Building mutual aid
to begin, gather the available resources
Emancipation: the process of freeing oneself from a situation of dependency or oppression. (Re)gaining autonomy and the power to act.
Two weeks ago, I published resistance & regeneration, my most committed text to date.
For more than two years, I circled around this project and this text, not daring to put it out. I was afraid of polarizing, of pushing people away, of being clumsy, maybe illegitimate. And then, stomach in knots and with the courage that things that matter demand, I posted it.
And then you responded, with messages that break the silence, that made me shiver feeling how necessary, right, alive this commitment is. That I’m not alone in this. Thank you for your support!
A classmate, in the middle of a severe burnout, wrote to me:
“Hey friend, I read your manifesto. I wanted to tell you that I was deeply moved by your words. I agree with you so much and I think I’ve completely gone through every stage you describe so well. Passion, studies, investment, burnout, disillusionment, withdrawal. (…) You’re not alone, far from it. Personally, I feel very lucky to have you in my life. You have the courage to carry your voice, to stumble, to apologize, to bounce back stronger. You’re putting your energy in the right place and I support you.”
Victor wrote to me: “you’re incredible, it feels good to have smart, healthily furious friends. You can count on my Sancho Panza support.” The faithful squire of Don Quixote, who is no longer alone chasing windmills - arigato 🙏
“You shouldn’t be dependent on the collective but use it as a refined tool. Defend solitude as a means of inspiring thought. […] Don’t be afraid of facing a blank page, but seize it as an opportunity to know yourself better. This journey then gives all its value back to collective practice […]” (Vincent)
He’s right. Before the “we,” there’s the “I” that reclaims itself; that’s precisely what allows me to write. So mutual aid begins by stopping the pursuit of a pseudo-mediocre career, or the quest for a chimeric Pritzker that justifies our sacrifices. It’s choosing yourself, rising slowly by cultivating the buds of what you actually want to do. The audacity to listen to yourself, to say yes to that. Life moves too fast not to try. And to hold your fears in your arms, and reach out your hands, vulnerable.
This path to keeping my head above water took me 6 years (and I’m not completely out of the woods yet!). And it’s slow, patient. Like a garden you tend. Personally, I’m convinced that together, we can take care of it much, much better. And much faster.
It’s not complicated: there is nothing that exists today moving in this direction for our profession. So let’s invent it, brick by brick.
There’s no help to wait for. Except from yourself, from each other.
THE PERSPECTIVE That’s all very well, but where is this going exactly?
It goes without saying that each of us is first driven by our own desire, but can we at least agree on values and practices that unite us, a shared direction and means that make us want to say a wholehearted YES?
Political ecology architecture is a proposal (being built with you) to bring forth practices of transformation of our social structures in crisis, to reorganize them at local, decentralized, sovereign, convivial scales. To get there, let’s start by evolving and building our own structures of emancipation, mutual aid, inclusive, caring, respectful of individuals.
Because you can’t repair the infrastructure of the commons without an infrastructure of emancipation that actually holds. How do we keep our heads above water? By pooling our resources, by supporting each other as peers to face the difficulties of a solitary and complex profession, by combining our energies in a desirable direction, with means that embody our values?
That’s how we help each other keep our heads above water. That’s the condition for starting to talk about the rest.
That’s where we start.
The coming month - an invitation to build the foundations of our mutual aid infrastructure
What do we need to keep our heads above water, at the M (medium) scale of the collective? Each project-thread has its own dedicated email. Four emails at a weekly pace for this launch month.
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Structuring the mutual aid resources that already exist: who should I contact when I have a particular need? Unions, insurances, professional orders, associations, legal resources, technical and administrative support… making visible what already exists => today’s proposal, a participatory and interactive map of the existing mutual aid network (see below) (1). Eventually, the proposal to present a new board for the APB (Association Paris-Belleville) with a mode of shared governance (2), and to spread this cooperation tool to an XL scale (schools, unions, MAF (Mutuelle des Architectes Français - professional insurance), OA (Ordre des Architectes - professional order)) (3), and get their support, meet with them.
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Mentorship: helping each other, peer to peer. We all have needs and skills, things to ask for as much as to transmit to others. No need for formal training, just presence, sharing experience, helping and being helped with the problem at hand. => proposal: we start with a Telegram group (1), then build a small AEP network “matchmaking app,” allowing us to match everyone’s needs and skills based on our energy (2), and propose this infrastructure to respond to the project of an alumni directory for ENSAPB (ENSAPB: École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville, Paris architecture school), with a budget of under 10k€ (currently being discussed with the school) (3)
Short interlude - I’ll also talk about AI use: what room for maneuver is there for sustainable use, in service of emancipation, building community digital tools, and evolving our practices.
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Sharing our work, our committed practices: this is in the medium term our best collective visibility tool. Some have done remarkable work, even manage to publish it, but tend to get lost in the noise and generate very little echo. Let’s support each other in bringing our proposals for society to bloom, in publishing completed or research work. Give ideas and proof to a society hungry for stepping sideways. => proposal: pool our work in a vector database (1), supported by a library of critical references also searchable (2), to publish the diversity of content we want, backed by the richness of these projects and critical ideas (3): posts, articles, a collective manifesto, a theory, exhibitions, podcast / talk about it on the radio… Communicate to find allies and make these projects happen on the ground.
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Training ourselves: keeping our heads above water means questioning ourselves, evolving, adapting, training, changing our ways of working, creating our tools, adapting our practice. => proposal: let’s create our own training program, pool our knowledge, and offer it to our peers (1), to students to complement the training we missed, bridging studies and practice with funding (2). And if the momentum allows, let’s propose a program for the Paris Belleville incubator, endowed with 50k€ for this purpose but stalled for 2 years (3).
These projects take time, budgets, political negotiations. In the meantime, the first thing we can do together is get organized. That’s what we’re launching this month.
And concretely, starting this week: a tool you can use alone, for yourself, without waiting for anyone.
The first brick
You and I, we do one of the most complex professions there is; law, technique, aesthetics, economics, social, ecology, all at once, often without a safety net. And paradoxically, one of the least structured professions when it comes to mutual aid: little horizontal transmission, lots of isolation, a culture of every-person-for-themselves inherited from a training that prepares for competition more than cooperation. We leave school alone. We set up alone. We reinvent what others have already been through.
This map is first of all for you. For the day a client attacks you, a partner lets you down, you crack on a project site and don’t know who to call anymore; you’ll have somewhere to look. It’s a net we weave now so we don’t have to look for it in a panic when the moment comes.
A participatory map is online: aep.trans-former.fr.
Around a hundred entries to start - institutions, associations, unions, legal resources, listening spaces, places where you could feel held in hard moments.
For now, I’m the one who posted the first entries. That’s exactly why we need your gems: what you found along the way that worked, what you’d point out to a younger person struggling.
You can add what you found along the way, or comment on entries already posted: whether the welcome was good, whether you recommend it or not. The commons is built by many, and it adjusts as it goes.
Not a fixed catalog: a living commons, in service of those seeking to evolve their practice toward something more fulfilling, better paid, in service of society, that takes care of health - ours and that of the people we build for.
The idea is simple: the day you have a problem - legal, employer, malaise, isolation, you don’t know where to look in this jungle - you type your need in the search bar, and the map returns what already exists. We are very poorly informed. Before creating more, let’s first organize what’s already there.
And it’s there to be completed, and we can do it together (more fun that way); I’m proposing a meetup this Tuesday 28/04 on video from 7pm to 8:30pm. Your resources, your places, your associations, what helped you. The network within the network.
For those it resonates with - we talk Tuesday evening, live.
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Four entry points
The monthly meetup
Tuesday 28/04, 7pm-8:30pm, on video. We fill the map together. You leave with: your region mapped, 2-3 people from the network met, and a tool you can pull out the day things burn. 1.5 hours, no more.
And three other entry points depending on your energy:
- See what already exists near you: aep.trans-former.fr (open, look, close; zero commitment)
- Follow the movement: newsletter subscription
- Join the Telegram group
And an in-person meetup
Tuesday May 5th, 6:30pm, at ENSAPB. In-person meetup; we take time to talk needs, desires, and build together the V1 of a useful alumni directory. Video call on May 6th for those who can’t be in Paris.
Behind the scenes
Last week I also published my first Instagram video, a return to social media after several years of absence, given the troubling state of the world that seems to be unraveling on all fronts. This video was a bit clumsy, I was stressed, I filmed it reading what I’d written even though I know the subject by heart. And yet it got 3,000 views; the account was seen by 16,000 people. I was moved to see how much the subject can resonate. This path of engagement is quite solitary, and seeing it resonate gives it real meaning. Thank you for your feedback, your messages, your support.
PS - Before you close this page: what’s holding YOU back right now in your practice? What do you need? And what could you offer to the community? The first step is already identifying your own need. You can write it in reply to the newsletter, or via Telegram, or even reach me through the map. Whatever works for you.
And for those who find this suddenly overwhelming, I invite you to listen to yourself, to learn what’s right for you. I’ve been preparing this launch ramp for a long time; I hope it’ll be gentle. You can join fully, just support, or just read these texts. That’s already great. Thank you for being here.