Description

The May 13 Group Project is an emerging ecosystem—a solidarity economy—oriented toward and energized by epistemic healing and wholeness in, through, and around evaluation.

The May 13 Group Project recognizes groups that the nonprofit/nongovernmental industrial complex exploits, peripheralizes, and infantilizes as protagonists, with ideas of our own, rather than perpetual protégés.

Specific planned activities include:

Consciousness-raising: A monthly (with seasonal reflective retreats and breaks) podcast as a vehicle for engaging in dialogue with each other and with our listeners about concepts necessary for building a solidarity economy.

Counter-storytelling: Documenting project participants’ personal/professional/political experiences and that of others who have challenged the norms and assumptions embedded within positivism and (neo)liberalism, who have been erased from evaluation’s canon and who continue to have a harder time publishing our ideas and having them included in syllabi, etc.

Livelihoods: Begin building the material foundation (legal entities, organizational policies, procedures, etc.) for structuring a solidarity economy by engaging in (more) self-study re: cooperative development, including unpacking some of the research and coursework already done, and consulting with an attorney already identified who has helped other solidarity economies develop.

Mission

We are building power together and actively shaping our world through structurally-focused collective action, including direct action organizing, cooperative economics, and mutual aid.