Organization Unbound | Changing the way we change the world

Is democracy an enemy of nature?
January 27th, 2015 | Expressive Change | Tana Paddock | No Comments
Are the environmental challenges we face as a planet too urgent and pervasive to be effectively dealt with through democratic means? I was surprised to read that in the wider circles of global environmental discourse, the implied (and occasionally directly expressed) response to this question is increasingly ‘yes’. Andrew Stirling, in his powerful essay ‘Emancipating Transformations’, sheds light on […]
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Reflections on attentional violence
December 3rd, 2014 | Expressive Change | Undine Whande | 1 Comment
Most of us are probably familiar with Johan Galtung’s ‘typology of violence’. As a peace researcher Galtung is known for developing the term and theory of structural violence. The concept of structural violence dawned on him while seeing the victims of poverty in India. People were suffering and yet the cause […]
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SWOT hack
November 17th, 2014 | Expressive Change | Rachel Griner | 1 Comment
The following reflection was written by Rachel Griner, a new contributor to Organization Unbound, based in Dubai, who is keen to help businesses engage more deeply and authentically with social purpose and hone their capacity for social innovation. We’re excited to learn from her experiments.
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Networks: a love story
November 11th, 2014 | Expressive Change | Curtis Ogden | No Comments
We recently stumbled upon the work of Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC), one of a growing number of capacity-building organizations taking an ‘inside-out’ approach to social transformation. One of their associates, Curtis Ogden, wrote this piece a few months back reflecting on their journey of stepping more fully into their most deeply held value: “the love that does justice”.
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Calling in
November 2nd, 2014 | Expressive Change | Tana Paddock | No Comments
This provocative essay on Black Girl Dangerous sheds light on how the oppressive social patterns that we’re trying to change ‘out there’ inevitably live inside us and our social movements, no matter how hard we try to chase them out. Author Ngọc Loan Trần invites fellow activists to engage with these patterns more consciously and lovingly in order to be a stronger force for change.
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Music to my ears
October 27th, 2014 | Expressive Change | Akaya Windwood | 5 Comments
I’m old enough to remember when music, dance, art and poetry were integral parts of social change. No one would even consider having a meeting that didn’t include some aspect of celebrating the human spirit. There is something deeply satisfying about about gathering in groups and singing together.
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Stuck in an old story
October 21st, 2014 | Expressive Change | Tania Katzschner | 1 Comment
“Help stop them before they destroy earth. Become an AlienBuster!”… “It is time to reclaim our country! We need the public to join us in our fight to rid the planet of these deadly invaders!” This call to arms was envisaged – perhaps surprisingly – from an ecological, green, ‘natural’ systems context as a creative intervention in the South African government’s management of environmental issues.
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Should we fight the system or be the change?
September 18th, 2014 | Expressive Change | Mark Engler & Paul Engler | 1 Comment
Once an obscure term, prefigurative politics is increasingly gaining currency, with many contemporary anarchists embracing as a core tenet the idea that, as a slogan from the Industrial Workers of the World put it, we must “build the new world in the shell of the old.” Because of this, it is useful to understand its history and dynamics. While prefigurative politics has much to offer social movements, it also contains pitfalls.
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Structuring our Beloved Communities?
September 8th, 2014 | Expressive Change | Liam Barrington-Bush | 2 Comments
If we believe that changing the world involves changing the kinds of relationships we have with one another, what role do organising structures have in helping or hindering the relationships we are trying to create?, asks Liam Barrington-Bush.
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A six month dive into expressive change
September 2nd, 2014 | Expressive Change | Josee Methot & Jess Marais | 1 Comment
Social change work is slow, and we’ve all heard stories of well-intentioned people burning out as they scramble to improve this big old world of ours. But what if this were different? In the fall of 2013, the McGill Office of Sustainability (MOOS) was fortunate to work with Organization Unbound to re-imagine the way we think about and engage in social change. With the guidance of our […]
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