S1.E3: The Other Basic Tool of Organizing: House Meetings Artwork

Listen, Organize, Act! Organizing & Democratic Politics

The Listen, Organize, Act podcast focuses on the history and contemporary practice of community organizing and democratic politics. Alongside this specific focus are two others: the first is to explore how organizing connects democracy and religion, particularly at a local level; the second is to explore the visions and practices that shape small 'd,' participatory democratic politics. The name of the podcast reflects these concerns. Through a series of conversations with folk who live and breathe the work of organizing, each series looks at democracy as not first and foremost about a system of government, or set of laws, or an ideology but as rooted in three things. The first is a commitment to listen to others different to oneself because their experience, their story, who they are as a person matters. Listening honors fundamental premises of democracy, as it marks a way of respecting the dignity of each individual, the importance of dialogue as against killing and coercion as means of resolving conflicts, and that people should have a say in decisions that affect them. The second is that democracy does not just happen, it needs organizing. And if it is to be democratic, it needs people organizing between themselves to determine their living and working conditions. If ordinary people don’t get organized then they are subject to others acting on them and their living and working conditions being determined by systems and structures controlled by others who either won’t listen to them, don’t have their interests at heart, or are actively hostile, wanting them silenced or disenfranchised. And finally, democracy lives or dies by shared action. Listening and organizing generate the means of coming together, but at a certain point people must act together to move the world as it is towards becoming a more just and generous one in which all may flourish. Each episode is a stand alone discussion, but when listened to together, the episodes build on each other to form an integrated series. Season 1 is a foundational course in the meaning, purpose and mechanics of how to do community organizing and build a more just and generous common life through democratic means. Season 2 is a foundational course in the meaning, purpose, and character of democracy.

All Episodes

Listen, Organize, Act! Organizing & Democratic Politics

S1.E3: The Other Basic Tool of Organizing: House Meetings

March 02, 2021 • Luke Bretherton • Season 1 • Episode 3

In this episode I examine the second key tool organizing uses for listening, building relationships, and effecting change: the house meeting. As a form of democratic politics that begins with listening and is attentive to the experience, conditions, and stories of people where they live and work, organizing needs practices for listening well. Along with the one-to-one discussed in the previous episode, the house meeting is just such a practice and the other basic tool of community organizing. So in this episode I discuss the history of the house meeting, what it is and why it matters, how to do it, some of the issues and problems that often come up when facilitating a house meeting, how it feeds into building power, and how it contrasts with other approaches to listening and engaging people in democratic politics such as focus groups.

Guests

Tim McManus has been with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) for over thirteen years now, organizing in Dallas and Phoenix before becoming the Lead Organizer for Communities Organized for Power in Action (COPA), the IAF affiliate on the Central Coast of California. He is currently building a new IAF organization in California’s Central Valley. Before becoming an organizer, he was a high school teacher.

Maria Elena Manzo was born in Mexico and came to the US aged 14. She was a farmworker, going back and forth to Mexico until she was 30 after which she was able to settle in California. She has been a leader with COPA for almost 20 years and currently works as program manager for Mujeres en Acción.

Resources for Going Deeper

Gabriel Thompson, “The Mexican Problem,” America’s Social Arsonist: Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth Century (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016), Chapter 5;

Aaron Schutz and Mike Miller, “Fred Ross and the House-Meeting Approach,” People Power: The Community Organizing Tradition of Saul Alinsky (Nashville: University of Vanderbilt Press, 2015), Chapter 8.

For more information & relevant updates follow me on Twitter: @WestLondonMan
For readings to download relevant to or discussed in an episode visit: https://ormondcenter.com/listen-organize-act-podcast