The world is going through a crisis of unprecedented global scale engendered by a dominant regime that has resulted in deepening inequalities, increasing deprivation in old and new forms, the destruction of ecosystems, catastrophic climate change, ruptures in socio-cultural fabrics, and the violent dispossession of living beings.
However, there is an increasing emergence and visibility of an immense variety of radical alternatives to this dominant regime, contesting its roots in capitalist, patriarchal, racist, statist, and anthropocentric forces. These range from initiatives with a specific focus like sustainable and holistic agriculture, community led water/energy/food sovereignty, solidarity and sharing economies, worker control of production facilities, resource/knowledge commons, and inter-ethnic peace and harmony, to more holistic or rounded transformations such as those being attempted by the Zapatista in Chiapas and the Kurds in Rojava. Alternatives also include the revival of ancient traditions and the emergence of new worldviews that re-establish humanity’s place within nature, as a basis for human dignity and equality.
The Global Tapestry of Alternatives is an initiative seeking to create solidarity networks and strategic alliances amongst all these alternatives on local, regional and global levels. It locates itself in or helps initiate interactions among alternatives. It operates through varied and light structures, defined in each space, that are horizontal, democratic, inclusive and non-centralized, using diverse local languages and other ways of communicating. The initiative has no central structure or control mechanisms. It spreads step by step as an ever-expanding, complex set of tapestries, woven together by already existing communal or collective webs, building on already existing and new alternatives to dominant regimes. It promotes or joins regional, national and global encounters, when the conditions allow for them, as well as close and synergistic linkages with existing organizations, like the World Social Forum.
A Global Tapestry of Alternatives is about creating spaces of collaboration and exchange, in order to learn about and from each other, critically but constructively challenge each other, offer active solidarity to each other whenever needed, interweave the initiatives in common actions, and give them visibility to inspire other people to create their own initiatives. It could facilitate people seeking transformative change going further along existing paths or forging new ones that strengthen alternatives wherever they are, hopefully eventually converging into a critical mass of alternative ways can support the conditions for the radical systemic changes we need.
A small group of activists from several regions of the world has started the initiative, and will help facilitate its loosely knit structure as it takes shape in different parts of the world. The initial set of endorsers of this initiative (to which more will be added as we go along) will be encouraged to help link the Global Tapestry of Alternatives with similar initiatives around the world.
Anyone interested in following the evolution of or participating in the Global Tapestry process can write an email to [email protected].
Organisations
Afrika Youth Movement
Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa
Community Economies Collective
Defend the Sacred
Earthlife Africa Jhb
ECOLISE
European Commons Assembly
Faircoop
Focus on the Global South
Forest Peoples Programme
Gaia Foundation
Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature
Global Forest Coalition
Global University for Sustainability
Great Transition Initiative
Health of Mother Earth Foundation
ICCA Consortium
It Takes Roots!
Local Futures
People's Health Movement
Research and Degrowth
The Leap
The Rules
Transnational Institute
Transition Network
WoMin
Individuals
Alberto Acosta, Ecuadorian economist; lecturer/researcher, FLASCO Ecuador (Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences)
Yellen Aguilar, ecologist, Proceso de Comunidades Negras de Colombia
Samuel Alexander, co-director, Simplicity Institute; lecturer, University of Melbourne; author, Entropia
Kali Akuno, Director, Cooperation Jackson, USA
Ikal Ang'elei, Friends of Lake Turkana & Oilwatch Kenya
Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation; former chair, Friends of the Earth International; Right Livelihood Awardee, Nigeria
Mariann Bassey Orovwuje, Food Sovereignty Coordinator, Friends of the Earth Nigeria; Chair, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa
Million Belay, Coordinator, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa
Walden Bello, Professor/activist, State University of New York & Kyoto University, Japan; Right Livelihood Awardee; author, Capitalism's Last Stand
Patricia Botero, Coordinator, Universidad de la Tierra, Manizales, Colombia
Patrick Bond, Distinguished Professor of Political Economy, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Maria Campo, philosopher, Otras negras... y feministas, Cali, Colombia
Federico Demaria, socio-environmental scientist, political ecology and ecological economics, Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB)
Charles Eisenstein, author and speaker
Arturo Escobar, anthropologist / environmentalist, Cali, Colombia and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; Author, Encountering Development
Sofia Garzon, Economist, Proceso de Comunidades Negras de Colombia
Katharine Gibson, Australian,economic geographer, researcher on economic transformation; author, The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It)
Tiokasin Ghosthorse, elder, Cheyenne River Lakota Nation, South Dakota; international speaker on Peace, Indigenous and Mother Earth; musician
Jose Gualinga, Sarayaku People, Ecuador
Eduardo Gudynas, Researcher at the Centro Latino Americano de Ecología Social (CLAES), Montevideo, Uruguay; leading scholar on buen vivir
Giorgos Kallis, ICREA Research Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Naomi Klein, Canadian writer/film-maker/activist; author, This Changes Everything; faculty, Rutgers University, USA
David Korten, author, Agenda for a New Economy; Living Economies Forum; YES! Magazine, USA
Satish Kumar, Senior Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine; Founder & Visiting Fellow, Schumacher College, UK
Edgardo Lander, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Fellow Transnational Institute
Makoma Lekalakala, Earthlife Africa Jhb; Goldman Environment Prize awardee, South Africa
Xochitl Leyva, Professor of Anthropology and member, Proyecto Videoastas Indígenas de la Frontera Sur, Chiapas, Mexico
Betty Ruth Lozano, Director of Research, Baptist University, Cali, Colombia
Mabrouka Mbarek, former member, Tunisia National Constituent Assembly
Frances Moore Lappe, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Food First, USA
George Monbiot, author and journalist, The Guardian
Charo Mina Rojas, Social Worker, Proceso de Comunidades Negras de Colombia
Helena Norberg-Hodge, author, Ancient Futures; speaker; filmmaker; 'new economy' and localization advocate; founder/director of Local Futures
Mordecai Ogada, Carnivore ecologist, Kenya; author, The Big Conservation Lie; Executive Director, Conservation Solutions Afrika
Elba Palacios, philosopher, Otras negras ... y feministas, Cali, Colombia
Paul Raskin, Great Transition Initiative; author, Journey to Earthland, USA
Tatiana Roa, Director, Censat Agua Viva Colombia
Wolfgang Sachs, Editor, The Post-Development Dictionary; research director emeritus, Wuppertal Institute, Germany
Ariel Salleh, Australian scholar activist; author, Ecofeminism as Politics, and articles on green policy to eco-socialism
Sulak Sivaraksa, Thai Buddhist scholar, social critic; founder, Sathirakoses-Nagapradeepa Foundation, International Network of Engaged Buddhists, & Spirit in Education Movement
Maristella Svampa, Argentinian sociologist; writer/researcher, CONICET (National Technical and Scientific Research Council), University of La Plata
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Executive Director, TebTebba, The Philippines
Jose Maria Tortosa, Instituto Interuniversitario de Desarrollo Social y Paz, University of Alicante, Spain
Ted Trainer, Australian academic, Simplicity Institute; author
Shiv Visvanathan, Nomadic anthropologist interested in dissenting imagination, India
Ivonne Yanez, Accion Ecologica, Ecuador
Raúl Zibechi, Uruguayan journalist; militant researcher & analyst; member of Brecha & columnist, La Jornada
To know more please visit: http://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/