Agency, which can be thought of as conscious actions, intervenes in systems by disrupting or transforming patterns and relationships.
Agency, which can be thought of as conscious actions, intervenes in systems by disrupting or transforming patterns and relationships.
Saved by Margarida Santos and
Efforts to end slavery, promote women’s rights and civil rights, establish labor rights, support marriage equality, and protect animal rights are not necessarily the result of paradigm shifts, but rather the outcomes of people thinking, being, and acting differently.
As Thomas Kuhn notes, paradigm shifts occur when enough people start to live their lives on the basis of that new paradigm, without waiting for the rest of society to make the shift.35 In
One of our key roles, as social movements, must be to harness the shocks and direct the slides—all towards achieving the systemic, cultural and psychic shifts we need to navigate the changes with the greatest equity, resilience and ecological restoration possible.