Summer reading for activists

Beautiful Trouble book offers toolbox for progressive success.

by SGNews staff, with YouTube video

A new project and new publisher have produced a handbook to help progressive activists effectively create social change.

Regina editor Dave Mitchell and dozens of collaborators put together Beautiful Trouble, a new book/ebook, and published by OR Books. The creators describe the 400-page collection of ideas, tactics and instructions to make progressive protest effective as "a toolbox for the next revolution."

The project consists of short, interrelated modules — describing creative tactics, action design principles, case studies, and theoretical frameworks — that together constitute an accessible matrix of best practices and ideas in creative campaigning. The website will soon include the core content of the book as well as a growing array of additional modules, resources, profiles, debates and much more. With the help of readers, the site will evolve with new social movements and their latest tactical innovations.

"We really aiming to be accessible to new activists," Dave Mitchell told Straight Goods News in an Ottawa interview. "We wanted to give them more tools to work with. When you start asking activists what is it about that particular tactic that works, it really allows people to think differently about what they're doing."

Dave Mitchell talks about Beautiful Trouble with SGNews Publisher Ish Theilheimer.

youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6N63hke_GA[/youtube]

The project, Mitchell says, was actually the "brainchild" of US author and activist Andrew Boyd. "In some ways, it's a distillation of his life's work."

The focus of Beautiful Trouble is not merely getting attention, says Mitchell. "There's a lot in it about thinking strategically," he said. "What's the issue, who are you trying to reach? What's the best way to achieve that?" The book helps activists examine these questions and make plans for actions that produce results.

"It's about evidence-based activism," he said. "We're recognizing that just taking a stance on an issue publicly is not enough. We need to be thinking about the outcomes of the action and thinking really outside the box, not just the same five or six tactics focusing on the same thing. There often are secondary targets where you can get a lot more done."

He used the example of migrant workers in Florida who found they could make more headway taking protests to customers of Taco Bell, who eat the tomatoes they pick, rather than to the farm owners for whom they work. The workers "Zeroed in on them [Taco Bell customers] and won."

Beautiful Trouble was assembled in a unique collaborative manner. More than 70 contributors from around the world and ten partner organizations participated. The entire project was assembled in an open, collaborative process, including four "book sprints" weekend-long gatherings where contributors gathered face-to-face and locked themselves in a room to write.

© Copyright 2012 SGNews Staff, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca