More than 30 activist-artist leaders discuss their work inspiring and creating the positive changes needed to meet the daunting problems facing people and planet. Chapters are divided into six broad categories: community engaged theatre; exhibitions of art, politics, and resistance; troubadours of conscience; cultural activists in the fine and performing arts; participatory democracy and the role of the arts in social movements; and people power and community building. The authors interpret and make sense of the world's complexities, struggles, and triumphs in ways that help us better relate to each other and work toward our shared future. They are skilled observers and skilled storytellers, whatever their medium - capacities often found in the most effective leaders. All of us, regardless of the sector in which we work, regardless of if we consider ourselves a business leader, a community organizer or activist, an educator, a public servant, a development professional, an artist, or a rabble-rouser, can learn from their example and be encouraged to continue working on a flourishing future for everyone.
This book explores the intersection of grassroots leadership and the arts for social change, examining the many movements and subsequent victories the arts community has won for society. The book illustrates the diverse but influential work of these figures, reflecting on their actions, commitments and their positive impact on the modern world.
This book explores the intersection of grassroots leadership and the arts for social change, examining the many movements and subsequent victories the arts community has won for society. The book illustrates the diverse but influential work of these figures, reflecting on their actions, commitments and their positive impact on the modern world.
My thesis explores how critical place-based pedagogy and decolonial education strategies contribute to civic leadership through a qualitative ethnographic study of leaders and organizers who catalyze positive community change. The purpose of this study is to better understand effective grassroots leadership in public arts organizing and cultural sectors. I am a teaching artist with 4 years of experience teaching in community art practice, and my research and experience contribute to this autoethnographic study. The primary question I sought to answer was, what factors contribute to civic leadership and effective positive change in collective organizing? Following this I asked, how might teaching with decolonial methods through the lens of critical pedagogy of place inform a community arts practice? In order to answer these questions, I interviewed practitioners whose life works are exemplary examples of positive community change. These organizers included Emory Douglas, the former Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party, Blanche Suggs-Killingworth, a representative of Neighborhood Housing Services and active founder of the North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society, and Dr. Azure Thompson, who uses place-based approaches in community research. Over the course of one year, I collected data in many forms, including field notes and personal interviews. I transcribed conversations and wrote journal entries based on my own observations. I discovered that these dynamic leaders consider environment as more than simply “site.” They critically analyze current spatial relationships to better understand their own professional practices, operations, and codes of conduct. By recognizing their own leadership as functioning within a hierarchical structure, these leaders challenge this structure by fostering earnest and active connections to the communities they serve. There is a gap in existing research concerning the ways in which leadership methods inform community art practice in art education. By uniting decolonial methodologies and critical pedagogy of place theory in my research and analysis, my goal was to identify effective orientations toward and strategies for grassroots leadership in public arts organizing, thus providing future teaching artists and arts administrators with frameworks reflecting critically on their own agency as artists and leaders functions within larger power dynamics.
Enhancing Campus Capacity for Leadership contributes to the growing tradition of giving voice to grassroots leaders, focusing on the largely untapped potential of faculty and staff on college campuses. In an increasingly corporatized environment, grassroots leadership can provide a balance to the prestige- and revenue-seeking impulses of traditional campus leaders, create changes in the teaching and learning core, build greater equity, improve relationships among campus stakeholders, and enhance the student experience. This book documents the stories of grassroots leaders, including their motivation and background, the tactics and strategies that they use, the obstacles that they overcome, and the ways that they navigate power and join with formal authority. This investigation also highlights the fact that grassroots leaders, particularly in more marginalized groups, can face significant backlash. The authors end with a discussion of the future of leadership on college campuses, examining the possibilities for shared and collaborative forms of guidance and governance.
This book is for everyone who cares about the health of their organisations, especially if their organisations work for social change. It draws on the experience of a variety of effective organisational development professionals, community organisers and leaders of non-profit organisations, teaching a proactive approach to organisational life -- an indispensable sourcebook for all leaders and active members of change organisations.
Reimagining Leadership on the Commons examines leadership approaches derived from an, open, whole systems perspective and a more collaborative paradigm that recognizes that rather than being individualist self-maximizers, people prefer to work together to share benefits and found a society based on equality and justice.
A roadmap for integrating mindfulness into every aspect of social change: how to lead transformation with compassion for the needs and perspectives of all people. Gretchen Steidle knows first-hand the personal transformation that mindfulness practice can bring. But she doesn't believe that transformation stops at personal wellbeing. In Leading from Within, Steidle describes the ways that personal investment in self-awareness shapes leaders who are able to inspire change in others, build stronger relationships, and design innovative and more sustainable solutions. Steidle argues that both personal and societal transformation are essential for a just society, and with this book she offers a roadmap for integrating mindfulness into every aspect of social change. Conventional methods attempt to compel people to change through incentives or punitive measures. Conscious social change calls for leading with a deeper human understanding of change and compassion for the needs and perspectives of all stakeholders. Steidle offers mindfulness practices for individuals and groups, presents the neuroscientific evidence for its benefits, and argues for its relevance to social change. She describes five capacities of conscious social change, devoting a chapter to each. She writes about her own experiences, including her work helping women to found their own grassroots social ventures in post-conflict Africa. She describes the success of a group of rural, uneducated women in Rwanda, for example, who now provide 9,000 villagers with clean water, ending the sexual exploitation of disabled women unable to collect water on their own. Steidle also draws from the work of change agents in the United States to showcase applications of conscious social change to timely issues like immigration, racism, policing, and urban violence. Through personal stories and practical guidance, Steidle delivers both the inspiration and tools of this innovative approach to social transformation. About Global Grassroots: In post-conflict Africa, Global Grassroots equips emerging women leaders, including war survivors, subsistence farmers, and the undereducated, with the tools and resources to create conscious social change. Our core program is our Academy for Conscious Change, a social entrepreneurship and mindfulness-based leadership program that helps vulnerable women design their own non-profit solutions to address priority social issues. In our first decade of operations we have trained over 650 change agents who have designed 150 civil society organizations benefiting over 150,000 people.
