Скачать или смотреть adrienne maree brown Interview. Practicing Emergent Strategy. Relational Heroes

adrienne maree brown Interview – The Practice of Emergent Strategy

#livedexperienceinterview – Emergent Strategy Reflections, 2017

"Trust the fractal. Trust that what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system." – adrienne maree brown
"Change is constant. Be like water." – adrienne maree brown
"What you pay attention to grows." – adrienne maree brown

adrienne maree brown doesn’t just write theories—she cultivates living blueprints. Through her work on Emergent Strategy, We Will Not Cancel Us, and Holding Change, she invites us into a deeper practice: to see change not as a distant ideal, but as something already unfolding through relationship, adaptation, and care.

In a 2017 reflection on emergent strategy, brown spoke not as a distant academic, but as a facilitator of lived experience—grounded, intuitive, and radically generous. Her presence reminds us: movement begins at the speed of trust.

In the world of human services and relational work, adrienne’s teachings land with urgency. Like Toni Morrison, she shows us that how we move matters as much as where we are going. Systems of oppression aren't just dismantled through policies—they are undone through the daily, deliberate practice of choosing different ways to relate, to collaborate, and to care.

"What you pay attention to grows," she says.
In safeguarding, in advocacy, in community building—this principle calls us back to what’s essential: seeing each person as dynamic, connected, and full of possibility, not pathology. It reminds us that our attention is not neutral. It is an act of cultivation.

brown’s writing asks us to lean into the organic, the imperfect, the alive. She teaches that transformation is not a straight line—it is spiral, iterative, relational. Growth doesn’t come from rigid plans—it comes from attunement, responsiveness, humility.
In our practice, that looks like:

Listening for what is emerging, not forcing outcomes.
Building relationships strong enough to hold change.
Trusting small actions to ripple outward into collective transformation.
In her work, adrienne asks critical questions:

Are we trusting the process—or trying to dominate it?
Are we cultivating spaces where people can show up whole, messy, evolving?
Are we moving at the speed of trust—or the speed of bureaucracy?
brown often speaks about the role of imagination in social change: not just resisting what is, but visioning what could be. In our fields, too, we are called not only to protect but to nurture possibility.
As she puts it: "Imagination is a muscle. If we don't use it, we forget that we can."

And in our own lives, adrienne’s work reminds us:
"Change is constant. Be like water."

Whether it’s grief, resistance, or the pull toward new ways of working—her words offer permission to adapt, flow, persist.

Still, she speaks.
And we listen.