“We are all wounded, but we can connect through the wound that alienated us from others. When the wound forms a cicatriz, the scar can become a bridge linking people who have been split apart” (Anzaldúa 2009, 313)
We work to bridge divides and heal wounds. We work to build connections and share resources across generational, spatial, racial, and income divisions in our society.We see colonial and apartheid legacies and neoliberal capitalism as (seemingly insurmountable) structural forces that seek to diminish our power by separating us from each other and alienating us from ourselves. Bifurcation and binary thinking (right/wrong; us/them; male/female; black/white) are tools of coloniality that work to entrench divisions in our society.
Our work then is to bridge these divides, break the formal and informal barriers stopping us from connecting, and heal the wounds within ourselves and our society. To do this, we adopt an intersectional understanding, fostering connection, care, love and Ubuntu-ism.
Bridging Divides /
Healing wounds
In practice this means:
Connecting youth with elder and other generations to preserve threatened wisdom, lived experience and transfer skills and knowledge across and beyond generational divides
Creating links between rural and urban spaces, value chains, resources, lives, livelihoods and opportunities
Promoting mutual aid, pooled resources, commons and commoning
Healing collective and intergenerational trauma
Understanding histories and futures
Critical engagement with the politics of space, identity, and care