Worldworkers and Worldwalkers
I’m currently participating in a process with Extinction Rebellion UK (XRUK) that is attempting to reach group agreement on a difficult and complex task: creating a proposal to revise XRUK’s Demands to embed a greater consideration of justice.* Similar processes have been tried several times before over the past couple of years, with little or no resultant changes to the demands (although the processes themselves were rich, providing learning to the movement, and some fruitful, unexpected outcomes). Other XR groups within the UK and internationally have attempted various similar processes, with a variety of outcomes — some adopting a fourth demand, others changing the existing demands, and others resulting in no agreement being reached.
I’m aware that this process is fraught with difficulties. One difficulty is the complex task of building enough legitimacy for such a change to be broadly accepted by rebels across the movement, as it can be argued that there’s no group that has the legitimacy to make such a change. Another difficulty is that some consider justice to be a distraction or side issue to addressing the climate and ecological emergency we’re in, whereas others consider it as foundational and of central importance, with strong opinions on either side. A third difficulty is the immense pressure to ‘get it right’, and a sense that the future of XR and it’s success as a movement depends on adopting revised demands. And that’s before we get into the complexities of compassion fatigue (aka burnout), organising amongst a low-trust environment, and a wide array of opinions and considerations that such a process entails.
We’re trying it again. There has already been several months of work where people have reflected on previous attempts to change the demands, and have now designed a process that will attempt to hold what we’re trying to do. I’m joining this process as one of the participants. At the same time, I’m bringing my skills and awareness as a Worldwork facilitator (aka Processworker), a psychotherapy and group facilitation modality I have studied and practiced since 2017. I hope to bring these skills and awareness in a way that will ease this process, making it easier as a group to navigate a way through.
So what can worldwork bring to such a process? To explain, here’s an analogy.
Imagine we’re a group setting off on a journey. We know we’re going to be navigating difficult and hazardous terrain. There are no maps. Several groups who have attempted this journey before have given up on the way and not made it through. It’s treacherous!
As a group, we’ll do our best to perceive the terrain as we make our way through. Yet the terrain is tricky, perhaps with hidden quicksand, unexpected bogs and marshes, difficult cliffs to climb, raging rivers, and other as-yet-unknown hazards.
For such a voyage it is valuable to have someone in the group who has spent time in similar terrain, someone who is able to know what the various features in landscapes say about the terrain. This awareness provides a better chance of knowing what this particular landscape might hold. Let’s call this person a worldwalker.
For example, by identifying we’re in a valley a worldwalker could deduce that there’s likely to be a stream around — which could then be useful to follow, either to get down to a river, or up to the headwaters. Indeed, this kind of deduction might be obvious to many in the group — it doesn’t always take a worldwalker. Yet sometimes more intimate knowledge of the land is required.
Let’s say the group has reached some crags that we’re attempting to climb, yet we’re getting exhausted, someone has a twisted ankle, the climb is hard, and spirits are low. It’s difficult and treacherous. The team starts to discuss, some wanting to give up, others wanting to go back and find another way, others wanting to press on. Tensions rise. Do we even have the right equipment? Do these cliffs go on forever? We’re in a place where we don’t know what to do.
A worldwalker familiar with the features of the land could use their familiarity with the land to know a little more about this particular cliff face. Perhaps this worldwalker can deduce from the kind of rocks that there will be handholds if we just go a bit to the left. Or perhaps from the geology of the cliffs, knowing the layers, shape and the age of the rocks, the worldwalker might know that there’s just a few metres left to climb before there’s a plateau where the group could rest. Bringing that awareness at the right moment could be the difference between a group being defeated by the cliff face, or finding a way to scale the cliffs and wow! We made it! That climb became possible!
So it’s about knowing the signs and features present in the terrain, and by having the familiarity and awareness of how such terrain is formed, a worldwalker could facilitate a way for the whole group to navigate its way through. It’s about knowing the language of the land itself.
In this analogy the treacherous terrain features are similar to the difficulties that are present in complex group processes, such as emotions, tensions and conflicts. A worldwork facilitator’s training involves becoming familiar with features like emotions, tensions and conflict dynamics, allowing them to use this awareness to point out the handholds and the stepping stones that will allow the group to successfully navigate the terrain. The features a worldworker might pay attention to also includes rank dynamics, personal and collective trauma, dreams, body symptoms and feelings, belief systems that shape our identities and realities, pressures (and the pressure-makers), and other roles that we may encounter along the way, such as allies, guides (including those that are misled), internal and external critics, and so on.
A worldworker’s place isn’t to tell the group where to go or what to do, but about providing a little more awareness of the systemic dynamics that are present (i.e. what the features tell us about the terrain), so that the group as a whole can find its way and make it through.
The outcome is unknown. We don’t know what will be beyond the terrain that we’re travelling through. Each person may hope for particular outcomes, yet these hopes might not be where this terrain leads. It’s important to hold the awareness that where we get to might not be where anyone was expecting.
* You can read the XRUK demand evolution process.
