, it gives younger generations a way to reclaim Indigenous ecological knowledge without treating it as folklore. Third, it helps reframe the climate and biodiversity crises not only as technical problems, but as crises of values, power, and ways of living.

== '''Case-study example: Resource democracy and agroecological stewardship in the Niger Delta''' ==

A useful case-study example for Eti uwem is the practice of resource democracy and community-based ecological stewardship in the Niger Delta. In a region marked by oil extraction, polluted waters, damaged farmlands, and broken livelihoods, Eti uwem offers a counter-principle: land and water are not sacrifice zones. They are living territories. They cannot be reduced to barrels of oil, carbon credits, or compensation payments.

Community agroecology illustrates this well. Agroecological practices regenerate soil, protect seeds, reduce dependence on corporate inputs, and rebuild local food systems. They also create spaces for intergenerational learning, where elders transmit knowledge of crops, seasons, medicinal plants, sacred places, and communal obligations. Such practices embody Eti uwem because they combine ecological harmony, sufficiency, and collective well-being.

Eti uwem entails a lived practice of repairing relations. It is the good life understood not as accumulation, but as the capacity to live with dignity, restraint, solidarity, and responsibility within the web of life.

[[File:Eti uwen 1.png|frame|center|eti uwen 1]]

=== '''References''' ===

* Shiva, V. (2013). Making Peace with the Earth
* Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse

'''Links'''

* https://nnimmobassey.net/about

* Between Eti Uwem and Green Capitalism (Green Democracy):
https://homef.org/2013/06/25/between-eti-uwem-and-green-capitalism-green-democracy/

* Re-source Democracy: https://homef.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/resource-democracy.pdf

* The Eti uwen Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVwC7pR_GQ

Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T12:55:55Z

Carlos:

'''Introduction'''

Eti uwem is an Ibibio concept from Nigeria that can be translated as “good life” or “good living.” Yet its meaning exceeds a simple idea of individual well-being. It names a way of living well with others, with the land, with water, with the more-than-human world, and with the generations that came before and will come after. In Nnimmo Bassey’s formulation, Eti uwem involves harmony with nature and all peoples, and incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity, solidarity, contentment, social justice, and communal ownership and control of local resources. It also refuses speculation, exploitation, expropriation, ecological destruction, and the placement of monetary value on life and nature.

The concept therefore provides a direct critique of capitalist development, including its contemporary “green” forms. It does not ask how nature can be better priced, traded, offset, or inserted into markets. Rather, it asks what kind of life becomes possible when communities defend the conditions of life from commodification. In this sense, Eti uwem is close to other concepts of relational well-being, such as sumak kawsay among Kichwa peoples, buen vivir in Latin American debates, and Ubuntu in African philosophical traditions. The shared thread is not cultural sameness, but a critique of the idea that the good life can be reduced to growth, consumption, accumulation, or monetary wealth.
Its contemporary significance is especially strong in the Niger Delta, where communities have experienced decades of oil extraction, toxic pollution, dispossession, and the erosion of livelihoods. In this context, Eti uwem is not a nostalgic return to a romanticized past. It is a living political and ethical proposal. It emerges from struggles for environmental justice and from everyday practices that maintain life despite extractive violence. The uploaded concept note rightly describes it as both reflective and practical: it is a philosophy, but also a set of practices such as agroecology, communal stewardship, sacred ecosystem protection, and intergenerational responsibility.

'''Philosophies and Practices'''

The philosophy of Eti uwem begins from relationality. Life is not understood as a collection of separate individuals competing for scarce resources, but as a web of interdependence. Rivers, forests, soil, seeds, animals, ancestors, spirits, and human communities are not passive objects. They are part of the living fabric that makes existence possible. This challenges the modern extractive gaze that sees land as property, rivers as infrastructure, forests as carbon sinks, and communities as labor reserves or obstacles to development.

A central practice of Eti uwem is sufficiency. Sufficiency is not poverty. It is not deprivation. It is the collective capacity to ask what is enough and to organize life around limits, reciprocity, and care. In this sense, Eti uwem resonates with Vandana Shiva’s critique of capitalist development in Making Peace with the Earth, where ecological destruction is tied to the reduction of living systems to resources for accumulation. It also resonates with Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse, especially the idea that worlds are designed through everyday practices, and that alternatives are not merely policy models but different ways of inhabiting the Earth.

Eti uwem also overlaps with Bassey’s notion of “resource democracy.” In the HOMEF publication Re-Source Democracy, Bassey argues that what is called a “resource” first belongs to Nature and then to the communities of species and peoples who live in and care for the territory where forests, rivers, grazing lands, soils, trees, crops, water, and wildlife exist. Resource democracy is therefore not simply about national ownership or state control. It is about stewardship, community rule-making, and the defense of life according to traditional and ecological knowledge.

In practical terms, Eti uwem can be seen in communal labor, agroecological farming, seed keeping, food sovereignty, protection of sacred groves, collective decision-making over land and water, and the refusal of extractive projects that destroy the ecological basis of life. It also appears in cultural practices that teach restraint, gratitude, and respect for the non-human world. These practices are not marginal. They are forms of ecological intelligence that challenge the dominant assumption that modern industrial systems are the only rational way to organize life.

'''Challenges and Opportunities'''

The main challenge facing Eti uwem is the dominance of extractive political economies. In many territories, communities are not free to decide how to live with their lands and waters because state policy and corporate power prioritize oil, gas, mining, industrial agriculture, infrastructure corridors, and carbon markets. This is why Bassey’s critique of “green capitalism” is important. He warns that the green economy often becomes a euphemism for green capitalism, a system in which nature is assigned monetary value so that markets can continue to profit from ecological destruction.

A second challenge is cultural erosion. Indigenous languages, ecological knowledges, ritual practices, and community institutions are weakened by schooling systems, religious pressures, urbanization, migration, media, and the promise of modern consumption. When these practices are lost, communities also lose ways of recognizing limits, maintaining commons, and transmitting responsibility across generations.

A third challenge is policy. Most governments still define development through GDP growth, investment, infrastructure expansion, and resource extraction. Even when they use the language of sustainability, they often reproduce the same logic of accumulation. This creates a profound contradiction: the practices that sustain life are treated as backward, while the systems that destroy life are treated as modern.

Yet Eti uwem also opens important opportunities. First, it provides a language for connecting African ecological philosophies with global debates on degrowth, postdevelopment, buen vivir, rights of nature, food sovereignty, and environmental justice. Second, it gives younger generations a way to reclaim Indigenous ecological knowledge without treating it as folklore. Third, it helps reframe the climate and biodiversity crises not only as technical problems, but as crises of values, power, and ways of living.

'''Case-study example: Resource democracy and agroecological stewardship in the Niger Delta'''

A useful case-study example for Eti uwem is the practice of resource democracy and community-based ecological stewardship in the Niger Delta. In a region marked by oil extraction, polluted waters, damaged farmlands, and broken livelihoods, Eti uwem offers a counter-principle: land and water are not sacrifice zones. They are living territories. They cannot be reduced to barrels of oil, carbon credits, or compensation payments.

Community agroecology illustrates this well. Agroecological practices regenerate soil, protect seeds, reduce dependence on corporate inputs, and rebuild local food systems. They also create spaces for intergenerational learning, where elders transmit knowledge of crops, seasons, medicinal plants, sacred places, and communal obligations. Such practices embody Eti uwem because they combine ecological harmony, sufficiency, and collective well-being.

Eti uwem entails a lived practice of repairing relations. It is the good life understood not as accumulation, but as the capacity to live with dignity, restraint, solidarity, and responsibility within the web of life.

[[File:Eti uwen 1.png|frame|center|eti uwen 1]]

'''References'''

* Shiva, V. (2013). Making Peace with the Earth
* Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse

'''Links'''

* https://nnimmobassey.net/about

* Between Eti Uwem and Green Capitalism (Green Democracy):
https://homef.org/2013/06/25/between-eti-uwem-and-green-capitalism-green-democracy/

* '''Re-source Democracy''': https://homef.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/resource-democracy.pdf

* The Eti uwen Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVwC7pR_GQ

File:Eti uwen 1.png

2026-04-29T12:50:51Z

Carlos:

Photographs of community-led agroecology projects

Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T12:46:22Z

Carlos: Carlos moved page Contribution:20260429124137 to Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

{{Contribution
|contribution:type=New Definition
|contribution:concept=Concepts:Eti uwen
|contribution:name=Nnimmo Bassey
}}
Eti uwem is an Ibibio concept from Nigeria that can be translated as “good life” or “good living.” Yet its meaning exceeds a simple idea of individual well-being. It names a way of living well with others, with the land, with water, with the more-than-human world, and with the generations that came before and will come after. In Nnimmo Bassey’s formulation, Eti uwem involves harmony with nature and all peoples, and incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity, solidarity, contentment, social justice, and communal ownership and control of local resources. It also refuses speculation, exploitation, expropriation, ecological destruction, and the placement of monetary value on life and nature.
The concept therefore provides a direct critique of capitalist development, including its contemporary “green” forms. It does not ask how nature can be better priced, traded, offset, or inserted into markets. Rather, it asks what kind of life becomes possible when communities defend the conditions of life from commodification. In this sense, Eti uwem is close to other concepts of relational well-being, such as sumak kawsay among Kichwa peoples, buen vivir in Latin American debates, and Ubuntu in African philosophical traditions. The shared thread is not cultural sameness, but a critique of the idea that the good life can be reduced to growth, consumption, accumulation, or monetary wealth.
Its contemporary significance is especially strong in the Niger Delta, where communities have experienced decades of oil extraction, toxic pollution, dispossession, and the erosion of livelihoods. In this context, Eti uwem is not a nostalgic return to a romanticized past. It is a living political and ethical proposal. It emerges from struggles for environmental justice and from everyday practices that maintain life despite extractive violence. The uploaded concept note rightly describes it as both reflective and practical: it is a philosophy, but also a set of practices such as agroecology, communal stewardship, sacred ecosystem protection, and intergenerational responsibility.
Philosophies and Practices
The philosophy of Eti uwem begins from relationality. Life is not understood as a collection of separate individuals competing for scarce resources, but as a web of interdependence. Rivers, forests, soil, seeds, animals, ancestors, spirits, and human communities are not passive objects. They are part of the living fabric that makes existence possible. This challenges the modern extractive gaze that sees land as property, rivers as infrastructure, forests as carbon sinks, and communities as labor reserves or obstacles to development.
A central practice of Eti uwem is sufficiency. Sufficiency is not poverty. It is not deprivation. It is the collective capacity to ask what is enough and to organize life around limits, reciprocity, and care. In this sense, Eti uwem resonates with Vandana Shiva’s critique of capitalist development in Making Peace with the Earth, where ecological destruction is tied to the reduction of living systems to resources for accumulation. It also resonates with Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse, especially the idea that worlds are designed through everyday practices, and that alternatives are not merely policy models but different ways of inhabiting the Earth.
Eti uwem also overlaps with Bassey’s notion of “resource democracy.” In the HOMEF publication Re-Source Democracy, Bassey argues that what is called a “resource” first belongs to Nature and then to the communities of species and peoples who live in and care for the territory where forests, rivers, grazing lands, soils, trees, crops, water, and wildlife exist. Resource democracy is therefore not simply about national ownership or state control. It is about stewardship, community rule-making, and the defense of life according to traditional and ecological knowledge.
In practical terms, Eti uwem can be seen in communal labor, agroecological farming, seed keeping, food sovereignty, protection of sacred groves, collective decision-making over land and water, and the refusal of extractive projects that destroy the ecological basis of life. It also appears in cultural practices that teach restraint, gratitude, and respect for the non-human world. These practices are not marginal. They are forms of ecological intelligence that challenge the dominant assumption that modern industrial systems are the only rational way to organize life.
Challenges and Opportunities
The main challenge facing Eti uwem is the dominance of extractive political economies. In many territories, communities are not free to decide how to live with their lands and waters because state policy and corporate power prioritize oil, gas, mining, industrial agriculture, infrastructure corridors, and carbon markets. This is why Bassey’s critique of “green capitalism” is important. He warns that the green economy often becomes a euphemism for green capitalism, a system in which nature is assigned monetary value so that markets can continue to profit from ecological destruction.
A second challenge is cultural erosion. Indigenous languages, ecological knowledges, ritual practices, and community institutions are weakened by schooling systems, religious pressures, urbanization, migration, media, and the promise of modern consumption. When these practices are lost, communities also lose ways of recognizing limits, maintaining commons, and transmitting responsibility across generations.
A third challenge is policy. Most governments still define development through GDP growth, investment, infrastructure expansion, and resource extraction. Even when they use the language of sustainability, they often reproduce the same logic of accumulation. This creates a profound contradiction: the practices that sustain life are treated as backward, while the systems that destroy life are treated as modern.
Yet Eti uwem also opens important opportunities. First, it provides a language for connecting African ecological philosophies with global debates on degrowth, postdevelopment, buen vivir, rights of nature, food sovereignty, and environmental justice. Second, it gives younger generations a way to reclaim Indigenous ecological knowledge without treating it as folklore. Third, it helps reframe the climate and biodiversity crises not only as technical problems, but as crises of values, power, and ways of living.
Case-study example: Resource democracy and agroecological stewardship in the Niger Delta
A useful case-study example for Eti uwem is the practice of resource democracy and community-based ecological stewardship in the Niger Delta. In a region marked by oil extraction, polluted waters, damaged farmlands, and broken livelihoods, Eti uwem offers a counter-principle: land and water are not sacrifice zones. They are living territories. They cannot be reduced to barrels of oil, carbon credits, or compensation payments.
Community agroecology illustrates this well. Agroecological practices regenerate soil, protect seeds, reduce dependence on corporate inputs, and rebuild local food systems. They also create spaces for intergenerational learning, where elders transmit knowledge of crops, seasons, medicinal plants, sacred places, and communal obligations. Such practices embody Eti uwem because they combine ecological harmony, sufficiency, and collective well-being.
The uploaded PDF’s visual materials already point in this direction: photographs of agroecology, children in a community circle, and community-led ecological practices are proposed as visual examples of the concept. These images matter because they show that Eti uwem is not an abstract theory. It is a lived practice of repairing relations. It is the good life understood not as accumulation, but as the capacity to live with dignity, restraint, solidarity, and responsibility within the web of life.

Contribution:20260429124137

2026-04-29T12:46:22Z

Carlos: Carlos moved page Contribution:20260429124137 to Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

#REDIRECT [[Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey]]

Concepts:Eti uwen/Nnimmo Bassey

2026-04-29T12:43:35Z

Carlos: Created page with "{{Contribution |contribution:type=New Definition |contribution:concept=Concepts:Eti uwen |contribution:name=Nnimmo Bassey }} Eti uwem is an Ibibio concept from Nigeria that ca..."

Concepts:Eti uwen

2026-04-29T12:39:19Z

Carlos:

{{Concepts
|concepts:summary=Eti uwem is a concept in Ibibio, one of the several languages in Nigeria, which literally means good life or good living. Within it is the idea of living in harmony with nature and all peoples. It incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity, solidarity and contentment. Within this concept are the key principles of social justice, power relations and citizens’ and communal ownership and control of local resources. It objects to speculation, exploitation, expropriation and destructive activities and, very importantly, no monetary price can be placed on life and nature. A close concept is sumak Kawsay of the Kichwa people of Latin America, which is sometimes also captured as similar to buen vivir.
Eti uwem is both reflective and practical. It manifests in community practices such as shared resource management, agroecology, respect for sacred ecosystems, and intergenerational responsibility. It also serves as a critique of systems that produce environmental injustice, displacement, and inequality. In a world facing intersecting crises climate change, biodiversity loss, and social fragmentation Eti uwem offers a pathway toward regenerative futures.
This concept invites individuals and communities to imagine and enact alternatives that prioritize life over profit. It is not a fixed destination but an ongoing process of living rightly within the web of life.
|concepts:type=commonterms, alternativeworldviews, praxes
|concepts:relations=Buen Vivir, Relationality,
|concepts:categories=Care, Decolonization, Self Governance, Solidarity, Struggle
|concepts:relevant=yes
|concepts:country=NG
|concepts:region=Africa
|concepts:geolocation=9.63995, 8.03622
}}

Concepts:Eti uwen

2026-04-29T12:36:01Z

Carlos: Created page with "{{Concepts |concepts:summary=Eti uwem is a concept in Ibibio, one of the several languages in Nigeria, which literally means good life or good living. Within it is the idea of..."

Introduction

2026-03-19T14:37:44Z

Carlos:

== On the Nature of Our Civilizational Crisis ==

We are living through a civilizational crisis. It is not only ecological, political or economic, but also a profound crisis of meaning and imagination. More than three quarters of a century have passed since President Harry S. Truman declared that the world would embrace “development” as its guiding horizon. For seventy-six years, this idea has been cultivated like a global monocrop, promising prosperity through growth, industrialization, and modernization. Yet its roots run deeper—over five centuries of capitalist modernity have entrenched a model of life that privileges accumulation over care, extraction over reciprocity, and uniformity over diversity. The consequences today are clear: ecological devastation, social fragmentation, political authoritarianism, economic inequality at historical peaks, and a pervasive sense of despair and hopelessness.

This is not only a material crisis but also one of narration —a crisis of the words and concepts through which we understand ourselves and our world. As anti-colonial thinkers and movements have long taught, colonization is not only a material problem, it is also present in our heads. Without discounting the violence of settler and internal colonialism, colonization also corrodes our imaginaries, normalizes state and ethnic violence, and convinces us that there is “no alternative.” When languages and vocabularies are colonized, our ability to imagine and embody other possibilities is diminished. It is within this context that the Dictionary of Radical Alternatives takes shape. Building on earlier works such as [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wolfgang-Sachs/publication/321938764_The_Development_Dictionary_A_Guide_to_Knowledge_as_Power-2nd-ed-2010/links/5a3a4136aca2728e6988a1bf/The-Development-Dictionary-A-Guide-to-Knowledge-as-Power-2nd-ed-2010.pdf|The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power], [https://www.are.na/block/7769373|The Post-Development Reader], and [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/publications:index#pluriversea_post-development_dictionary|Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary] among many others, this dictionary continues and expands a long lineage of embodied projects of resistance and re-existence across the Global South. It highlights the voices and practices of Indigenous, peasant, rural, and marginalized communities that have been silenced under the monologue of development. The aim is not to produce a definitive canon, but to create a living, open-ended resource: a pluriversal space where concepts can meet, resonate, and—as the Zapatistas remind us—mirror one another’s struggles and resistances<ref>See: https://radiozapatista.org/?p=10375&lang=en</ref>.

==What is this Dictionary?==

The idea for a Dictionary of Radical Alternatives emerged in the context of the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/index Global Tapestry of Alternatives] first in-person Assembly in [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:2023:kenya:index?redirect=1 Kenya], where participants agreed that it would be valuable to create a space in which different worldviews, practices, and common terms could come into dialogue. After nearly three years of conversations, encounters, and collective reflection, and with the support of several [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/endorsements:index GTA Endorsers], the resulting project seeks to do precisely that: to build a collaborative platform where different ways of being, knowing, and doing can come together, be shared, and open up possibilities for alternatives amid the ongoing and deepening civilizational crisis of the West.

The project seeks not only to expand the collection of definitions of what we call “alternatives” but to cultivate what the late Mexican activist and deprofesionalized intellectual Gustavo Esteva described as a “dialogue of livings.” Rather than privileging the abstract “logos” that often dominates the dialogue of knowledges, this is a dialogue rooted in practices of everyday resistance, conviviality, and care. The entries in this dictionary come from all continents, representing a multiplicity of worldviews, epistemologies, and ontologies. Some recover ancestral practices that have long resisted erasure; others are newly coined to make sense of our unprecedented times. In this way, the dictionary is not simply a reference tool but a political and cultural intervention. It seeks to unearth, gather, and circulate concepts and practices rendered invisible or dismissed as “backward” by the coloniality of development, while challenging the hegemony of capitalist, statist, patriarchal, racist, anthropocentric, and colonialist systems. Together, these contributions affirm that alternatives are not distant utopias but already-existing realities—embodied in movements, communities, and struggles that prefigure other ways of being and relating.

The dictionary also emerges in conversation with contentious debates. One of the most significant concerns is how we understand the so-called “Global South”. Too often reduced to a mere geographical designation, the South must instead be seen as a constellation of peoples, places, and knowledges systematically othered by colonialism, patriarchy and capitalist modernity. This othering produces not only vast regions of dispossession in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, but also zones of oppression and exclusion within the so-called North. Capitalist modernity continually reconfigures geographies of power: sacrifice zones expand across hemispheres, and an intensifying war against subsistence—against the ability of communities to reproduce life outside the circuits of capital—has become central to sustaining value production. Increasingly, capitalism depends on cannibalizing nature and appropriating reproductive labor, as the possibilities for accumulation from living labor alone diminish. Naming and confronting this reality requires us to move beyond inherited categories and to defend, recover and/or forge new conceptual tools for being, doing and knowing in the world.

To address this challenge, the Dictionary of Radical Alternatives is founded on '''five''' guiding principles.

* '''First''', it prioritizes cross-cultural understanding by opening access to place-based concepts presented in their original languages, highlighting both their resonances and their differences.

* '''Second''', it emphasizes collaboration and collective ownership, adopting an open-source spirit that invites contributions from communities, organizations, scholars, and activists around the world.

* '''Third''', it is committed to accessibility, ensuring that materials reach beyond academic or activist circles to those who may be skeptical, curious, or immersed in everyday struggles for survival and dignity.

* '''Fourth''', it rests on the conviction that radical alternatives emerge from below, grounded in lived practices rather than imposed from above.

* '''Fifth''', it encourages the notion that there can be multiple definitions and interpretations of the same term. Through a web-based platform, we aim to foster intercultural knowledge of radical alternatives, inspire culturally rooted actions, and make accessible transformative practices for activists, academics, younger generations, and all those searching for other horizons.

It is through these voices and visions that we can begin to reclaim meaning, rebuild imagination, and weave together a pluriverse of alternatives. The dictionary does not aim to close debate but to open it wider—to help us listen across difference, learn from each other’s struggles, and recognize that other worlds are not only possible but already in the making.

We close this introductory note with the words of Wangũi wa Kamonji, whose poem encapsulates the spirit of this project and its contents:

<poem>
“development is a word and a world,
a word from a certain kind of world
building, dismantling, distressing…
in an ecosystem of other words:
(progress, growth,
sustainable development,
adjustment, reforms,
good governance, democracy…)
a word that makes a certain kind of world
built for certain kinds of people
possible,
a word that makes a certain kind of world
not built for other kinds of people
impossible.

what world?

a world of scarcity,
of not enough
lower – on a ladder
behind – in a queue,
slow – in movement,
least – in value,
failing – in progress,
in whose project?

so you become developing, still,
(didn’t your mother birth you complete?)
but you don’t know, you must be taught,
you must be shown, you need help, you need experts
you need you need you need
you can’t, you are not.

I reject development and its miscontents, discontents, un-contents
I’m getting off that train to nowhere very fast.

what names and namings did other worlds have for their dreams?
what names do other worlds have for their
desires, present past future?
I want to use those names,
to paint those worlds in the foreground,

so

keep your development, I’ll have my wĩyathi
keep your development, I’ll have my sumak kawsay
keep your development, I’ll have my ujamaa
keep your development, I’ll have my swaraj
keep your development, I’ll have my whanau
keep your development, I’ll have my ibuhle
keep your development, I’ll have my lekil kuxlejal
keep your development, I’ll have my dreaming
keep your development, I’ll have my ubuntu
keep your development, I’ll have my vivir sabroso
keep your development, I’ll have my madaraka
keep your development, I’ll have my yir kura
keep your development, I’ll have my raara to buri

yes, keep your development, I’ll have my living
life.”
:- '''“on development” by Wangũi wa Kamonji , 2018'''
</poem>

== References ==
<references/>

Introduction

2026-03-19T14:33:47Z

Carlos:

== On the Nature of Our Civilizational Crisis ==

We are living through a civilizational crisis. It is not only ecological, political or economic, but also a profound crisis of meaning and imagination. More than three quarters of a century have passed since President Harry S. Truman declared that the world would embrace “development” as its guiding horizon. For seventy-six years, this idea has been cultivated like a global monocrop, promising prosperity through growth, industrialization, and modernization. Yet its roots run deeper—over five centuries of capitalist modernity have entrenched a model of life that privileges accumulation over care, extraction over reciprocity, and uniformity over diversity. The consequences today are clear: ecological devastation, social fragmentation, political authoritarianism, economic inequality at historical peaks, and a pervasive sense of despair and hopelessness.

This is not only a material crisis but also one of narration —a crisis of the words and concepts through which we understand ourselves and our world. As anti-colonial thinkers and movements have long taught, colonization is not only a material problem, it is also present in our heads. Without discounting the violence of settler and internal colonialism, colonization also corrodes our imaginaries, normalizes state and ethnic violence, and convinces us that there is “no alternative.” When languages and vocabularies are colonized, our ability to imagine and embody other possibilities is diminished. It is within this context that the Dictionary of Radical Alternatives takes shape. Building on earlier works such as [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wolfgang-Sachs/publication/321938764_The_Development_Dictionary_A_Guide_to_Knowledge_as_Power-2nd-ed-2010/links/5a3a4136aca2728e6988a1bf/The-Development-Dictionary-A-Guide-to-Knowledge-as-Power-2nd-ed-2010.pdf|The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power], [https://www.are.na/block/7769373|The Post-Development Reader], and [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/publications:index#pluriversea_post-development_dictionary|Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary] among many others, this dictionary continues and expands a long lineage of embodied projects of resistance and re-existence across the Global South. It highlights the voices and practices of Indigenous, peasant, rural, and marginalized communities that have been silenced under the monologue of development. The aim is not to produce a definitive canon, but to create a living, open-ended resource: a pluriversal space where concepts can meet, resonate, and—as the Zapatistas remind us—mirror one another’s struggles and resistances<ref>See: https://radiozapatista.org/?p=10375&lang=en</ref>.

==What is this Dictionary?==

The idea for a Dictionary of Radical Alternatives emerged i the context of the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/index Global Tapestry of Alternatives] during the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:2023:kenya:index?redirect=1 first in-person Assembly in Kenya in 2023], where participants agreed that it would be valuable to create a space in which different worldviews, practices, and common terms could come into dialogue. After nearly three years of conversations, encounters, and collective reflection, and with the support of several [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/endorsements:index GTA Endorsers], the resulting project seeks to do precisely that: to build a collaborative platform where different ways of being, knowing, and doing can come together, be shared, and open up possibilities for alternatives amid the ongoing and deepening civilizational crisis of the West.

The project seeks not only to expand the collection of definitions of what we call “alternatives” but to cultivate what the late Mexican activist and deprofesionalized intellectual Gustavo Esteva described as a “dialogue of livings.” Rather than privileging the abstract “logos” that often dominates the dialogue of knowledges, this is a dialogue rooted in practices of everyday resistance, conviviality, and care. The entries in this dictionary come from all continents, representing a multiplicity of worldviews, epistemologies, and ontologies. Some recover ancestral practices that have long resisted erasure; others are newly coined to make sense of our unprecedented times. In this way, the dictionary is not simply a reference tool but a political and cultural intervention. It seeks to unearth, gather, and circulate concepts and practices rendered invisible or dismissed as “backward” by the coloniality of development, while challenging the hegemony of capitalist, statist, patriarchal, racist, anthropocentric, and colonialist systems. Together, these contributions affirm that alternatives are not distant utopias but already-existing realities—embodied in movements, communities, and struggles that prefigure other ways of being and relating.

The dictionary also emerges in conversation with contentious debates. One of the most significant concerns is how we understand the so-called “Global South”. Too often reduced to a mere geographical designation, the South must instead be seen as a constellation of peoples, places, and knowledges systematically othered by colonialism, patriarchy and capitalist modernity. This othering produces not only vast regions of dispossession in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, but also zones of oppression and exclusion within the so-called North. Capitalist modernity continually reconfigures geographies of power: sacrifice zones expand across hemispheres, and an intensifying war against subsistence—against the ability of communities to reproduce life outside the circuits of capital—has become central to sustaining value production. Increasingly, capitalism depends on cannibalizing nature and appropriating reproductive labor, as the possibilities for accumulation from living labor alone diminish. Naming and confronting this reality requires us to move beyond inherited categories and to defend, recover and/or forge new conceptual tools for being, doing and knowing in the world.

To address this challenge, the Dictionary of Radical Alternatives is founded on '''five''' guiding principles.

* '''First''', it prioritizes cross-cultural understanding by opening access to place-based concepts presented in their original languages, highlighting both their resonances and their differences.

* '''Second''', it emphasizes collaboration and collective ownership, adopting an open-source spirit that invites contributions from communities, organizations, scholars, and activists around the world.

* '''Third''', it is committed to accessibility, ensuring that materials reach beyond academic or activist circles to those who may be skeptical, curious, or immersed in everyday struggles for survival and dignity.

* '''Fourth''', it rests on the conviction that radical alternatives emerge from below, grounded in lived practices rather than imposed from above.

* '''Fifth''', it encourages the notion that there can be multiple definitions and interpretations of the same term. Through a web-based platform, we aim to foster intercultural knowledge of radical alternatives, inspire culturally rooted actions, and make accessible transformative practices for activists, academics, younger generations, and all those searching for other horizons.

It is through these voices and visions that we can begin to reclaim meaning, rebuild imagination, and weave together a pluriverse of alternatives. The dictionary does not aim to close debate but to open it wider—to help us listen across difference, learn from each other’s struggles, and recognize that other worlds are not only possible but already in the making.

We close this introductory note with the words of Wangũi wa Kamonji, whose poem encapsulates the spirit of this project and its contents:

<poem>
“development is a word and a world,
a word from a certain kind of world
building, dismantling, distressing…
in an ecosystem of other words:
(progress, growth,
sustainable development,
adjustment, reforms,
good governance, democracy…)
a word that makes a certain kind of world
built for certain kinds of people
possible,
a word that makes a certain kind of world
not built for other kinds of people
impossible.

what world?

a world of scarcity,
of not enough
lower – on a ladder
behind – in a queue,
slow – in movement,
least – in value,
failing – in progress,
in whose project?

so you become developing, still,
(didn’t your mother birth you complete?)
but you don’t know, you must be taught,
you must be shown, you need help, you need experts
you need you need you need
you can’t, you are not.

I reject development and its miscontents, discontents, un-contents
I’m getting off that train to nowhere very fast.

what names and namings did other worlds have for their dreams?
what names do other worlds have for their
desires, present past future?
I want to use those names,
to paint those worlds in the foreground,

so

keep your development, I’ll have my wĩyathi
keep your development, I’ll have my sumak kawsay
keep your development, I’ll have my ujamaa
keep your development, I’ll have my swaraj
keep your development, I’ll have my whanau
keep your development, I’ll have my ibuhle
keep your development, I’ll have my lekil kuxlejal
keep your development, I’ll have my dreaming
keep your development, I’ll have my ubuntu
keep your development, I’ll have my vivir sabroso
keep your development, I’ll have my madaraka
keep your development, I’ll have my yir kura
keep your development, I’ll have my raara to buri

yes, keep your development, I’ll have my living
life.”
:- '''“on development” by Wangũi wa Kamonji , 2018'''
</poem>

== References ==
<references/>

Concepts:Pakikibaka

2026-03-18T16:59:23Z

Carlos:

{{Concepts
|concepts:ethimology=The term pakikibaka comes from the Filipino root word "baka", meaning "battle of two minds," combined with the prefix pakiki-, which indicates participation in an action. Therefore, pakikibaka literally translates to "act of participating in battle" and is understood in Filipino psychology as collective resistance, struggle, and uprisings against a common threat or injustice.
|concepts:description=Pakikibaka emphasizes that struggle is not an individualistic act but one that arises from a deep sense of belonging and interconnectedness among Filipinos. It reflects the nation's history of fighting for freedom, dignity, and social justice against colonizers and oppressive regimes. The term encompasses not only physical uprisings and revolutions but also the moral and ideological battles faced by Filipinos.
|concepts:type=commonterms, praxes
|concepts:relations=Relationality, Land Back, Timuay, Ta Madok Maka, Masling,
|concepts:categories=Care, Decentralization, Intergenerational Justice, Self Governance, Solidarity, Struggle
|concepts:relevant=yes
|concepts:banner=Concept-GenericBanner-01.jpg
|concepts:country=PH
|concepts:region=South East Asia
|concepts:geolocation=8.1282, 124.71836
}}

Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandes

2026-03-16T21:08:12Z

Carlos: Carlos moved page Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandez to Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandes

{{Definition
|definition:concept=Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism
|definition:summary=Eco-territorial internationalism is a concept and a praxis that emerges from the convergence of social, ecological, and territorial struggles across borders. It articulates experiences of resistance and transformation—such as democratic energy, agroecology, food sovereignty, workers’ control, and housing justice— by connecting local roots to a global horizon of systemic change. These are not isolated or merely “local” efforts; they embody a global sense of place and foster transnational solidarities grounded in justice, autonomy, and care. In the face of green colonialism, ecological imperialism, and systemic polycrises, this new internationalism reclaims the radical legacies of anti-imperialism while expanding the political imagination toward just transitions and ecological expressions of sovereignty. It challenges the dominant models of extractivist development and resists greenwashed capitalist transitions that reproduce sacrifice zones, particularly in the Global South. Eco-territorial internationalism does not abandon the state but goes beyond statist approaches, promoting multiscalar articulations and a biocentric politics of scale—from the body, to rivers and ecosystems. It is already in motion, through networks that articulate grassroots movements and resistances confronting the root causes of the crisis and shaping pluriversal futures.
|definition:author=Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandes
|definition:quote=Eco-territorial internationalism is a concept we have articulated to describe a praxis that emerges from the convergence of social, ecological, and territorial struggles across borders.
}}
'''Eco-territorial internationalism''' is a concept and a praxis that emerges from the convergence of social, ecological, and territorial struggles across borders. It articulates experiences of resistance and transformation—such as democratic energy, agroecology, food sovereignty, workers’ control, and housing justice— by connecting local roots to a global horizon of systemic change. These are not isolated or merely “local” efforts; they embody a global sense of place and foster transnational solidarities grounded in justice, autonomy, and care. In the face of green colonialism, ecological imperialism, and systemic polycrises, this new internationalism reclaims the radical legacies of anti-imperialism while expanding the political imagination toward just transitions and ecological expressions of sovereignty. It challenges the dominant models of extractivist development and resists greenwashed capitalist transitions that reproduce sacrifice zones, particularly in the Global South. Eco-territorial internationalism does not abandon the state but goes beyond statist approaches, promoting multiscalar articulations and a biocentric politics of scale—from the body, to rivers and ecosystems. It is already in motion, through networks that articulate grassroots movements and resistances confronting the root causes of the crisis and shaping pluriversal futures.

=== Origins and philosophy ===

Eco-territorial internationalism is a concept we have articulated to describe a praxis that emerges from the convergence of social, ecological, and territorial struggles across borders. It is related to a transformative form of internationalism grounded in transnational articulations between communities and territories impacted by socio-environmental conflicts. These experiences are not just about resistance, but also about constructing concrete alternatives for just transitions in fields like energy (community-based, decentralized yet integrated systems), food (agroecology and food sovereignty), production (workers' self-management and territorial democratic planning), consumption (solidarity and proximity economies), care (feminist, communal practices), housing and urban mobility (public spaces and dignified and sustainable living). Although territorially rooted, these experiences are not confined to “the local.” They embody what geographer Doreen Massey described as a global sense of place—a situated yet outward-looking orientation.

The concept builds on decades of internationalist organizing while also responding to the specific challenges of our time: climate emergency, green colonialism, systemic inequality, and the failures of both state-centric and purely localist approaches. Eco-territorial internationalism reclaims the ecological dimension of internationalism, recognizing that no emancipatory project can be sustainable without ensuring the conditions for life. This internationalism is ecological because it recognizes that peoples and species are materially interdependent, so that solidarity and cooperation are not options but necessities.

The eco-territorial turn in contemporary social struggles, particularly visible in the Global South, shows that contemporary conflicts are increasingly territorialized, with communities resisting the destruction of their territories of life while prefiguring new ways of organizing society. The interconnectedness of productive and extractive systems—what is produced, how, for whom, and at what cost—reveals that these are not isolated battles, but part of a shared global struggle.

=== Learning from Past Internationalisms ===

Eco-territorial internationalism does not emerge from scratch. It learns from recent internationalist waves, such as the alter-globalization movement, the World Social Forum, and the squares movements, while acknowledging their limits. It also builds on lessons from anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles – national and transnational – and their calls for cooperation and solidarity.

The alter-globalization movement offered valuable tools for global coordination, denouncing corporate power and promoting systemic critique. However, it struggled to respond to the 2008 financial crisis in a coordinated way, and many of its demands were later co-opted. The cycle of square protests in the 2010s (e.g., Occupy, Indignados, Arab Spring) expanded participation but often lacked sustained transnational infrastructure and the ability to consolidate progressive alternatives.

This legacy is translated to the context of the planetary polycrisis—a systemic entanglement of economic, ecological, political, and social crises that amplify one another. Climate change, far from being just another issue, functions as a multiplier of other systemic risks. Therefore, eco-territorial internationalism expands its horizon by foregrounding Nature—not as a resource, but as a political actor—reconfiguring the spatial logic of internationalism itself, emphasizing both territorial autonomy and international articulation. It seeks to build enduring infrastructure for exchange, mutual learning, and strategic convergence.

To properly converge over the ecological basis of life, eco-territorial internationalism breaks with anthropocentric and hierarchical notions of scale (local–national–global) and instead promotes a biocentric and relational politics of scale. Here, the “territory” becomes a strategic notion because its reference to space is not limited to specific borders or property enclaves, but rather recognizes the interdependencies that sustain life across multiple scales.

Here, the body is understood as the first political territory, embedded in a web of interdependencies with ecosystems and other beings. Territories of struggle are not defined solely by borders or jurisdictions but can also encompass bioregions, watersheds, or ecosystems. Rivers, forests, and biomes become central to resistance and re-existence. This framework enables organizing across spatialities that correspond with ecological realities rather than those imposed by states or markets, while allowing political subjects to confront and build power through various organizing tools in a multi-scalar fashion.

=== In Practice: Initiatives, Shared Frameworks and Plural Strategies ===

Eco-territorial internationalism is already in motion. It materializes in concrete networks, platforms, and coalitions that expand regionally to the global level. Alliances of frontline organizations committed to a Just Transition, even when nationally based, have recognized the tenets of transnational solidarity and systemic change. In the Global South, this often means articulating diverse territorial experiences to promote an alternative narrative to green capitalism, denouncing how the global energy transition often reproduces colonial logics. This involves fostering relationships between communities experimenting with post-extractivist, post-development, and pluriversal models of organizing life.

Named as such or not, eco-territorial internationalism is a lived practice rooted in territory, connected across borders, and aimed at systemic transformation. The shared recognition of interconnectedness through ecological conditions updates internationalism to the 21st Century, enriching strategies of autonomy beyond historical experiences of taking over the state. A few examples of initiatives fostering eco-territorial internationalist practice are the Amazon Indigenous G9 (Amazon-based), the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (Global), the Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South (Latin America and the Caribbean), the Climate Justice Alliance (US-based), the Web of the Peoples (Brazil-based), and the People’s Summit articulations on climate (Global).

One of the key strengths of eco-territorial internationalism lies in its ability to articulate diversity without flattening it. It recognizes and honors the specific histories, identities, and geographies of struggles, while weaving them into shared frameworks such as just transition, energy democracy, food sovereignty, ecological debt, and degrowth. This convergence is not based on a single blueprint or ideology, but on plural, situated strategies that point toward a common horizon of ecosocial transformation.

Across territories, movements are resisting dispossession while building autonomous infrastructures of life. In the Andean region, Indigenous communities resisting lithium extraction in the salt flats of Argentina and Bolivia have joined forces with urban collectives fighting for clean water and decentralized energy. In North America, Indigenous resistance against oil pipelines has become a powerful symbol of territorial defense and energy democracy. In India, forest-dwelling communities have resisted corporate land grabs while sustaining forest-based livelihoods rooted in biocultural diversity.

These movements are not isolated. They are increasingly connected through transnational alliances, learning from each other’s practices and coordinating common actions. They contribute to a shared agenda:

* Denouncing green capitalism and exposing false solutions that commodify Nature and reproduce corporate and extractivist logics under new names.
* Promoting cross-border solidarity and knowledge exchange between communities defending land, water, forests, and urban commons.
* Coordinating global actions—such as climate marches, caravans, community-led tribunals, and decentralized days of resistance.
* Building grassroots communication and political infrastructure, independent from corporate platforms and algorithms, to amplify subaltern voices.
* Sharing tools for collective planning of production and resource use, based on the needs of life rather than profit, and promoting territorial governance that prioritizes care, equity, and sustainability.

Eco-territorial internationalism is not a fixed structure but a living process—nurtured by dialogue, practice, and the collective imagination of peoples in resistance. It is through this flexible and rooted articulation that another end of the world becomes not only possible, but already underway.

=== Ecological Anti-Imperialism and Anti-Capitalism in the Polycrisis ===

In a game of false solutions to the crises, corporations and powerful states promote green capitalism: a supposed ecological transition that maintains extractivist logics while exploiting new resources (e.g., lithium, rare earths) under the guise of decarbonization. This has led to a new phase of green extractivism, especially in the Global South, where entire regions become sacrifice zones to sustain the “green” consumption of the North. Under this model, decarbonization is pursued without questioning capitalism’s metabolism or imperial mode of living, perpetuating colonial hierarchies and deepening global inequalities. States engage in climate action through market tools and the root causes are undermined in order to ensure capitalism’s profit imperative.

Even the anti-imperialism camp is subject to this destructive strategy, built on classical notions of sovereignty based on control and exploitation of resources, in a context of militarization and financialization, made possible by the capitalist capture of the state. This logic is rendered obsolete by the worsening of interconnected crises and is more likely to lead to mutual annihilation than sovereign strongholds, especially when used to justify the expansion of destructive kinds of energy, agrarian, industrial and extractive activities. In the Global South, ideas of development and anti-imperialism have become embedded in the exploitation of Nature in ways that do not really shield production and territories from imperialist intervention, while delivering inequality and accelerating the path for localized collapses with great loss of life and economic costs.

When sovereignty is framed through capitalist interests, the incentive for international solidarity is also weakened and cooperation ends up limited to short-run economic and security goals. Eco-territorial internationalism challenges this logic by confronting ecological imperialism and calling for just transitions that are defined by communities themselves, often relying on alliances and networks to support one another and reclaim the notion of transition from its corporate capture, insisting that transitions must be democratic, territorial, and ecologically grounded. Because eco-territorial internationalism is rooted in the recognition of interdependence of life and production, it is an alternative to both statist and localist vices present in modern day internationalism. It promotes sovereignty based on ensuring a good life, but not at the expense of others today or in future generations. It stresses longevity and a common strategy for defeating the polycrisis.

Thus, an eco-territorial internationalism can nurture an ecological form of sovereignty, where strategies of stability, sustainability and longevity build from interdependence with the rest of the planet in relation to the ecological and material conditions we share at various scales. This is particularly important when entire territories risk disappearing – an ultimate kind of loss of sovereignty – unless capitalism, in fossil and green expressions, is overcome.

This internationalism based on care, solidarity and life is still under construction; it needs to grow, strengthen its ties, and build new alliances. It faces strong challenges in addition to the polycrisis itself: there is little time left to articulate struggles beyond mere survival and authoritarian forces insist on persecuting peoples involved in eco-territorial alternatives. But the weaving together of struggles for food, energy, territory, housing, race, gender, and class—forming the outlines of a global, intersectional, decentralized movement of movements – brings hope for another world shaped by communities in resistance, guided by ecological justice, and rooted in the defense of plural territories of life.

=== Further exploration ===
* Bringel, Breno. “Energy and ecosocial democracy against fossil gattopardismo.” In Energy Transitions: Just and Beyond, edited by Sabrina Fernandes and Benjamin Fogel. Alameda Institute, 2025. https://alameda.institute/dossier/energy-and-ecosocial-democracy-against-fossil-gattopardismo/
* Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South, “Manifesto from the Peoples of the South: For an Ecosocial Energy Transition”, 2023. https://pactoecosocialdelsur.com/manifesto-for-an-ecosocial-energy-transition-from-the-peoples-of-the-south/
* Fernandes, Sabrina. “‘Just’ Means ‘Just’ Everywhere: How Extractivism Stands in the Way of an Internationalist Paradigm for Just Transitions.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 37 (2024): 493–511. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-024-09475-4.
* Fernandes, Sabrina; Bringel, Breno (Eds) ‘Green Capitalism in the Americas’, NACLA Report on the Americas, special issue, Fall 2025.

====Videos ====

La Sandía Digital, (2019): La Energía de los Pueblos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXlA-2S_uAs

=== About the Authors ===
'''Breno Bringel''' is a Brazilian activist, an editor and a sociologist. Professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and Senior Fellow at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he coordinates the Observatory of Geopolitics and Ecosocial Transitions. He is a member of the Ecosocial Pact of the South and co-editor of The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism (Pluto Press, 2024). His research focuses on critical geopolitics, social movements and socio-ecological transitions.

'''Sabrina Fernandes''' is a Brazilian activist, sociologist and political economist, currently the Head of Research at the Alameda Institute. She is part of the Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South, a member of NACLA’s editorial committee, and a Senior Research Advisor to the Oxford Technology & Industrialisation for Development (TIDE) centre. Her research is focused on just transitions, Latin America, and internationalism.

Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandez

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Carlos: Carlos moved page Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandez to Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandes

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Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism / Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandez

2026-03-16T21:00:53Z

Carlos: Changed redirect target from Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandez to Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandes

#REDIRECT [[Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism/Breno Bringel and Sabrina Fernandes]]

About us

2026-03-16T20:17:09Z

Carlos:

The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives is a Project Hosted by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/ Global Tapestry of Alternatives]. The contents of the dictionary have been curated by the [https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/assembly:groups:wg:dictionary:index Dictionary Working Group] of the GTA which consists of:

Franco Augusto,
Matthew Burke,
Ashish Kothari,
Vera Kozak,
Lizah Makombore,
Vasna Ramasar,
Carlos Tornel,
Matías Vaccarezza.

The project was developed with the support of organization [https://oneproject.org/ One Project]

== List of Contributors ==

Academy of Democratic Modernity

Alberto Acosta

Alim Bandara

Arturo Escobar

Ashish Kothari

Breno Bringel

Carlos Tornel

Catherine “Katkat” Dalon

Deepika Nandan

Eleanor Finley

Gustavo Esteva

Hsar Doe Doh Moo

Jose Monfred C. Sy

Juan Pablo Soler

Karishma Kelsey

Lebohang Liepollo Pheko

Lizah Makombore

Mina Lorena Navarro

Miriam Lang

Mogau Kekana

Nicole Burton

Omar Valencia Pérez

Sabrina Fernandes

Şervîn Nudem

Silvia Marcos

Ted Rau

Tero Mustonen

Tukahia Ngatak

Verónica Barreda

Wangũi wa Kamonji

Yasnaya Aguilar Gil

Concepts:Eco-Territorial Internationalism

2026-03-16T20:15:37Z

Carlos:

{{Concepts
|concepts:ethimology=The term "ecoterritorial internationalism" breaks down as: eco- (from Greek "oikos" for home/dwelling) referring to ecological systems, territorial from Latin "territorium" indicating land or region, and internationalism, inter- ("between") + national, meaning a political principle promoting cooperation between nations. Therefore, "ecoterritorial internationalism" refers to a political or social philosophy advocating for cross-border cooperation focused on ecological and land-based issues.
|concepts:description=When combined, "ecoterritorial internationalism" suggests a movement or doctrine that seeks to address ecological and territorial issues on an international scale, emphasizing cooperation between different regions and nations to manage shared environmental resources and land-based concerns.
|concepts:summary=Eco-territorial internationalism is a concept and a praxis that emerges from the convergence of social, ecological, and territorial struggles across borders. Drawing from the definition developed by Sabrina Fernades and Breno Bringel, it articulates experiences of resistance and transformation—such as democratic energy, agroecology, food sovereignty, workers’ control, and housing justice— by connecting local roots to a global horizon of systemic change. These are not isolated or merely “local” efforts; they embody a global sense of place and foster transnational solidarities grounded in justice, autonomy, and care. In the face of green colonialism, ecological imperialism, and systemic polycrises, this new internationalism reclaims the radical legacies of anti-imperialism while expanding the political imagination toward just transitions and ecological expressions of sovereignty. It challenges the dominant models of extractivist development and resists greenwashed capitalist transitions that reproduce sacrifice zones, particularly in the Global South. Eco-territorial internationalism does not abandon the state but goes beyond statist approaches, promoting multiscalar articulations and a biocentric politics of scale—from the body, to rivers and ecosystems. It is already in motion, through networks that articulate grassroots movements and resistances confronting the root causes of the crisis and shaping pluriversal futures.
|concepts:type=alternativeworldviews, companionconcepts
|concepts:relations=Autonomy, Radical Ecological Democracy, Zonas de Sacrificio, Eutopía, Democratic Confederalism, Social Ecology
|concepts:categories=Decolonization, Environemntal Racism, Futures, Re-Existence, Solidarity, Struggle
|concepts:relevant=yes
|concepts:illustration=concepts-illustration-Eco-Territorial Internationalism.png
|concepts:illustrationauthor=Urvi Shah
|concepts:country=BR
|concepts:region=Global South
|concepts:geolocation=-14.235, -51.92528
}}
[[Category:FeaturedConcepts]]

Concepts:Pakikibaka

2026-03-11T21:55:49Z

Carlos:

Concepts:Pakikibaka

2026-03-11T21:55:14Z

Carlos: