What Kind of Governance Enables Liberatory Infrastructures?

Defining governance as “our ways of working and being together, and our ways of relating to one another,” Bangura explores efforts by groups such as Multitudes Co-op, who have been “experimenting with what it takes to activate healthier ways of being together in community,” and what “liberatory infrastructure” is required to support it. As outlined by the Transformational Governance Collective, this crucially includes “the informal structures, policies, practices, relationships and cultural expectations that determine how decisions are made, how roles and resources are allocated, and how collaborative activity happens…grounded in principles of shared power, collective decision-making, accountability, and transformative change…to dismantle oppressive systems and build more just communities.” Powering this work is the concept of ‘ustopia’, which Ruha Benjamin defines as “what we create together when we are wide awake.”