Post-Class Reflection 4/18

In class we discussed adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy. When going over the introduction and the sections on the principles and elements of emergent strategy we talked about a general definition for “emergent strategy” and brown’s description/definition of herself. When we went over the section on fractals it was mentioned how the book itself operated in the same way in terms of how the writing is very circular and similar to brown’s own way of speaking in conversation (but also sometimes difficult to follow along with). We also talked about the significance of science fiction and the writing of Octavia Butler to her ideas and the concept of emergent strategy. In the sections on adaptation and interdependence and decentralization, we talked about the struggle of adapting to change and how we deal with change in our everyday lives vs. how we would like to be able to. With interdependence, the aspect of faith in noticing complexity and being a part of movements, and whether or not the mentioning of faith in this way was appropriative, was brought up. Going into nonlinear and iterative pathways of change,  the idea of a “hater protocol” and how the Occupy Wall Street movement relates to the concepts in this section of the book. The last section we went over was on resilience — and shifting to a culture that uses difference productively rather than as a tool of non-productive conflict. Here, questions concerning optimism and imagining “impossible futures” were brought up and we also talked about transformative justice in healthy and abusive dynamics/relationships. We ended class with the assessment/checklist at the end of the book and discussed some of our answers.