A Season for Solidarity is based on a year-long ‘strategic assessment’ process, consisting of interviews with over fifty movement friends, new and old, followed by a collective process to decide the future of the Agricultural Justice Project. The process has been more rushed than we would like. What follows is our best attempt to distill the lessons and meaning-making we all shared through this process. Where we’ve done well, we hope it strengthens our movements; and where our words or our analysis fall short of our best contributions, we ask for grace.
What’s inside#
Like a patchwork quilt, the beauty of coalition comes from many diverse contributions arranged together for a purpose. Here we uplift multiple perspectives people shared with us, some of which may not represent a consensus of everyone involved in AJP. We gather people’s recollections into a narrative of AJP’s work, supplemented by quotes and testimonies which appear throughout the text or as stand-alone pages. A number of interviewees requested confidentiality, and we are sorry we could not include their words directly in the text. In cases where participants granted permission to do so, interview transcripts will be made available through the University of Massachusetts archives at the W.E.B. Du Bois library.
In recent years, we at AJP wanted to develop political education resources to fill gaps in our narrative work. This report felt like an opportunity to deliver on that wish, as we collectively make sense of this political moment. For that reason, we include here relevant histories and landscape analysis that look beyond AJP and our own experience, through dedicated chapters as well as supplements scattered throughout the text. We believe that these different pieces frame the various struggles that must come together to win justice in agriculture.
We invite readers to find their own path through the report, with headings and occasional summaries to help you find what you’re looking for.