“After the first Global Tipping Points Conference in 2022, the University of Exeter’s Green Futures Network ran a series of workshops to explore the potential and enthusiasm for applying the growing research into Positive Tipping Points in practice to different contexts, including economics, food systems, activism, climate justice, and business. The response was clear: the idea of positive tipping points has huge potential for helping those working on systems change to better understand how complex systems can change, and how we can shift our thinking to work towards non-linear change… Following these workshops, the Green Futures Network began a slow and intentional process of co-creating an open source Toolkit that could make the ongoing research accessible to a wider community of people already working on meaningful and long-term systems change.”

“Today, almost 40 percent of the world’s population live in countries where democracy is deteriorating; a sharp increase in the last ten years; 80 percent of the global population lives in countries or territories rated not free or only partly free; and the trend of democratic erosion shows no signs of slowing down… This resource library is a curated collection of articles, essays, tools, and analyses designed to help you understand the roots, tactics, and impacts of authoritarian movements. But knowledge is only the first step. These resources are meant to empower educators, organisers, students, and everyday people with the insight and language needed to challenge authoritarianism, stand up for democracy, and build a world of belonging without othering. Whether you’re just beginning to learn or seeking deeper context to take action, you’ll find resources here to inform, connect, and inspire.”

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.”

Following a retreat held last year on Digital Liberation, co-hosted by Weaving Liberation, Dalan Fund, Whose Knowledge? and Numun Fund, the authors reflect on what is required for resilient justice work, and outline the priorities of a new Solidarity Infrastructure Collective. The Collective imagines “a collectively owned and governed movement space – physical solidarity infrastructure – that transcends one-off grants” aiming to “mobilise our different resources to challenge the dependency cycles we all, at different levels, find ourselves in” with a key objective of working towards “the collective ownership of land in Europe and West Africa governed by local groups.” Accompanied by concrete examples, they suggest that sustainable long-term resourcing requires: “Enabling peer solidarity; Enabling income generation; and Supporting land justice,” recognising a shared “urgency in radically reimagining the role of philanthropy.”