Otherwise_moral_compass

Resistance, Power & Movements

In 2018, OtherWise organised a 3 ECTs capita selecta on Non-Violent Resistance. In February 2019 we received information that Build Your Movement and Michiel Köhne and Elisabet Rasch, working in the Sociology of Development and Change group at the WUR, were designing a course on movement building and political agency. As we were planning a second edition of the capita selecta on non-violent resistance, we suggested to join forces, also together with the professional trainers from Build Your Movement, and created one course together. From this the 4 ECTs capita selecta on Resistance, Power and Movements emerged.

The course has been developed in response to a wish and a need that has been voiced repeatedly by students and university lecturers alike to not only explore how theory and practice of social movements could feed into each other, but to actually bring that into practice in university education and teaching. This year we wanted to organise another edition of this well received capita selecta. However, due to the Covid-19 measures, we anticipated that it would have to be online. Because of the many efforts it would take from the trainers and the professors to change the whole course, we decided to still create a space to share experience and knowledge on activism, but not as a capita selecta, but as an online seminar called ‘Activism in times of Covid-19’.

On the 9th and the 16th of November, the event took place during which we talked about the challenges and the opportunities that activism and activists have faced due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and the measures to prevent its spread. Both evenings participants could choose one of the four workshops that were provided by trainers and experts. The aim of the event was to connect students, academia and people from grassroots groups, to support students in their agency and to share experiences, knowledge and tools on resistance, power and movements.