Knowledges for Transformative System Changes: Where From and Where To?

Responding to the challenges of our times, organizations with social justice missions have increasingly targeted transformative system-level change in their strategies and in their stories and messaging. Some, like Oxfam, have been shifting the way they understand and describe their role in catalyzing social change as well: from one of a charity or an implementer of development projects, to one of an influencer, advocate, and narrative changer. Such organizations are also increasingly questioning and grappling with their own identities and organizational stories, with agendas of decolonization; feminist principles and practice; and racial, gender, and environmental justice. With these shifting ambitions for the impacts of its work, the roles it plays, and the identity it embodies, Oxfam has faced the necessity to understand and communicate different stories of transformative social change. Social justice organizations struggle with narratives around value-add and return on the resources they channel. They have also started to grapple with how to make sense of stories of change and how to tell these stories to others, while consciously decentering themselves and creating ways for stories to be told by those who live the changes. How is story-telling contributing to both social change and the transformation of organizations themselves? And what insights have we gleaned so far from this experience of transformation? This opening presentation will set the stage for these questions, and more, to be explored throughout the panel.