Sessions #2

Narratives are important to energise and mobilise people to believe in a political transformation. The way we tell and co-create stories can overcome dominant forces and include people often excluded from today’s politics. Stories offer the means to think about who we are and what kind of a future we want, be it enabling the ecological transition or challenging the inevitability of inequality. This is why the European Municipalist Network’s second skillshare focused on Political Education and Mobilization: the Power of Storytelling.

Storytelling was one of the themes that emerged when we – municipalist activists, practitioners and thinkers from across Europe who form the EMN – came together in Berlin in October 2022. Commons Network, the EMN caretaker organisation who facilitated a workshop on skill sharing in Berlin, then went on to develop four themes into in-depth sessions. These were held in March and April 2023. The other topics were: building a democratic local economy; centralising care within the feministisation of politics; and creatively using the law, especially around rights and access to housing and buildings. [Link to the other 3 blogs here]

The storytelling skillshare session was organised by the movements Verdedig Noord Amsterdam, creatives and community organisers from northern areas of the Dutch capital and  Zagreb je NAŠ!, who run the Croatian capital as part of a wider progressive coalition. They told how they had engaged their communities, including mobilising young people and engaging disenfranchised groups towards radical systems change.