Self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want. A resolutely materialist spirituality based equally on science and science fiction: a wild feminist and afro-futurist ride!
Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.
BIO
adrienne maree brown, is a writer, activist and facilitator. From 2006 to 2010, she was executive director of the Ruckus Society. She also co-founded and directed the United States League of Young Voters
REVIEWS
“Emergent Strategy is an examination of where our movements have been and an offering of a framework for resistance that is rooted in the miracles of nature, decentralized, collective leadership, and personal, relational, organizational, and movement-wide transformation. Brown not only inspires me to resist, but to do in the most beautiful, joyful, creative, sustainable, collective and effective ways.” -- Andrea, J. Ritchie, author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
“It was a revelation to discover adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy. She is matter of-fact about the coming destruction we face—of our environment, of our resources, of our governments. Her philosophy, based on Octavia Butler’s guiding philosophy of the Earthseed books, is that God Is Change. Rather than run from it or resist it, we should embrace it, look to what the plants, animals, and genomes can teach us about adapting to survive and to thrive.” -- BuzzFeed
“Necessary, vital, and timely.” -- Ayana Jamieson, Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network
“Adrienne leads us on a passionate, purposeful, intimate ride into this Universe where relationships spawn new possibilities. Her years of dedication to facilitating change by partnering with life invite us to also join with life to create the changes so desperately needed now.” -- Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science
“Adrienne has challenged me, enlightened me and reminded me that transformation happens in our natural world every day and we can borrow from it strategies to transform ourselves, our organizations, and our society.” -- Denise Perry, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity
“A word/heart sojourn through the hard questions.” -- Makani Themba, facilitator for the Movement for Black Lives
[P] AK Press / April 18, 2017
0.8" H x 7.9" L x 5.0" W (0.65 lbs) 280 pages