In order to fail forward, we have to make sure that we don’t repeat the exact same errors and that we learn from past experience.

We think of “ecology of social movements” not only as the adequate form of organizational model for our current task. It is also a theory of organization, in the sense that we can retrospectively interpret past movements with this ecological lens even though they themselves might not have explicitly presented themselves in these terms. Being careful with such over-readings, we can still discover new information (or perhaps, information implicit in the historical experience that becomes visible to us through specific tools).

Movement Learning Catalyst, a joint project of European Alternatives, European Community Organising Network, Ulex Project and activist researchers at the National University of Ireland Maynooth, produced a Guide to Learning Systemic Change. In this Guide, we want to highlight the following learning activity titled “Historical Alliances and Ruptures”.

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This 90-minutes exercise focuses on identifying and analyzing historical movement alliances/coalitions/networks to find out how they worked in their context, what made them possible, what types and levels of diversities were part of the alliance, what were the limitations, what were the benefits in influencing power relations? This will be done through an analysis of real examples.