How can we tell adventure stories that weave webs of collective bravery and disrupt rugged individualism? In this interactive talk we will invoke tricksters like the Rebecca Riots and Esme Boggart, rebel printers, the Jane Collective, leaderless land resistance movements, and hedge schools, to look at how folklore in its truest sense as the knowledge and stories of the people, reveals our tools for liberation.
We will listen to the collaboration of animals and plants, and the hidden messages and memories in folktales. And we will tease apart how we can celebrate individual acts of bravery as part of a rich biodiverse ecosystem of rebellion, instead of unobtainable acts of individualism.
Julie and Becka will share how they hope their approach to collective zine making connects to these long threads of resistance and liberation!
This event is part of Book Week Scotland. There will be BSL interpretation and live captioning. You can add on a copy of Issue 4 of Folklore for Resistance with your order.
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Please note: we can only offer refunds within 72 hours of the event. This event will take place online.
About Folklore for Resistance:
Folklore for Resistance is a project focused on community, mutual aid, anti-racism, decolonization and anti-capitalism through the lens of folklore and ancestry.
We work with a collective of like-minded community members to release a twice-yearly zine aligning with the solstices. We believe that resistance can be joyful, and also that the work of resistance is liberatory; that is, we work with the mindset and hope that one day resistance won’t be needed! We believe that the sharing of folk knowledge in and of itself is liberatory from the oppression of capitalism (tell stories! darn your socks! art as resistance! learn to barter!). We believe in folklore as a living history within communities, including but not limited to, labour movements, LGBTQ2S movements, revolutions, and also what is often more traditionally understood as folklore, such as the mythology and spirituality of different people groups around the world. We believe in honouring and connecting with the land we live on; if that land is stolen then we acknowledge that and work towards reparations and reconciliation. We believe in monetary transparency and putting money back into communities who need it. Lastly, we acknowledge that we are not experts! We believe in folklore as a common inheritance; folklore for the people, by the people.
Becka is the co-creator of Folklore for Resistance. She believes that in folklore, folk wisdom, and ancestral connection we have the knowledge and tools we need to collectively imagine and build a world where we are all free from white supremacist capitalism and its many injustices. The land, the people, and animal kin. She spends most of her days on a farm in the city and in local schools, growing plants and tending soil with youth and other community members, as well as slowly learning Gaeilge, revering wetlands, and sometimes coming back on call as a birth worker. She is a settler on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples in what is colonially known as Vancouver. Fáilte, a chairde!
Julie is the co-creator of Folklore for Resistance. She believes in folklore as reclamation of community, interdependence, ancestral inheritance, and connection; all of which lead to deeper relationships with land and people, and a means of overcoming capitalism. She runs a radical bookshop, works part-time at a craft school, and likes to spend her free time working with wool and plants. She lives as an uninvited guest on Treaty 6 territory in amiskwacîwâskahikan or so-called Edmonton. Fàilte agus tapadh leat, a charaid!
Find out more about Folklore for Resistance.
Access information for this event:
This event is for ages 16+ and will be held online. You will need a good internet connection and a laptop/computer/mobile device to join us.
There will be 30 attendees maximum, and the event will feature comfort breaks. During this event, attendees will participate in: group discussions, talk/lecture, Q+A, listening.
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