Remaking Democracy
How We Make the Worlds We Want
Published on 5. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
208 pages
978-1-945335-51-8 (ISBN)
Description
How can we empower ourselves and our communities to make lasting social change?
Remaking Democracy is a guidebook for social change. We are at a watershed moment of rising fascism and rising seas: our institutions are failing us, health crises ravage our communities, and the natural world has been thrust into catastrophic climate freefall. Despair threatens to overtake hope in our visions of the future. In these pages, organizers and teachers Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams offer analysis and strategy for sustainable transformation. This accessible and practical resource presents case studies alongside a design toolkit that equips readers to participate in creating the abundant worlds we want. Remaking Democracy empowers us-individually and in groups-to make lasting social change on every level, so that we who are affected by systems can become their creators.
Remaking Democracy is a guidebook for social change. We are at a watershed moment of rising fascism and rising seas: our institutions are failing us, health crises ravage our communities, and the natural world has been thrust into catastrophic climate freefall. Despair threatens to overtake hope in our visions of the future. In these pages, organizers and teachers Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams offer analysis and strategy for sustainable transformation. This accessible and practical resource presents case studies alongside a design toolkit that equips readers to participate in creating the abundant worlds we want. Remaking Democracy empowers us-individually and in groups-to make lasting social change on every level, so that we who are affected by systems can become their creators.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Matawan
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 151 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
406 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-945335-51-8 (9781945335518)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Danielle Chynoweth is a local-to-national leader in the Media Justice and Housing Rights movements. As an elected public servant, she has designed alternative crisis response, family shelter, and Solidarity Gardens, and spearheaded public arts, community broadband, solar affordable housing, and police oversight. She was the Organizing Director for Media Justice and cofounded the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. She teaches social change at the University of Illinois, the School for Designing a Society, and internationally.
Elizabeth Adams, PhD, is a composer, teacher, and caregiver, who has worked at the intersection of art, education, and organizing for over twenty years. As a knowledge worker intent on creating the cultural change that will support social justice, she co-instigated Julie & Elizabeth's Anti-Capitalist Concert Series, and organized with the Crown Heights Tenant Union, Free University NYC, and What A Neighborhood! She has taught at Columbia University and the School for Designing a Society.
Elizabeth Adams, PhD, is a composer, teacher, and caregiver, who has worked at the intersection of art, education, and organizing for over twenty years. As a knowledge worker intent on creating the cultural change that will support social justice, she co-instigated Julie & Elizabeth's Anti-Capitalist Concert Series, and organized with the Crown Heights Tenant Union, Free University NYC, and What A Neighborhood! She has taught at Columbia University and the School for Designing a Society.
Content
Preface by Dr. Safiya NobleIntroduction
1 What Time is it on the Clock of the World? Living in Contradiction
2 How to Make Change in Systems: The Spiral of Change
3 Champaign Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice: Organizing Against Racialized Police Violence
Part I
4 Movements Begin with the Telling of Untold Stories
5 Gather to Share Stories
6 As violence is done to me, so violence is done to them
7 What's Your Problem?
8 Formulating Problems and Looking Systems Together
9 Campaign for Prison Phone Justice: Storytelling to Confront Mass Incarceration (Case Study)
Part II
10 Desire as Orientation: New Criteria for New Societies
11 Making Desire Statements
12 School for Designing a Society: Experiments in Education & Art (Case Study)
Part III
13 Contradictions as Points of Leverage
14 Formulating Contradictions to Find Points of Leverage
15 Cunningham Township: Ending Homelessness in Your Hometown (Case Study)
Part IV
16 Designing Care for a Loved One (Case Study)
17 Beginning to Design: Essential Tools
18 Design Principles
19 Additional Design Tools
20 Designing Health Care Systems Intensives (Case Study)
Part V
21 The World is Always Being Made: Reflect, Learn, Revise, Repeat
22 Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center (Case Study)
23 When Your Project is a... work of art and other domains
Afterward - Further Provocation
1 What Time is it on the Clock of the World? Living in Contradiction
2 How to Make Change in Systems: The Spiral of Change
3 Champaign Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice: Organizing Against Racialized Police Violence
Part I
4 Movements Begin with the Telling of Untold Stories
5 Gather to Share Stories
6 As violence is done to me, so violence is done to them
7 What's Your Problem?
8 Formulating Problems and Looking Systems Together
9 Campaign for Prison Phone Justice: Storytelling to Confront Mass Incarceration (Case Study)
Part II
10 Desire as Orientation: New Criteria for New Societies
11 Making Desire Statements
12 School for Designing a Society: Experiments in Education & Art (Case Study)
Part III
13 Contradictions as Points of Leverage
14 Formulating Contradictions to Find Points of Leverage
15 Cunningham Township: Ending Homelessness in Your Hometown (Case Study)
Part IV
16 Designing Care for a Loved One (Case Study)
17 Beginning to Design: Essential Tools
18 Design Principles
19 Additional Design Tools
20 Designing Health Care Systems Intensives (Case Study)
Part V
21 The World is Always Being Made: Reflect, Learn, Revise, Repeat
22 Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center (Case Study)
23 When Your Project is a... work of art and other domains
Afterward - Further Provocation