That Deep Sense of Freedom

Transforming Community Organizing through Liberatory Feminist Practices of Leadership, Power and Time

Abstract

This paper advocates for incorporating liberatory feminist approaches to community organizing practices in order to create healthy, just, and inclusive spaces for community members and leaders to challenge oppressive power dynamics and foster transformative, sustainable change. During the last five years, many organizing networks in the United States have just passed their 50 year mark while weathering social upheavals from a pandemic, ongoing race and gender oppression, and a rise of authoritarian populism and this has prompted some soul searching. Recently, there have been some helpful, challenging, and overdue deliberations on organizing practices at both the individual and organizational levels. These are inspiring efforts of what we see as a broader movement to bring the practice of community organizing more in line with its values. This paper continues the discussion, with a particular focus on both liberatory feminist approaches and structural-level transformations in the field of community organizing. We critique and reimagine the field of community organizing, particularly in the dimensions of leadership, power, and time. After considering these dimensions, we present recommendations on the level of narratives, organizational cultural norms, and resources.