What is Shred?

Shred is exploring how labor and community organizing can be strengthened by reflection on the intertwined spheres of embodiment, ecology, and ethics. We start with the recognition that all of us are embodied beings that have an ecological context. We as living beings, our language and emotions, and our economies are a part of “nature.” Our aim as Shred is to investigate the dynamics of our ecologically situated embodied selves in relation to cultural and historical movement, strengthening the ethics and efficacy of our organizing for a liberated world. 

Trauma is endemic to capitalism. The insidious tendency living within this economy to be alienated from our bodies and emotions is a stumbling block on the path to liberation. Shred is dedicated to exploring these and other challenges in our organizing spaces through a dialectical lens. This means that instead of using dominant ways of knowing which reduce the flow and motion of real life to static beliefs, concepts, and identities, we examine the dynamic and interwoven nature of life and society holistically.

From the monopolization of spirituality and culture necessary to build empires, to the white-supremacy of capitalism, a great amount of harm has been done through the manipulation of symbols and narratives. We believe our liberation is tied up with reclaiming and further exploring our language and emotions, and healing traumas inherent to living under these complex systems of domination. 

We are organizers collaborating to produce practical materials to help all of us build an egalitarian world based on care for all life.