What is Fieldwork?

FIELDWORK: Collective Recovery from Colonial Fragmentation Disorder is a book written by Leah Manaema Avene but unpublished in print. Instead, Fieldwork is read to small groups of people as part of a commitment to restoring oral cultures, narrative technologies, community building, collective healing and life long collaborative resistance practices. Combining their experience in land-based group therapy, personal development, liberatory education and practice supervision, FIELDWORK, is a polyphonic, multilogue across time and space for anyone devoted to a liberatory, land-back future.

Where colonial and settler-colonial social and political systems invisibilise both inherent human strengths and oppressive systemic forces, Fieldwork is a collaborative-communal space to learn, bond and develop processes for decompressing and dismantling colonial trauma and nurturing internal and collective strength.

The term ‘Practice’ can refer to Professional Practice - for folk committed to embedding anti-oppressive, inclusive and relational processes in their work as teachers, leaders, therapists, social workers and others in the service field.

Relational, Communal Practice - refers to folk wishing to build inclusive community spaces, facilitate and enrich culturally safe community collaborations and strengthen cultural-communal bonds.

Life Practice refers to anyone committed to internal, relational and systemic recovery. For all who are interested in developing strategic, inclusive practices for navigating and repairing cultural, political and social systems externally, and as they manifest in our nervous systems.

How does it work?

Fieldwork is offered on zoom in 8 week cycles of 1.5 hour sessions. Each session shares a chapter of ‘Fieldwork- Collective Recovery From Colonial Fragmentation Disorder’ moving through modules that cumulatively build a framework and set of processes to transcend the limitations of colonial learning injuries, lethal biases and undignified fragmenting processes. Information is shared through story, scholarship, creative practice and conversation between participants, simultaneously nurturing community connection, practice skills, consciousness and competency. Homework and resources for practice development are co-designed and shared after each session.

Book Chapters

How much does joining FIELDWORK cost?

Fieldwork is a mix of therapeutic group process / community process / professional development and cultural consulting delivered through creative narrative practice. For 8 weeks / 12 hours plus resources and online community access the prices are as follows.

Frequently Asked (and Unasked) Questions

Who else will be in my course?

Up to 12 other folk who are yearning for a liberatory future. There are no restrictions on identity, experience or background. These sessions are deliberately open to all who yearn so that folk can practice building community across difference and decompressing biases and injuries with a range of different folk.

Am I allowed to come if I am white?

Yes. Please do, see above.

Am I good enough/ worthy/ welcome?

Yes. If you have breath in your lungs and a deep desire for a future shaped by love, care of land, selves and each other then yes, of course you are. Folk often self-select out of these spaces thinking they are not good enough, not cool enough, not healed enough, not smart enough, not activist enough, not Indigenous enough, not revolutionary enough… YOU ARE ENOUGH. We all are, if you feel drawn to this work it’s because you’re listening and it’s drawing you in. You are welcome.

What if it’s awful and I want to leave?

No worries, you can let us know via email and we will refund you however many sessions you have left.

What if I can’t make all of the sessions?

You can access a recording of the session that will be available online until the next week.

I’m figuring out my neuro-chaos and I’m nervous to speak in front of other people and I feel like I’m not capable/fluent/disciplined enough to keep up with work!

Don’t stress, this course is designed to be responsive, inclusive and generative. The cycles are designed to actively and collaboratively repair learning injuries and other trauma responses we have as a result of intergenerational exposure to individualism, authoritarianism, punitive reactivity, shame, emotional deprivation etc.. We will work it out together, inclusivity is a collaboration.

What if I can’t afford it / access this offering?

Send us an email, we will do our best to work out a plan or an alternative if we have capacity. It’s worth registering your interest so we can figure out how to get around the many (currently) inaccessible aspects of this offering.