communities of practice

In this place of transition - a place that feels disorienting, confusing, messy - we need to be learning from each other, plural in the possibilities we generate, and willing to let go of those mental frameworks that are no longer serving us well.

To take on challenges which rely on collective and collaborative efforts, we need to better understand how to cultivate connection, trust and shared identity. It means we need to understand how relational infrastructure is built, shaped and maintained, whilst acknowledging that it can also be degraded and destroyed.

If we want a better democracy, we need the same for community entrepreneurs. For too long now, these people have done this work without being paid, recognized, or even acknowledged. On Facebook, they are called group admins; on Reddit, they are moderators. But they aren’t just admins or moderators. They are leaders. They are entrepreneurs - forging

Relational power is the power to receive and absorb influences from others in a generous way, and then to respond with creative generosity, guided by the hope of mutual well-being.

In practice, it is not possible for the technical layer to be resilient while the social layer is not, as the social and technical dynamics of infrastructure are co-constitutive.

The process identified the following areas of need: * Building new infrastructure of belonging through community engagement * Developing infrastructure for social repair through lifelong learning * Creating new systems of care and sharing the skills for making meaning

Critical connections between future-builders matter more than critical mass in long-term transformative work: without these, nothing new can emerge. Networks are the lifeblood of emergence, and yet so much of the way life is organised gets in the way of pioneers connecting

This infrastructure will be more than a set of foundations or a scaffold. It will look, in fact, more like a playground: which exists, not subordinate to or below some other, more important work, but as a structure in its own right, one which supports, co-creates, and constantly re-produces play, creativity, imagination. Not something which can be