Justice + Ontoshift - Introduction to Systems Change

Summary

A short, clear introduction to Culture Hack Labs’ approach to “narrative-led systems change”, which pairs two kinds of work. Justice means addressing structural inequities: “challenging systems of oppression, redistributing power, and repairing harm”. “But on its own, Justice isn’t enough.” Moving beyond the systems creating the metacrisis also takes “a concurrent shift in ontologies”, “a deep change in the very ways we view, understand, sense, relate and engage with the world.” They quote Bayo Akomolafe: “Demands for social justice may get us a seat at the table, but they will never let us leave the house of modernity.” Their example, from the Territories of Transition intervention with BIPOC and Indigenous activists, is ‘land back to right relations’: ‘land back’ demands reparations and the return of land, while ‘right relations’ draws on the “all my relations” philosophy of many Indigenous cultures. As the video puts it, “this narrative doesn’t just challenge who owns the land. It challenges how we relate to it.”

Rationale

Culture Hack Labs were one of the practice precedents in our research, and this is what working on structures and deep dispositions together looks like in practice. ‘Right relations’ sits close to the interbeing we point towards.