A committee meeting in Qamishlo, Rojava
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Fearless cities and neighbourhoods for a living planet: from Sheffield to Rojava

This is Part 3 of Research for Action’s blog and podcast series based on Fearless Cities, a summit we co-organised in November 2024. Held in Sheffield and attended by over 400 people, Fearless Cities 2024 explored how local movements are building power in their communities and generating long-term, systemic change towards directly democratic local institutions. This is known as municipalism.    By Steve Rushton     Note: The Rojava Revolution (featured below) is a women-led multi-ethnic society of millions of people in North and East Syria. At the time of writing it is being invaded and destroyed by the Syrian... [continues]
Fearless Cities: Building our power as a multitude
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Fearless Cities: Building our power as a multitude

This is Part 2 of Research for Action’s blog and podcast series based on Fearless Cities, a summit we co-organised in November 2024. The three blogs explore challenging racism, confronting ecological collapse and - in the blog below - sharing power and resources. By Steve Rushton Economic inequality is rampant worldwide, fuelled by decades of neoliberalism that have further elevated the ultra-rich elites to capture mainstream politics and hoard power. This system glorifies individualism and breeds greed. In Britain, it props up class power with its roots in medieval feudalism and its fingerprints all over colonialism. Fearless Cities in Sheffield... [continues]
Photograph of various posters by A Commune in the North, saying things like 'health is wealth', and 'liberation,ecology,anarchism'
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Co-operation at the cutting edge – two perspectives

Cooperation seems to be an idea whose time has come for grassroots movements in the UK. Drawing on the Fearless Cities summit session: ‘Building autonomy through a cooperative economy’, we share two interviews with people doing cooperation beyond the traditional worker/housing cooperative form. Cooperation Town and Co-operation Manchester. What does cooperation mean to people right now? What are the relationships between the theory and practice of cooperatives and other tools for organising, like citizens' assemblies and mutual aid groups?   First, we invite you to listen to an interview with Shiri Shalmy, who helped set up Cooperation Town, a movement... [continues]