Journal.
In 2022, we decided to create our own journal as an accessible platform for community practitioners. Many of the articles, think pieces and musings are reflective pieces from the work we have done in the past.
This journal is called bolshie—a word deriving from ‘Bolshevik’, and used as British slang for people who are politically left, socialist, communist, or union. Most commonly though, people use ‘bolshie’ to describe a person who is defiant, rebellious and uncooperative.
There is a need for rebellious and defiant people in our systems, organisations, work places, communities and friend groups. We need people who are unafraid to speak up when an injustice is happening and don’t necessarily take “no” for an answer.
For some of us, all of our work is devoted to trying to put to rights something that is systemically wrong and unjust, and requires us to be bolshie in various ways. Sometimes there is a lot of complexity—systems can’t be changed overnight, at least not without causing harm. We might have to speak up and say “this is awful” even when we ourselves can’t see a solution. We have to live daily with the discomfort of all the things that are out of our control or sphere of influence—and that can make us feel damn bolshie.
We thought it was time for us to OWN IT! Time to bring this out into the open and celebrate the bolshie community workers of Aotearoa: the people who are persistent reminders of fairness and justice, and who don’t turn a blind eye to things that are wrong or could be better.
This journal is called ‘sass –’ a word often used negatively, in gendered and racialised ways – to describe someone who speaks their mind. We are using this word to describe the kind of conversations we want to have in this journal: to be bold, to talk back to systems of power, to have impertinence in the face of injustices, to have courageous conversations about things that matter, and to have fun – building joy into the work.
We decided to create our own journal as an accessible platform for community practitioners. Many of the articles, think pieces and musings in this journal are reflective pieces from the work we have done this year in the ecosystem (feel free to skip to the ‘Glossary of Buzzwords’ at the end for a definition), and the relationships and collaborations we have had with others who work in this system.
