• Date: March 24th
• Time: 1pm GMT
• Format: Online event
• This event had interpretation in English and Spanish

We are pleased to invite you to the online launch of The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives (www.dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org) — a living, collaborative platform created to expand the vocabularies we use to name, defend, and practice other ways of being in the midst of a civilizational crisis. Beyond ecological and economic breakdown, this is also a crisis of meaning and imagination: the persistent claim that there is “no alternative.” The Dictionary responds by gathering concepts rooted in struggles, territories, and everyday practices of care, autonomy, and re-existence—across languages, geographies, and worldviews—so that alternatives can be shared, compared, and put into dialogue.

In this session, members of the GTAGlobal Tapestry of Alternatives Dictionary Working Group will introduce the platform’s conceptual orientation and why a dictionary can be a political intervention: reclaiming words, recovering suppressed knowledges, and opening a pluriversal space where multiple definitions can coexist, resonate, and challenge the monologue of development. Through short videos with authors, illustrators and members of the GTA's WeaversThey are local, regional, or national networks or organizations that connects or consists of multiple Alternatives on different themes/spheres, in an inter-sectorial way. A global network cannot be a Waever, neither a thematic one. It should be a collective process of some kind, rather than only a single individual or single organization. By being a "weaver", they are committed to participate in the GTA, developing ways of dialogue, interconnection, collaboration and solidarity with other Weavers. GTA promotes the interconnection of the Weavers, identifying [[:weavers:criteria|a series common criteria for the weaving of Alternatives]]. Examples: Vikalp Sangam and Crianza Mutua., we will showcase how concepts travel, how they are grounded in place-based histories, and how visual storytelling can help make them accessible beyond academic and activist circles. The event will also include a commentary intervention, followed by a practical walk-through of how to navigate the site and how to contribute—whether by proposing concepts, writing definitions, creating illustrations, or supporting translations. We will close with an open Q&A to discuss the platform’s next steps and invite participation in building this shared, open-ended resource.

• This video has English audio channel: to enable it, press the to “three dots button” in the right side of the video bottom bar and pick the channel in the option “Audio channels”¹⁾
• The recording is also archived here.

• Welcome and introduction - Lizah Makombore (5 min)
• Why a Dictionary of Radical AlternativesAre activities and initiatives, concepts, worldviews, or action proposals by collectives, groups, organizations, communities, or social movements challenging and replacing the dominant system that perpetuates inequality, exploitation, and unsustainabiity. In the GTA we focus primarily on what we call "radical or transformative alternatives", which we define as initiatives that are attempting to break with the dominant system and take paths towards direct and radical forms of political and economic democracy, localised self-reliance, social justice and equity, cultural and knowledge diversity, and ecological resilience. Their locus is neither the State nor the capitalist economy. They are advancing in the process of dismantling most forms of hierarchies, assuming the principles of sufficiency, autonomy, non-violence, justice and equality, solidarity, and the caring of life and the Earth. They do this in an integral way, not limited to a single aspect of life. Although such initiatives may have some kind of link with capitalist markets and the State, they prioritize their autonomy to avoid significant dependency on them and tend to reduce, as much as possible, any relationship with them.? - Carlos Tornel (10 min)
• Intervention by Ashish Kothari (15 min)
• Dictionary Authors: Liepollo Pheko, Sutej Hugu and Alberto Acosta (20 min)
• Dictionary Illustrators Deepika Nandan and Omar Valencia (10 min)
• Q&A - Vera Kozak (20 min)
• Closing and next steps - Franco Augusto (10 min)

(TOTAL TIME: 90 min)

• Global TapestryThe weaving of networks of Alternatives of Alternatives Dictionary Working Group
• With the support of One Project

Credits

• Banner illustration: Deepika Nandan