Freedom to F*cking Dream
Proposal for liberatory futures dreaming that centers the sex worker's voice.
Things are moving: after proposing what liberatory imagination workshops could look like for the group and beyond, Decoding Stigma received a small grant to launch the project!
The proposal
Here’s a link to the full proposal presentation (which includes some syllabus ideas for workshops, please check this out if you are interested in helping organize one of these events), pasting some slide highlights below:
What is Freedom to F*cking Dream and why is it important?
Theoretical inspiration comes from Ruha Benjamin’s Liberatory Imaginary…
Practical inspiration comes from M Strickland & Michelle Spikes’ participatory design work toward creating SWIRL, the overnight outreach team for HIPS, the DC-based harm reduction agency for sex workers, as well as Beyond Policing, a “workshop of structured conversation, imagination, and play, designed in urgent response to the injustices and racism that resulted in the death of George Floyd.”
Inspiration on how imagination can be platformed toward potential achievable, real-world solutions comes from Color <Coded>, “a POC-only space and collective co-teaching, co-creating, and co-owning new technologies.” Their work is especially important because it exemplifies how the “impossible” transforms into community-led allyship and aid. Color <Coded> is also fantastic in their cross-disciplinary approach to world-building, which is especially important for Decoding Stigma.
And I must celebrate that which brought me to a place to even think other worlds are possible, which I owe to speculative fiction and sci-fi:
The feedback
Liberatory worldbuilding has been consistently suggested at every DS meeting, so it’s no surprise that there was overwhelming support. Notable feedback can be divided into two broader themes:
What is the ultimate goal? The pitch proposed two-pronged events: an educational panel and a generative workshop.
Result: Many expressed a desire for focusing on imagination workshopping alone, as a healing act. Other thoughts included cementing our hard output from the very beginning: do we want to create a report out of our findings? Will imagined solutions become a list of demands from Decoders toward the carceral technology industrial complex? Is it simply enough to hold this space for relationship-building and recovery from crisis-oriented organizing?
Who is our ideal audience? The initial pitch proposed a mixed audience: workshopping would be limited to sex workers and other sexual minorities currently targeted by carceral technology, while the educational panel would be open to workshop participants and allies who want to better understand the issues at hand.
Result: Suggestions to start with ourselves and then keep it small were well-supported. “Tiered” workshop structures were also suggested, so that we can have different purposes for different audiences. There’s a mood growing toward solidifying ourselves as the intentional collective audience.