Uncritical allegiance: the harms of queer ideology
When linear thinking hurts gay kids Having read this title, some people may have an urge to immediately add me to the list of ‘the suspect’. If you notice that impulse, I ask you to engage with what I’m saying here. I write this piece because I’m worried about...
We want a water system that’s fit for the 21st Century
The Rous Future Water 2060 plan proposes spending ~$240 million to flood 253 hectares of rainforest and farmland – but there is something missing in the document. There is no analysis and costing of an investment in system-wide water...
Enabling Emergence – a case study of the Northern Rivers campaign
Aidan Ricketts and I published Enabling Emergence: The Bentley Blockade and the Struggle for a Gasfield Free Northern Rivers, SCU Law Review, Volume 19, 2018 The full text can be downloaded here. This article would be best read in conjunction with viewing The...
Everydayville. The fire is coming.
Everydayville is a normal town, a pretty good place to live. Everyday, parents drop their kids at wooden school buildings amongst the eucalypts, then go about their lives. Off to work. Shopping. Checking Facebook. Planning holidays. At night, when darkness...
The story of Linkmore
Once upon a time there was a place called Linkmore whose people fought a gasfield. It was a huge gasfield. A worrying gasfield. The people said they didn’t want it, but the government said “Shut up. You’re getting it”. But, in groups large and small, people came...
Beyond fear: courage
This blog was written for a seminar series on Fear hosted by the School of Regulation and Governance, Australian National University, Dec 2017. During the years when I worked as Community Engagement Coordinator for Lock The Gate Alliance, I had the honour of working...
Grow your movement by working with complexity
This blog was written to accompany How To Win, Episode 2 of ChangeMakers Podcast, which tells the story of the Gasfield Free Northern Rivers campaign. When it comes to winning campaigns, nothing beats getting an understanding of how social movements work…there...
Seeing networks in a new way
I started to understand the dynamics of human systems while working in North Coast Health Promotion NSW. In 2008 we formed a learning circle to understand how complexity theory might help us understand population-scale change. A rich journey! Our collective learning...
Why bother with how complex systems tick? One word: agency
I took a plunge into understanding what makes complex systems tick in 2008, while helping develop Sustain Northern Rivers, a regional collaboration to address climate change in northern NSW. My friend Ken McLeod suggested I kick off a Learning Circle in Health...
The Northern Rivers: united people win against gasfields
Originally published Sydney Morning Herald 16/5/14, this piece tells the story of the Gasfield Free Northern Rivers campaign, immediately after victory at the Bentley Blockade. The campaign went on to force the government to buy back gas licences that covered the...
Annie Kia
From capacity-building for movements and campaigns, to collaborations and Health Promotion, Annie uses an understanding of complex systems and networks to enable change.
About this Blog
I’m interested in how we use networks to protect Nature. More recently I’m interested in the converse of this kind of agency. For example how, if we give up agency to interrogate ideas, we can unwittingly cause harm.
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