Strategies for Social Change and Strategic Movement: Theory Into Practice as GlobeMed Leaders
By: Nathan Tran, GlobeMed at UCLA
Recent social injustices such as the racialized murders of countless Black Americans and the disproportionate harm of COVID-19 on marginalized communities have underscored institutionalized oppression we have maintained for decades. While these issues have recently gained greater public attention, they themselves are not recent. However, as a result of the increased public attention, we witness the strengthening of existing change-making coalitions committed to having their demands heard as well as the burgeoning of new change-making communities dissatisfied with the status quo. As GlobeMed leaders, we know how crucial it is to center our partners, lead with empathy, envision brighter futures, and build our leadership practices. As such, I have connected Miles & Irvine’s Changing Ways of Life to the practices our chapters should use to be better leaders in our communities and better advocates for global health equity.
#1: Social Responsibility — Drawing attention to social injustices on individual levels by stimulating resources, capital, and focus.
As GlobeMed leaders, we should:
- Direct capital towards global health efforts by fundraising for our partner organizations
- Engage in open and consistent communication with our partners and incorporate them in decision-making
- Elevate BIPOC student and partner narratives on social media platforms to redirect public attention
- Be kind to each other by practicing accountability when knowingly or unknowingly perpetuating harm
#2: Reformism — Pressuring groups and lobbies to affect legislators, media, and public spheres.
As GlobeMed leaders, we should:
- Engage in social activism by contacting local and domestic policy makers about making changes to status quo or systems of oppression
- Adopt anti-oppressive and intersectional lenses in ghU’s
- Expand anti-oppressive discourse by opening ghU’s to non-GlobeMed members
- Build community with groups outside GlobeMed chapters, including but not limited to GlobeMed HQ, other university chapters, and external change making collectives
- Engage with local change making groups
#3: Counterculture — Devising alternative infrastructures and systems when current infrastructures and systems fail.
As GlobeMed leaders, we should:
- Collaboratively envision better systems and structures with our partners to promote resource access, using the Partnership Action Framework (PAF) as a foundation and developing/implementing ideas in subsequent partnerships conversations
- Reflect on weaknesses in our partnerships and implement better communication pipelines
- Insist our core tenant that every human life has equal worth in our work
These examples show how we should make changes as GlobeMed leaders on an everyday basis. Your chapter’s change making practices may — and often should — look different from other chapters’ practices because we prioritize community and partner-centered decision making. Here are some guiding questions you might think about:
- What other practices can you, your chapter, and your partner collaboratively commit to making?
- How might change-making and conversations for change-making look given your unique relationship with your partner and your unique structural constraints?
- If there are structural constraints, does it make sense to make change within these structural constraints or outside of them (think: reformism versus counterculture)?
Miles, Ian, and John Irvine. “Changing Ways of Life.” Futures, vol. 14, Feb. 1982, pp. 11–23, doi:10.1016/0016–3287(82)90068–4.
