Whirlwinds Contributors Survey

8/14/2019 Whirlwinds Contributors Survey

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In the Middle of a Whirlwind:2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movementswww.inthemiddleofawhirlwind.info

Conor Cash, Craig Hughes, Stevie Peace & Kevin Van Meter | Team Colors

Whirlwinds Contributors Survey

Introduction

On May 25th, 2008 Team Colors Collective launched an ambitious one-off online journal entitled In the

Middle of a Whirlwind: 2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movements (Whirlwinds). The purposeofWhirlwinds was to inquire into current organizing efforts in the United States, and through this process

to provide a strategic analysis of current political composition as a tool for building political power.

Since May, Whirlwinds events have been held in multiple places around the U.S. and thousands of peoplehave accessed the online journal.

With the journal complete and the seasons moving, Team Colors has begun a process of strategic reflection

on the Whirlwinds effort. The survey below is a core-piece of that reflection. We know that youre very

busy, but we feel that coming to understand your thoughts on Whirlwinds is crucial for our work. It is also a

way for us to engage those who contributed to the collection and get a grasp on how they felt about the idea

of the collection, the process we framed and the final outcomes.

Results of the Survey

This survey is being undertaken in the spirit of militant research, and the results and responses from the

survey will be posted on the Team Colors website (anonymously if youd like, or not at all if thats your

preference). Additionally, Team Colors is currently writing an article titled Of Whirlwinds and Wind

Chimes (or ways to listen): Movement Building & Militant Research in the United States a full English

version will appear on the Team Colors website and will be circulated in print from. This article has beencommissioned by Arranca!, a radical publication for the FELS group in Germany, and a shorter version of

the article will appear in its pages in German.

Relationship Building

In addition to our primary hope of Whirlwinds being an inquiry into movement building and strategicdialog during the summer of 2008, Team Colors also initiated Whirlwinds to build relationships with

organizations and individuals whose work it respected and who work we believe contributes to movement

building efforts in the United States. We ask that you keep the collective abreast of your activities, considerus when producing research projects, and contact us if it can be useful to your organizing efforts. We are

currently based in New York City, Portland, OR, Tucson, AZ and the Twin Cities and we would like to host

local events lectures, workshops, dinner parties forWhirlwinds contributors and comrades. Contact us

at: [email protected]; and visit us on the web, here you can sign up for the Team Colors E-

Newsletter and access additional materials, at:www.WarMachines.Info.

September 2008 www.warmachines.info 1 of 4
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In the Middle of a Whirlwind: 2008 Convention Protests, Movement & Movements

www.inthemiddleofawhirlwind.info

Whirlwinds Contributors Survey Team Colors

Survey & Narrative Questions

The following questions come in two forms: survey questions (please choose the appropriate number for

the numbered questions) and narrative questions (describe your answers and reflections below). Team

Colors would be happy to discuss these in more detail via email, phone, and (where able) in person

which ever you find most useful and productive. We respectively request that all of our contributors answer

the numbered survey questions, so we can have a full return on these questions.

Deadline for Responses: October 20th

COMMUNICATION:

1. How effective was the Whirlwinds Request for Proposals?

2. How clear was Team Colors on the Whirlwinds project and your participation in it?3. Are you satisfied with the level of contact and communication from Team Colors

during the process of completing Whirlwinds?(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

Was the Request for Proposals and your initial contact with Team Colors clear about theWhirlwindproject and your role as contributors? How useful and productive were Team

Colors communications with you? What were the strong points about ourcommunication with contributors, and how can this be strengthened in the future?

EDITING:

4. Was the editing process with the collective useful for you?

5. Are you satisfied with the final article as it appeared in the journal?(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

Was the article editing process useful to you? Was the final product to your liking? Whatcould Team Colors have done to streamline this process and what should it do to improve

its practice in the future?

WRITING:

Did you engage with your constituencies around Whirlwinds? If not, what prevented you?

Would it have been well received if we had asked you to go that route? Did you distributethis piece to your members and constituents? Were they involved in the writing process?

Would that have been a useful process for you? What prevented you from doing this?

PARTNERSHIP:

What would have been helpful in this process? How could it have been more reciprocal?How could Team Colors move from militant research to co-research that is, research

produced with movement organizations?

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PRODUCING KNOWLEDGE:

6. How engaging did you find the quality of the material in collection?

7. How useful did you find the material in Whirlwinds?(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

How clear were we about producing knowledge about current movements? How

effective have we been in obtaining articles that described how organizations, initiatives

and movements functioned? How useful were these articles for your own work?

TEAM COLORS COLLECTIVE:

8. How did you find the quality of the Team Colors introduction and other writtenmaterials for the collection?(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

What are your impressions of the collective itself? What are your thoughts on how thejournal was framed, appeared, and publicized?

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES:

9. Did you find the Whirlwindspromotional materials engaging?

10. How did you find the Whirlwinds website engaging and easy to navigate?(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

What are among the strongest /weakest and most / lease useful articles in the journal, andwhy?

RESOURCES:As a collective with limited resources, was producing an online journal with

accompanying print outreach materials and events, the right direction? Was it a mistakenot to produce a print journal or book thus far? What do you see as the viability of such a

print project? How would you suggest Team Colors approach such interventions in the

future?

CLASS COMPOSITION:

11. Do you believe the Whirlwindsjournal collection is useful in achieving its goal?(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

In Whirlwinds Team Colors choose to look at movement composition as a step towardresearching the larger question of class composition, since little attention has been paid to

the structure, function, and content of current radical movements in the United States.

Our reasoning was to utilize Whirlwinds as a way of taking steps toward the deployment

of militant and co-research techniques to intervene in current class composition andorganizing campaigns; in addition to introducing militant and co-research, precarity, and

autonomist concepts to a larger audience in the United States. In what ways did Team



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Colors accomplish this with the collection? How can these practices and concepts be

introduced to a larger audience in the United States?

MILITANT & CO-RESEARCH:

For Organizers: What role does research play in your organizing? For Researchers:How do you produce and carry out research toward radical and movement-grounded

ends? For both: How do you produce and carry out research that is useful to and for

radical movements?

ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS:

Include any additional questions, comments, thoughts, critiques and opinions notaddressed in this survey.

PERSONAL INFORMATION Name: Anonymous: Y | N

Organizational Affiliation (if any):Email Address:

Phone Number:


Whirlwinds Contributors Survey

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