We have had a bunch of people contact us asking about the materials and readings that were used for the “In it for the Long Haul” event that we hosted on June 24th, 2024, so we wanted to make those materials accessible here so that people can use the materials we created to have their own smaller reading groups or their own events in their cities.
The Event:
In it for the Long Haul: Longevity, Trust, and Building Cultures of Struggle
It started before us and it will end after us. If we understand that struggles are not won In weeks, days months, or even years but fought over lifetimes and generations – How do we build cultures of struggle that can survive cycles of repression, activitst burnout,liberal recuperation, and interpersonal conflict? Where can we bridge the worlds of our political/activist scenes or sites of action to our daily lives, our neighborhoods, our day to day in a sustainable way? How do we do all this in the middle of a long-running and seemingly endless war? Come read reflections from movements past and present on bulding and sustaining militant cultures of refusal, resistance, and care past the highs and lows of the single issue struggles.
Come for an hour of quiet reading time focused on reflections on long term struggle and building trust and relationships. Reading time will be followed by facilitated discussions and opportunities to connect and build relationships through critical reflections on our own experiences and those we have read about in the readings.
We are providing a virtual options of the event for those who are washington state and cannot come in person due to access needs. Please email pipsqueak@riseup.net for that information and we’ll send you a link the day of the event.
Pipsqueak is on the first level of a building with no steps into the space or to the bathroom. There is one single stall, gender neutral, ADA-Compliant Bathroom.
The Zine:
Discussion Questions:
- What was a sentence, paragraph, or section that really stood out to you?
- What was a point that challenged what you previously thought?
- What made you feel confused or uncertain?
- What kind of care and emotional labor are necessary to sustain struggle in the long term?
- How can actions be oriented towards long term struggle?
- What was a word that stood out to you? Why did it seem important?
- How do we avoid burn-out without dropping out?
- What have you seen be effective in helping people build the types of relationships, depth and trust, that allow for long term struggle?
- How do shame, obligation, and duty show up in struggle? How do these affect us and our movements?
- How do we make actions regenerative and life affirming rather than draining and burnout inducing?
- What does it look like to be engaged in intergenerational struggle?
- What does it look like to build trust?
- How can we bridge the gap between our social scenes, direct actions, our daily lives and our neighborhoods in a sustainable way.
Facilitation Notes
These notes are roughly what our plan was for this event. As is always the case it wasn’t perfect. We wish we had given more time for small group discussion, as that is where the most interesting conversations seemed to happen! Use this plan or make your own!
0:00 – Quiet Reading Time
1:00 – 5 Minute Break
1:05 – Welcome and Framing of the Event
1:15 – Ask people to turn and introduce them selves to people around them and say what they read.
1:20 – Ask people to read one or two short sentences that they read that stuck with them without commenting on them. Just to get a sense of what people read, what ideas are feeling important, bring the text into the room.
1:30 – Break into small groups. Encourage people to talk to someone they don’t know. Encourage people to get up and move around. We put up paper on the wall with the discussion questions that people could write on if they wanted to also. Tell people when they’re half way through the small group discussion time so they can find a new group to talk to if they want to.
1:55 – 5 Minute break
2:00 – Large group discussion, asking people to report back on things that stuck out to them from their small conversations.
2:30 – Close and encourage people to keep talking to each other, hang out in the space, ask people what they thought etc. We handed out posters, staple guns, and tape for people to go staple up around the neighborhood with new friends.
Feel free to get in touch with us you want to host a similar event and have questions!