DAF Diversity and Decolonising
After three intense and generative years of weekly meetings, the small group of Deep Adaptation Volunteers who convened the DAF Diversity and Decolonising Circle have shifted to new roles in Deep Adaptation and wider global projects around decolonising, antiracism and diversity. We have decided to dissolve the small container we initially created for these conversations, the D&D Circle.
We plan to continue working on decolonising ourselves, supporting BIPoC participation and encouraging diversity across the Deep Adaptation Forum spaces. We intend to take our learning and questions, as seeds and creative opportunities, into the wider Deep Adaptation project, and other collapse-aware communities.
We believe the time is right to widen the group continuing this work in the Deep Adaptation Forum. This work continues to be all of ours to do. We know many DAF members are already leaning into this broad field encompassing social justice and the desire for a kinder, more inclusive society, in ways appropriate to their local and online communities, deepening their personal inner learning. As this Circle dissolves, we invite others to sign up to the following related projects within DAF [list of links below] and to initiate their own projects and groups.
The DAF Weavers Circle commits to championing topics related to diversity, plurality, and decolonising to reduce harm in our network. Please get in touch with them individually or collectively if you wish to discuss any related matters.
This is the work of each of us, for generations to come. We are so grateful for the Circle’s support and encouragement to step into this deep learning.
Related projects in DAF:
- DAF Solidarity Experiment: a monthly call dedicated to exploring how to engage in ‘right’ relations with DAF solidarity projects.
- Composting Times: a newsletter on D&D topics, sharing informative, educational, and creative resources with readers.
Useful resources:
What follows is the D&D circle’s mission statement as it was last formulated.
This circle is convened by a team of volunteers in the Deep Adaptation movement. Our purpose is to find ways to reflect on and address the main forms of separation and oppression that characterise our modern industrial societies. This includes, in no particular order: patriarchy; white supremacy; and the desacralization of nature.
We recognise that we inevitably carry these mindsets with us into the Deep Adaptation movement and spaces. Our goal is to address them, in order to become more in alignment with the Deep Adaptation Forum (DAF)’s mission of embodying and enabling loving responses to our predicament.
We take action by convening workshops and training sessions, but also by creating spaces in which to share insights on these topics with one another and with people beyond our circle. These learning spaces help us pursue our mission, individually and collectively, both within and outside DAF.
What is this work (really) about?
Through creative, compassionate, and self-reflective conversations and initiatives, we aim to address structural social injustice, and interrupt harmful ways of being in all contexts of our lives. In doing so, we wish to bring about more collective healing and wellbeing in our lives, and within the organizations and networks we are part of.
Who is benefiting the most from this work?
So far, the clearest benefits seem to have come to us in the group, individually and collectively, thanks to the learning and personal growth we have experienced in this circle. However, we have also been bringing these insights into other groups and spaces, in this network and beyond, and there are signs that others have benefited from our conscious interventions or involvement. We aspire to make our work much more visible, and for this work to spread further afield.
Why are we doing this?
We engage in this group because:
- it feels enlivening and meaningful to address these essential and complex topics in the company of a trusted group of people;
- it is an occasion for us to bring about some important learning and healing within and between ourselves, other humans, and the other-than-human world;
- it feels necessary to make DAF spaces braver, to encourage more sobriety, maturity, discernment, and accountability, and to help our fellow participants become more conscious of systemic forms of injustice that permeate our mindsets and societies;
- It is a moral imperative for us to find loving ways of addressing injustice and stand in solidarity with marginalised peoples. As modern society starts to unravel, we want to try to bring about a better world for everyone.
Who are we accountable to?
We feel accountable to…
- our own sense of justice, equity, and personal integrity;
- each other in this group, and DAF participants more widely;
- our ancestors and future generations;
- those who don’t have our privileges;
- the earth and all other beings.
We aim to balance and nurture our accountability throughout these various relationships, in a spirit of trust, consent, reciprocity, and honesty.
What do we want our work to move in the world?
(The sentence above is inspired by the work of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective)
We want to move people’s hearts away from ignorance, separation, and violence, and towards loving kindness, compassion, an embrace of diversity, and an ecocentric worldview. We recognise in doing this work the potential for conflict, disagreement and pain. Our commitment is to work with these, to build our collective capacities to be with the uncomfortable, and to build and maintain authentic relationships.
We want to foster joyful and healing relationships that are based on consent, trust, respect, reciprocity, and accountability.
We also want to disrupt existing systems of power and help create fairer, more regenerative and compassionate social and political structures. These structures should acknowledge harm and injustices (past and present), and focus on reparation and accountability towards all living beings.
New to this work? Check out our selection of learning resources – including content written by the D&D Circle, and other people far wiser than us!
SUBSCRIBE TO THE COMPOSTING TIMES
Once per quarter, the Composting Times shares informative, educational, and creative resources with readers. Subscribe here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Please keep an eye on the DAF Events listings for diversity- and decolonising-related offerings.
PAST EVENTS & WORKSHOPS
- November 2020 – Dismantling Racism training
- June 2021 – Silenced Stories workshop
- October 2021 – Conscious Learning call with the D&D circle
- October 2021 – Indigenous Perspectives on Decolonial Futures
- March 2022 – Ubuntu: Healing Racism within Us and Our Communities
anti-racism, decolonising, diversity and decolonisation, solidarity