Linking Alternatives: People-to-People Exchange/Weaving between Alternative Development Practitioners from Southeast Asia and India- 11 January 2023

The 2nd People-to-People Exchange, in a hybrid format, was organized on 11 January 2023. This activity was organized by the Movement for Alternatives and Solidarity in Southeast Asia (MASSAMovement for Alternatives and Solidarity in Southeast Asia (South East Asia)) and Vikalp Sangam (VSVikalp Sangam (India)) in partnership with the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTAGlobal Tapestry of Alternatives) and 11.11.11 Coalition of the Flemish North South Movement. The objective was to expand the networks of alternatives that can lead to future solidarity building and cross-regional collaboration. The activity was facilitated by the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies Program on Alternatives.

Plenary Session of the P2P Exchange

This P2P established the connection between MASSA and VS of India. Also called a “weaving” between alternative practitioners, the P2P Exchange served as a learning platform where participants exchanged their stories, campaigns, and sustainable practices. This form of a dialogue and exchange intently exposes alternative practitioners with those outside their region to learn about common themes of struggle. The Southeast Asian participants of the program are member organizations of the Movement for Alternatives and Solidarity in Southeast Asia (MASSA), a convergence of peoples and grassroots organizations working together to forge an alternative regional model of integration from below that challenges the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) paradigm. MASSA organizations are also active research partners of the UP CIDS AltDev. Participants from India form the core group of Vikalp Sangam, an India-based network committed to linking a multitude of grassroots and policy initiatives on community mobilization, knowledge, and collective rights. For this P2P Exchange 2023, physical hubs were organized to especially provide an opportunity for grassroots organizations to actively participate online. Hubs of diverse grassroots movements were set-up in Indonesia, Philippines, and Timor Leste.

Face-to-face Hub Participants from the Konfederasi Pergerakan Rakyat Indonesia

MASSA member organizations that joined the P2P Exchange were the following:
● Uniaun Agrikultores de Ermera (Timor Leste)
● Bobonaro Peasant Union (Timor Leste)
● Manufahi Peasant Union (Timor Leste)
● Forum Organizasaun Naun Govermentál Timor Leste (Timor Leste)
● Serikat Petani Pasundan (Indonesia)
● Konfederasi Pergerakan Rakyat Indonesia (Indonesia)
● HomeNet Philippines (Philippines)
● ASEAN SOGIE Caucus (Philippines)
● Gender and Development for Cambodia (Cambodia)
● Asian Music for Peoples’ Peace and Progress (Regional)
● Asian Solidarity Economy Council (Regional)

Vikalp Sangam core group members that joined the event were the following:
● People’s Resource Centre
● Nirangal
● Jan Sarokar / People’s Agenda
● Inner Climate Academy
● Kalpavriksh

Other participants as observers were:
● Global Tapestry of Alternatives
● Migrant Forum Asia (Regional)
● 11.11.11
● Komite Esperanza (Timor Leste)
● AIDS Health Care Foundation (Regional)

The P2P Exchange began with introductory remarks by UP CIDS AltDev Project Leader Jose Monfred Sy. This was followed by a brief sharing of Agustiana, the secretary-general of Serikat Petani Pasundan (SPP). He shortly discussed the history of SPP, and its links and learnings about their solidarity with peasant movements in the Philippines. He underscored the importance of the first P2P Exchange in 2019 that was co-hosted by SPP in West Java, Indonesia, and the continuity and expansion of this effort. Year 2023 highlights the expansion of the exchanges, with the participation of friends and networks from India. Shrishtee Bajpai briefly explained their “weaving” process in India called “Vikalp Sangam” in Hindi or “alternatives confluence”. She proceeded to talk about the different activities of Vikalp Sangam. Participants of the P2P Exchange noted that much of their work is closely related to one another.

To facilitate the P2P Exchange, representatives of participating organizations were divided into five clusters. Each one was moderated by a researcher from the UP CIDS AltDev. Three questions were asked per breakout session:
1. What is the name of your organization? (Composition and Mission-Vision)
2. What are the main struggles and campaigns of your organization?(Programs and Activities)
3. What are your strategies or practices to achieve your campaigns? What are the challenges you encountered? (Challenges and Strategies)

The conversations surfaced the similarities on alternative practices among participating organizations. Other formations have already begun to take note of activities where they can converge. Questions about sustainable organizing practices of communities and launching campaigns were also asked among the groups.

Participants from HomeNet Philippines and ASEAN SOGIE Caucus in their Physical Hub in Quezon City, Philippines

After the 90-minute exchange, the rapporteur of each breakout session shared their learnings with the plenary. Some of the highlights of these conversations include the shared belief that each respective country can be changed, shaped, and led by grassroots organizations; solidarity economy is practiced across the Southeast Asian and South Asian regions; the importance of environmental conversation and the role of women in strengthening ecological movements and societies stand out; and that the pandemic and consequent restrictions in movement made organizing and mobilizing communities more difficult.
Besides these learnings, organizations also pledged to continue these interactions, concluding that the P2P Exchange is indeed the first of many other spaces and opportunities that MASSA and Vikalp Sangam can create to facilitate knowledge and capacity exchange. In particular, VS is looking forward to another session that will be organized thematically to strengthen the exchange between these alternative practitioners.

The activity was summed up and closed by Ed Tadem of UP CIDS AltDev and Ashish Kothari of Vikalp Sangam.

Grounded imaginaries
The impact of climate change on our collective future goes beyond material dimensions of life (such as water, food, energy, health, and more) to subjective dimensions of life as well (such as human perceptions and imaginations of the future). These dimensions shape each other, as they shape human action. In the words of Amitav Ghosh, the climate emergency poses a crisis of imagination, which in turn poses a crisis for action.

This is a project about stories and action. Through this project, we propose that an imagination already exists, in the stories of numerous communities around the world already responding to climate-changing conditions, crafting and forging different futures. These examples range from sustainable local food, regenerative farming, community energy, and transition movements to communities planning for climate adaptation.

This project, titled “Grounded Imaginaries” aims to document and communicate existing stories of community resilience and adaptation to climate change across 3 regions: the Western Himalayan region, South India and Australia. The project is being carried out in collaboration with 3 partners.

Short Films.

• A short film produced by Kalpavriksh for Vikalp Sangam is based on the work of young naturalists in Chennai, India who are raising nature awareness amongst the city citizens and building climate resilience in vulnerable coastal communities through various pedagogical mediums.
  Have a look at it in the link below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi-RpK1OGX4
• Nature's Apprentice: A Gudalur Story This film talks about the depth of knowledge held by the forest dwellers, and innovations and initiatives by Adivasi Munnetra Sangam, Just Change, and ACCORD, are helping the Adivasis of Gudalur create sustainable, dignified livelihoods and gain collective control over their commons, in the face of the modern economy.
  Have a look at it in the link below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq6NUQDTzL8
• The people of Ladakh, India’s northernmost territory, have been searching for sustainable alternatives to promote and maintain their unique heritage and livelihoods, well-suited to the region’s cold desert and mountainous ecosystems. Community participation has been key in their attempts to conserve their traditional cultural, food, and hospitality practices, in the face of mass tourism and ‘development’. Check out the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NKPS-xVSQk

During the last months Crianzas Mutuas Colombia has engaged in several activities at the national level. On February 25th of this year, in Cali, The Tejido de Transicionantes por el valle del Cauca held an encounter with three different regional processes to initiate a larger project on the design of regional transitions in contexts of social and climate emergency. This was the opportunity to know each other and to share our perspectives regarding the causes of socio-ecological crisis, as well as the paths that we have built to solve and transform the structures of injustice. The main objective of this project is to co-design mechanisms to foster a pluriversal peace rooted in the territories and the critical traditions or black, indigenous and peasant peoples.

Also, every Saturday we virtually gathered around the Dialogues between the Frog and the Icotea (diálogos de la rana y la icotea). Some of the subjects of these dialogues were: Women’s songs, memory and territory narrated by Martha Elena Hoyos; Participatory action-Research and peasant history of the Senú held by Joanne Rappaport; Literary production based on oral tradition of Maya people held by Jorge Coccom Perch; Art as territory of re-existence held by Adolfo Albán Achinte; and Qwastu. The language of the Pastos. Stories of the process of recovery held by Miguel Quilismal; among others. This is a place of co-learning, of active listening and to refresh our memory.

Each Wednesday of this year we have held the “Conversas Unitierra Manizales y Suroccidente Colombiano” (in English: Unitierra-Manizalez and Southwestern Dialogues) in the Pabellón de las Ramas of the main market of Manizales. There, we have talked about radical alternatives to development, capitalism and patriarchy. Some of the topics include: Women Healers and Women of Wisdom, Urban Vegetable Gardens, Popular Education, Open Cabildo , Protected Area Systems, Urban Renewal, Memories of the River, and others).

The talks are available at https://web.facebook.com/UnitierraTejidoDeColectivos

The following texts reflect the journey of some groups and collectives that have participated in Crianza Mutua Mexico who share some assumptions about the current situation and a radical critique of patriarchy, capitalism, racism, colonialism, the nation-state domination, and anthropocentrism that destroy the weave of life. These assumptions and critiques nourished the creation of the GTA and determined the shape of the criteria to identify and weave “alternatives”.

Voice of SINE COMUNAR
(https://web.comunarr.org/)
State: Chihuahua (Northern Mexico)

From the beginning, and this is something we are still learning, we are going to talk a lot about a mixture between doing and wanting to do because many of the things are achieved as you go along, you learn as you go along. But the project arises here in Tarahumara as a response to a historical process, that is, Tarahumara is a place where for the last 400 years or so different actors have arrived, all with the objective of colonizing, dispossessing, but also with noble ideas of helping. But I believe that in history little has been done, little dialogue has taken place, and little reflection has been done on the historical proposals of the indigenous peoples that inhabit this region, at least four of them: the Rarámuri, the Odame, the Pima or Oba people and the Huarijo.

So there are many efforts, many resources, many people have wanted to come to evangelize, to heal, to educate, to civilize the communities and the collective arises a little from an interpellation of this and to say wait for it. I believe that historically we have believed that there are problems, we are seeing that there are solutions and the other way around as well. Where historically it has been seen or sold that there are solutions, we see that where the problems that now have us in very serious situations are original. Therefore, the collective has a fundamental purpose not only not to change, but also to fertilize the deep projects of the communities and the peoples and to put them in the regional and Chihuahua community scenario as very healthy, very pertinent proposals. That is to say, the indigenous people today should not be considered as a problem, but as a solution to the main situations they face, not only they but society in general.

From the first papers we wrote, there was a very clear option to understand that we could not do it alone. That is, we never imagined how it would end, but from the beginning, it was explicitly stated that we could not do it alone. So we had to meet with other people, on the one hand, and the other hand, I think it has a lot to do with a radical rupture. It is not a question, as the saying goes, of changing everything so that everything remains the same, but really a rupture that existentially moves us and helps us to rethink ways of understanding ourselves, of understanding ourselves, of experiencing ourselves, but also concrete ways of doing things. And that could be heard very deeply, but if it does not change in our daily actions, it makes no sense. For me it has been very nice, for example, to see how especially the men of the team, but in general, how reflecting on the violence we experience in terms of gender, to see how from the way we express ourselves to the ability to identify very normalized ways of being violent, how little by little the team is becoming another, how people are becoming other people. These are very inspiring things that allow you to say: yes, yes we can. And I believe that we have some great teachers because of the dynamics of the Tarahumara communities, I believe that the Tarahumara and the Rarámuri people are one of the peoples that have managed to remain with ancestral dynamics. So, this is a great potential for us, that is to say, we have very radical teachers, very close to us. So, the simple observation is already a lesson that it is possible, that we can live differently, longing for other things, but also weaving other things into our daily lives.

Voice of Lasayu Ancestral Tradition
(https://www.facebook.com/lasayutradicional)
State: Oaxaca (South of Mexico)

The following texts reflect the journey of some groups and collectives that have participated in Crianza Mutua Mexico who share some assumptions about the current situation and a radical critique of patriarchy, capitalism, racism, colonialism, the nation-state domination and anthropocentrism that destroy the weave of life. These assumptions and critiques nourished the creation of the GTA and determined the shape of the criteria to identify and weave “alternatives”.

Voice of SINE COMUNAR (https://web.comunarr.org/) State: Chihuahua (Northern Mexico)

From the beginning, and this is something we are still learning, we will talk a lot about a mixture of doing and wanting to do because many of the things are achieved as you go along, you learn as you go along. But the project arises here in Tarahumara as a response to a historical process, that is, Tarahumara is a place where for the last 400 years or so different actors have arrived, all with the objective of colonizing, dispossessing, but also with noble ideas of helping. But I believe that in history little has been done, little dialogue has taken place, and little reflection has been done on the historical proposals of the indigenous peoples that inhabit this region, at least four of them: the Rarámuri, the Odame, the Pima or Oba people and the Huarijo.

So there are many efforts, many resources, many people have wanted to come to evangelize, to heal, to educate, to civilize the communities and the collective arises a little from an interpellation of this and to say wait for it. I believe that historically we have believed that there are problems, we are seeing that there are solutions and the other way around as well. Where historically it has been seen or sold that there are solutions, we see that where the problems that now have us in very serious situations are original. Therefore, the collective has a fundamental purpose not only not to change, but also to fertilize the deep projects of the communities and of the peoples and to put them in the regional and Chihuahua community scenario as very healthy, very pertinent proposals. That is to say, the indigenous people today should not be considered as a problem, but as a solution to the main situations they face, not only they but society in general.

From the first papers we wrote, there was a very clear option to understand that we could not do it alone. That is, we never imagined how it would end, but from the beginning, it was explicitly stated that we could not do it alone. So we had to meet with other people, on the one hand, and the other hand, I think it has a lot to do with a radical rupture. It is not a question, as the saying goes, of changing everything so that everything remains the same, but a rupture that existentially moves us and helps us to rethink ways of understanding ourselves, of understanding ourselves, of experiencing ourselves, but also concrete ways of doing things. And that could be heard very deeply, but if it does not change in our daily actions, it makes no sense. For me it has been very nice, for example, to see how especially the men of the team, but in general, how reflecting on the violence we experience in terms of gender, to see how from the way we express ourselves to the ability to identify very normalized ways of being violent, how little by little the team is becoming another, how people are becoming other people. These are very inspiring things that allow you to say: yes, yes we can. And I believe that we have some great teachers because of the dynamics of the Tarahumara communities, I believe that the Tarahumara and the Rarámuri people are one of the peoples that have managed to remain with ancestral dynamics. So, this is a great potential for us, that is to say, we have very radical teachers, very close to us. So, the simple observation is already a lesson that it is possible, that we can live differently, longing for other things, but also weaving other things into our daily lives.

Voice of Lasayu Ancestral Tradition (https://www.facebook.com/lasayutradicional)
State: Oaxaca (South of Mexico)

We are working on the rescue of traditional medicine, we are implementing several projects together with the compañeras to improve all the healing techniques and improve some of the products that we offer for healing. We as women carry this knowledge from our ancestors and grandmothers, and this is what we are currently working on. We are working in Capulálpam de Méndez, as you know it is about an hour and a half, two hours from the city of Oaxaca, in the northern highlands. Right now it is a very pleasant climate, rainy, sometimes hot, now those who have the opportunity to visit it has in fact a very nice color, all green. And many streams on this side.

We worked with the community in these aspects, it was one of the techniques that we analyzed to be able to attract people and we gained the trust of the people. All over Oaxaca the tequio is done and we do our tequio in the community. Once a month we give free service to the community, in terms of massage and cleaning. And we dedicate one day of the service to tourism and we receive all the people who arrive at the right time. We said that those who need to come and are looking for healing are arriving. And we have had a very good response, because based on this the people of the community give us good service, they took away this pain, they did a cleansing and we liked it. They have given us a good reference of what our work is and in this way it has also helped us to make ourselves known. This is an activity that we carry out and at the time it also gives us great satisfaction to do it because people also do it as barter, as we say, because since we do not receive any economic income, people bring us fruit, bread, something to eat. And we were very happy and it gave us satisfaction.

Milpa Conscious Consumption Cooperative (https://cooperativamilpa.org/) State: Jalisco (Western Mexico)

The only thing that the pandemic complicated for us was getting together to live together. Organizationally, it made us work harder, and propose more concrete things and many more people became interested in this type of food. I don't think the pandemic has been our biggest complication. There are two: a very operational one, which is the location. In seven years we have been in about eight places and we don't have our own space. Right now we are in a very nice place, in a space cohabited with another cooperative. Maybe you know it, it is called Comali, which is a cooperative restaurant. So the space we have right now is great, I think it is the best we have had, besides the fact that it is comfortable, it allows us to cooperate richly.

The main obstacle apart from this, which is very operative, I think has been to think, feel and decide collectively, being urbanites. I think it gets too complicated, the first meetings of the Council of Commissions, which are tiring now, Lluvia, who is in charge now, lasted two, three hours and we left fighting. There were meetings in which some of the members, of them would leave, if they went and we never saw them again in the cooperative, angry, we argued a lot. As I said, it was challenging for us to think and feel collectively.

However, I believe that one element or the element that has allowed the cooperative to continue to exist from that tropitalization of our organization, or that planning as we went along, has been friendship. I think that the previous friendship of those of us who formed the cooperative at the beginning, but the most interesting thing is the friendships that have been woven, that have been built through the project, especially before Covid. Now we are there again and anxious, some of us have stayed for lunch or have gone out for some contraband beers or things like that because before we didn't even take off our masks. But I think that friendship has been the element that has allowed us to resist the attacks of not knowing how to organize ourselves or not having the perfect planning as perhaps those big stores that have everything well systematized do. I believe that this is what has made the cooperative rich and something that we miss, yes, starting with Covid, to be able to nurture these friendships more. I dare say that the friends I am closest to right now in sentipensar are the friends I work with in the cooperative, curiously enough.