What is at the root?

At the root, everything is connected. Humans to the plants to the animals to the earth. Humans to each other. But this connection has been distorted. Instead many of us experience disconnection from the earth and from each other - separated by systems of racism, class, hetero-patriarchy, ableism, capitalism. Some call this Empire, others modernity, others racial capitalism, others the end times. 

To understand how we got here, it is important to understand the histories that have shaped the present. In Britain, we are not often taught all of our histories. Many parts are left out.  We are kept ignorant.

If we are to create change, to make a better world - one where all life can thrive - we have to know the threads that have created the tapestry of our times. Threads of joy, of resistance, of struggle and love. And the threads of oppression and pursuit of profit and domination at great cost.  And the threads of the everyday, the mundane, the reproduction of life. 

By weaving together these threads, these long histories of how we got here, we can grapple with what needs to be repaired, what requires transformation, and find inspiration from the struggles of those who have gone before us. 

at the root is a platform that explores these histories - particularly as they relate and connect to land justice struggles in England. It is a resource for the land justice movement today. Offerings include writing and reflection, online workshops, in person gatherings and possibly long-form courses into the future.

My name is Katherine and I am a researcher working at the intersections of land, racial justice and emotions in England. I have created this platform - at the root - to share what is emerging from this research project I have been doing for the last five years as part of my PhD. 

Having worked as a facilitator with social movement groups across Britain for over a decade, particularly on the topics of racial justice and anti-racism, I saw the power of delving into and uncovering histories and how they shape the present.

When doing this work, I would see groups open to the possibility of creating change. I would see our bodies get stuck, dynamics get caught in loops. I wanted to understand these dynamics and so I set out to study the role of emotions in organising for land and racial justice in England.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a farmer - I imagined having a small farm where I would grow fruit and people would be able to pick their own. As I grew up, school and city life meant I rarely thought about the land or food growing - following academic and activist pursuits instead. In the first lockdown back in 2020,  I started growing again. Getting my hands back in the soil and feeling the connection to place and earth and living beings was deeply supportive during that time. 

One day, listening to a podcast about growing, I heard Leah Penniman from Soul Fire Farm, speak about the connections between land, food growing, and racial justice. She spoke about reparations and the need for healing; the links with climate change and inequality; and the lack of access to good quality food for so many communities. Dots started to join together in my brain. And I dove into a rabbit hole of learning histories that I now want to try and share. 

I know these histories bring emotions for people - they do for me too. I want to be here for these feelings. And I want to find ways to move with them so that we can work towards repair and transformation. Although I am not a qualified therapist and have no specialist training on working with emotions.

It also feels important to name that I am a white person who is middle class and there are many things I don’t know and don’t know how to hold. There are also many ways I have been conditioned to be in the world which I am slowly unlearning, but I am not done. I will make mistakes, and may cause impacts I do not intend. Perhaps I will not speak up where I should, or say what might need to be said. The perspectives I hold will be partial and limited.

But I want to keep showing up.

I want us to find a way to reckon with the past, and reclaim what has been taken, and repair the damage that has been done, and find a way to re-envision a future where all life can thrive. 

The work I do is in support of social movements who are organising and building power to make change whilst grappling with the ways these systems show up in us all the time. It is for my ancestors, those who caused harm and benefited from it, and those who themselves were harmed. It is for myself to find a way to live in this world. It is for the future generations - who deserve a world that is so much better than the one we have now.

And it is with the knowledge that maybe this will do very little. Maybe no one will read or participate. Maybe what I want to share won’t land. But it is a root sent down into the earth. With love. And with hope. Active hope.  In these times. When the world is burning. 

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Thanks for being here.