I don’t know if anyone else is interested in this, but I would be quite up for a conversation about making sure our forms of self-care are really enacting our wider anti-oppressive values. Making space for self-care in our groups is clearly incredibly important, and a way to challenge capitalist values of ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency.’ But my worry is that, especially in groups where most members have multiple forms of privilege, we can sometimes forget to also think about it in terms of shifting power and privilege. Taken to an extreme this could lead to groups who find it easier to access funding (due, perhaps, to various types of privilege) having more and more resources to look after themselves, but without really shifting various types of socio-economic inequities (either within their group or outside it). Does anyone else have a similar concern? And if so, do you have any thoughts about how to make sure this doesn’t happen?
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Yes Kiran - we have been really focusing on collective care as a way to try to shift this dynamic. We explore this a lot @ www.wearefeministleaders.com We acknowledge the importance of self care, but really it’s the collective care we need to bring to life in groups
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