María Llanos del Corral: Radical Friendship

María Llanos del Corral, a pioneer in community-driven development and the visionary behind the Eroles and La Bolina projects, shares her wealth of experience in fostering cooperative power through grassroots organising and groundbreaking project implementation.

Listeners will discover the profound impact of radical friendship as a cornerstone of trust-building within projects aimed at social regeneration and repopulation.

María delves into the imperative of challenging market-driven paradigms that dehumanise individuals, particularly migrants. Discover how La Bolina’s initiatives are reshaping societal norms, challenging traditional power structures, and inspiring positive change in rural areas. Gain practical wisdom on overcoming fear, nurturing inclusive collaboration, and reclaiming ambition in the pursuit of a more equitable and sustainable future.

Voiceover 1: I mean, it has to start at your doorstep. This the grassroots stuff, isn’t it? Being able to say, okay, what can I do? But when it comes to environmental issue, I feel like, are we just talking pie in the sky? The reality of it is there’s a lot of expectation on the general public to make changes in their own lives, when actually the average major corporation is not expected to, or always part of the problem.

Voiceover 2: I think it’s a complicated one, this one because it could work. It’s a great idea. But I don’t know if it’s, you know, if it can be brought to reality. 

Voiceover 3: It’s like everyone’s talking about it but not doing it. If you got so much of a concern, get of your back side and actually do it. Not just pass the buck to somebody else. You know, a lot of people do talk about it, but it’s always pass the buck, pass the buck. And it’s like the government exactly the same. Pass the buck. It’s this is happening because of that. But we can’t do anything because all our money is on this, or moneys on that. Not the most important things. 

Carl Schlyter:
Many people recognise the importance of local action in tackling global issues, but they can sometimes be a scepticism about the effectiveness and scalability of such approaches. All too often, top-down approaches dominate the discourse, overshadowing the innovative solutions that emerge from the grassroots level. Welcome to SystemShift, where we take you on a journey to discover how we can build a wellbeing economy, today. Let us inspire you to rethink traditional models of development and embrace some bottom-up approaches. Our guest is María Llanos del Corral, an expert in community-based solutions. For years, María worked in community development in Latin America and Africa before studying alternative economics, which led her into the work of organisational change with NGOs and grassroots movements. María shares insights from her years of hands-on experience, offering practical examples of how communities have successfully improved their livelihoods, protected ecosystems and promoted social cohesion. Among her notable initiatives are projects of Eroles and La Bolina in Spain, where María has harnessed the collective wisdom and resources of communities to create positive change at the grassroots level. In Eroles, a vibrant community perched high in the Pyrenean mountains, she uses radical popular education ideas to develop new approaches to both learning and taking action in the world. Out of this project was born La Bolina in the south, amid the orange groves of Andalusia, a living laboratory for exploring a whole range of issues through the prism of migration, including repopulation, inclusion, sustainable living and regenerative agriculture. In today’s episode, we delve into the transformative potential of these community-based solutions and show how they can pave the way towards a more resilient, equitable and thriving wellbeing economy for all. So, without further ado, a warm welcome.

María Llanos del Corral:
Thank you very much. I’m very happy to be here.

Carl Schlyter:
Yes. And I was actually happy reading about all the things you have been doing in favour of integration, local empowerment and regenerative agriculture. So, we have plenty of nice stuff to do there. And, one of your projects that I found really interesting was the village of Eroles. Could you tell us a little bit about what that is and how that came to be?

María Llanos del Corral:
So, the Eroles project, emerged out of our interest to create spaces for learning, for action. I just came out of an amazing, transformative experience at Schumacher College in Devon in the UK and that kind of way of understanding education is very much participatory, community based, collaborative and aims to discuss not only about the superficial causes of some of the poignant issues that we are going through, like climate change, migration, but also understanding the root causes and the interdependence and interrelationship amongst those issues and what root causes they can share.

Carl Schlyter:
And Schumacher that’s the author of the book Small is Beautiful, isn’t it? And it’s a highly recommendable book, actually.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, Schumacher in his book Small is Beautiful, he talks about the need for human scale approaches to economy, for the need for spirituality and creativity, to be embracing the kind of economic endeavours that we root forward, the need for community, the need for technology. So, so very much the principles of Schumacher, the writer economist was embedded in my training at Schumacher College, and we took that a little bit farther, into a more a kind of activist artist approach to how we do things. So, we came together in a small house in the Pyrenees in a very, very tiny hamlet where people from different backgrounds. And this is fundamental. In order to gain a better view of the system as a whole, from activists, artists, scientists, researchers, academia. So, people interested and just people wanted to explore what is going on with the migrant crisis, so-called, or how can we tackle, different approaches to narrative in climate change, for example. So, we convene these people, this diversity of people, this ecology of people to inquiry together about these issues with the idea that we then will do a project after. So that is learning for action. 

Carl Schlyter:
I think some of the principles behind what you’re doing there is interesting to talk about. So, one of the principles is land regeneration. How would you explain that?

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, I think we’ve shift from sustainability to regeneration because sustaining is not what we need now. What we need is to regenerate not only the land and the loss of its capacity to self-sustain and to nurture as and nurture itself, but also to regenerate relationships. How also people are exploiting the kind of new in the ways in which we produce and consume food, in the ways we relate to each other as well, the ways we relate to land, but also the ways we relate to each other. And we are seeing it now, for example, with people that have migrated. These people are fundamental actors in the ways we understand our food production and consumption, because they are cheap labour or slave labour. But also, it’s fundamental, the exploitation of land. So, we need to regenerate our relations with other cultures, with migrants and with each other. And then also another key element I would say is regenerate our relationship with care. And within that I also talk about the reproductive economy. That is also fundamental for this way of producing and consuming food. So, when we talk about land regeneration, it’s about bringing back the capacity for the land to thrive. But we not only talk about land, but also about relationships and about care regeneration.

Carl Schlyter:
Yeah, because that’s two other principles here. Regeneration of livelihoods. And that is also really interesting how you connect, that the social networking we have been dismantling needs to be rebuilt. And you also have creation of new livelihoods. So, it’s broadened this and co-creation of new cultures and long-term systemic change and integrating all of this. How do you go about locally to bring people into this? What are the tools you use?

María Llanos del Corral:
Well, I think the first the first important thing is that we need to question the ways we think about these issues. So, kind of a silver bullet, outcome driven simple solutions mentality, wouldn’t take us where we need to be. So, we need to, first of all, challenge the ways we think about integration, the ways we think about climate change, as isolated issues, but not more as interrelated issues. So, shifting from single issues to the relationships and patterns that we see amongst those issues. So therefore, we can then arrive to acupuncture solutions in a way. So, solutions that you can also use the time of like virtuous circles, the solutions that tackle the different root causes or tackle some of the interdependencies.

Carl Schlyter:
Yes, I think this is really interesting, the interdependencies, because you stress very much how everything is linked and relationship-built change. And in this podcast, we have many times been talking about dominance and control logic and you attack that logic from all aspects in our lives. And that I find really interesting. Can you explain how that is done?

María Llanos del Corral:
So, the mental model that we use is very much based on looking at what we can learn from living systems. And if we look at living systems, then we see that uncertainty is a key quality because the complex relationships amongst the different issues creates uncertainty. So, we cannot bring a command-and-control mentality to address complex issues. Social change for example. So first of all, being humble and embrace uncertainty. Second of all, focus more on multiple micro strategies. So, testing things out and seeing how they react with the context. Because there is no such thing as separation between a project and the community that you are working within, you’re in constant communication and influence. So, this is another important element test, prototype. Listen, test. Again. And another key thing is shift from parts to relationships. So, what are the key interdependencies that are at the root causes of the issues that you want to tackle. That kind of mentality will allow you to put forward solutions that are much more based on the acupuncture solutions. What I said before now, these virtuous cycles in a way so that tackling one thing, you’re actually creating a positive feedback loop into another thing, for example. 

Carl Schlyter:
So, the contrary to this is the thinking of a test tube logic where you control all inputs and repeat the outcomes every single time you do the test. This is really the contrast of this logic of how to rule a society.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, a teacher of mine said in international development where I work for a while now, we keep on doing things right, but not the right things. And I think this has to do also with the fact that we don’t even challenge the way we are thinking about the things that we are thinking, you know, so we are not challenging our mental models. And that’s the first kind of mistake. 

Carl Schlyter:
Speaking about blowing one’s mind when I read up on this project, I mean, not related to this project, but I saw then that the sky there was UNESCO protected and I never even thought about that this could be a possibility. 

María Llanos del Corral:
It’s amazing that it’s been, you know, named like that. It’s beautiful, the sky. But also, I mean, I think it tells a little bit about how nature and natural cycles and life is being preserved there. 

Carl Schlyter:
But isn’t it fantastic now not only want to have a fantastic sky, you want to have a fantastic earth, soil and community.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You need to come and see it.

Carl Schlyter:
I’ll try, certainly. I’ll take the train there. And when I come there with the train, I can also pass by La Bolina, which is another project that you have been running that also has many interesting aspects. So, could you explain a little bit how Eroles and La Bolina are interconnected themselves with each other?

María Llanos del Corral:
So Eroles, was an experiment of radical, transformative education where we use community, creativity, collaboration, radical popular education ideas to think about poignant issues that we were going through at the time. in Europe, for example, 2015, the theme was climate justice, and we do an action in the COP 21. In 2016, the theme was migration, and we do a series of gatherings of communities, of residences around campus. if people matter, power and privilege in solidarity work. So, this radical experiment on transformative education for action, I would add, because the idea was that these amalgamation and diverse people came together to inquire, to do something together. 

Carl Schlyter:
And one of the things they did together was the the UN canteen you did in Paris.

María Llanos del Corral:
Exactly. Yeah. The UN canteen tried to, it was a immersive theatre play proposal where people brought a vegetable and with the weight of the vegetable, they had, different power within the tables and then with their vegetable, and with others they had to cook one dish. But the power you had will give you access, perhaps, to the spices table will give you access to the media, etc. So, they had to cook something, amongst them with those power dynamics being in place, trying to emulate what is going on in the UN conversations. 

Carl Schlyter:
And was a mess or a good tasting thing in the end. 

María Llanos del Corral:
Not very delicious let’s say, but definitely food for thought.

Carl Schlyter:
Yeah, and I mean, the effort itself maybe gave some good nice food for the brain too.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, it was brilliant conversation after. So out of the second series of residencies around migration, the project that was born out of that was La Bolina. So, La Bolina tried to tackle some of the root causes of migration, not only from south to north countries, but also from the rural to the urban areas. some of those are the ways we produce and consume food, the concentration of land, the lack of biodiversity. So, what La Bolina tried to do was to work with people that have migrated and with local producers to create sustainable livelihoods in the rural areas of Spain. So, creating human scale inclusion project, where the inclusion process is very much held by the community and where the sustainable livelihoods come out of processes, where we regenerate our relationship with land, but also our relationship with the people that have migrated, that a lot of the times are as exploited as the land in the mainstream food production system. The mainstream integration system is very much focused on basic needs assimilation. So how do you assimilate our culture? Learning the language, which is fundamental. I’m not saying he’s not important, but, learning the language and the cultural kind of codes, and very much focused on labour and not the labour or the jobs that they want to do, but also what it is convenient to the receiving communities. So, things like, let’s say, intangible things, but fundamental things for integration, one would say sense of belonging, participation, well-being, happiness. All those are overlooked by the current system. And I think what our project also helps in doing was reinforce all those intangible and yet fundamental aspects of inclusion.

Carl Schlyter:
Speaking about well-being, how would you define a wellbeing economy? 

María Llanos del Corral:
I guess I mean, if we go back to, to the origins of the word economy, to the Greek root, where is Oikos and Nomos. Oikos and Nomos together is the management of the household and I would say even the care of the household. So, for me, a wellbeing economy is one that serves natural cycles, so is embedded in and in relationship with and in service of natural cycles. 

Carl Schlyter:
Is that both, natural cycles in relation to nature but also other human beings I assumed then?

María Llanos del Corral:
Exactly, so an economy, an energy that allows us to satisfy our needs. And again, a broaden understanding of needs where it’s not only basic needs, but, belonging needs, learning needs and leisure needs, participation needs. And also, is embedded within the natural limits of the earth. So, it’s an energy that allows us to satisfy needs that is in relationship with the natural world and in service of the natural world. And that also is centred on care. With this, I mean that understands, puts at the centre and recognises reproductive economy as well. So, for me, a wellbeing economy, it cannot not be if it is not feminist, decolonial and ecological. 

Carl Schlyter:
So that’s interesting that you mentioned these, because we actually had two other episodes where we go deeper into these subjects.  On the exploitation of women in the Global South. We have Jayati Ghosh, Indian feminist economist, who explains this in detail. And then we have another episode about this concentration of power and centralisation of economic power with Nicholas Shaxson on, tax havens and, global monopoly. So, I can recommend those who want to go deeper into that to also listen to those episodes actually.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, I will even add the episode that you have with Kojo Koram, shifting the economic legacy of colonialism, which is incredibly good, and very enlightening in terms of like how colonialism is kind of key and it still persists in the economic systems that we that we have today. 

Carl Schlyter:
Yeah, Kojo Koram is an English author that wrote the book about the British Empire, well worth reading, actually. Then one thing that I completely loved speaking about this that you have been doing is the supermarket museum. Such a wonderful idea. Could you tell us about that?

María Llanos del Corral:
It was a way of including creativity and art as a way of exposing certain ideas, creating awareness and the idea was to run through or visualize what is the process that the food and the people that produce it go through until you find it in your supermarket? So, it was a project run by, a Polish, organisation that I don’t remember the name right now. And, and two other partners, including La Bolina and we were, in a way, portraying a future where supermarkets have no need anymore. And we were telling the stories, the crazy stories, really, if you think about it, of how food is produced and consumed right now. But I think for me, the very interesting aspect of it is brings creativity, imagination, which is incredibly necessary today to regain our capacity to imagine a different future. More so now with this kind of fear-based agenda, the far right and you know, that is predominant in the ways we are living our current realities right now. So, so gaining our capacity to imagine a future where supermarkets are no longer necessary is fantastic. 

Carl Schlyter:
I agree, when I was a member of European Parliament, we created a small group that wanted to tackle the chokehold that some companies have on parts of the food chain. So, the farmers are exploited in the Global South and in Europe, and the consumers are exploited by these oligopolies of huge companies and supermarket chains. So, we’re losing in both ends and also losing as the environment. And I like in this Supermarket Museum manifesto, or what you should call it, you have some points there that you want to bring up that I find interesting. One of them is interconnectedness, could you tell us a little bit more about how that would work.

María Llanos del Corral:
So well in this kind of experimental proposal that was to work at a human scale in a village, in a rural area where we could create sustainable livelihoods from agricultural production and other initiatives that maybe we can talk about later on. That produces food that is zero kilometre. So that is short circuits of commercialization. That is ecological, obviously, and that is seasonal. And then we have a direct contact with other local producers because their interest is not only the labelling on our project, on the people that were, working with us, had created these kinds of sustainable livelihoods. But also, how do we incorporate other local producers that are also struggling to find ways to commercialize their products, or even to stand their ground when they want to do agriculture initiatives? So, we come together, but also, in relationship directly with consumer, and that little community based on trust, based on values. It’s a completely different way of satisfying our basic needs of food. But it goes a little bit farther and we can think about Mumford Max-Neef human scale needs. It goes beyond the satisfaction of basic needs and taps into belonging, community, leisure, understanding, learning all those needs that we as human also have. 

Carl Schlyter:
Yeah, I mean, you also speak here about different models that you are battling between the current model of food as an anonymous commodity, a raw material with the caloric measure for global trade versus the view of food intimately nested in our relationships with each other and connected to the land and our communities. So that’s the antithesis to the current system.

María Llanos del Corral:
Exactly. And I think, I mean, now the European Union has this strategy on the farm to fork, realising and recognising the need for small scale producers, distributed across the territory, not only to regenerate land but regenerate culture, because, you know, you conserve also different words even, ways of working the land, traditions. And you also do quite a lot to combat climate change by having this kind of re-distributed. And also, you’re tackling the increasing need for food security. So, this is a complete, more circular way to satisfy human existence really, but not only human existence but, respectful of life cycles, let’s say of natural cycles. 

Carl Schlyter:
In contrast to current, models. I mean, you also, challenge the illusion of a supermarket to something efficient. Would you please explain why a supermarket is not an efficient solution, but rather just creating a lot of external costs?

María Llanos del Corral:
The supermarket, in a way, it very much represents this kind of economies of scale mentality, where you try to become more efficient by reducing costs, which in the end is unemployment, is loss of land, is depopulation. So, when we are talking about the efficiency of the supermarkets, it’s a fallacy really, because the external and negative externalities, all the costs of trying to deal with the downsides of supermarkets and the current food production is being paid by the state, so it is expensive. The current food production and supermarkets are not efficient. So, the prices that we find in the supermarkets do not account for these negative externalities If we were to put those costs into the price of food, that we will have an increase in terms of the price that we find in the supermarkets. Yeah. So, the low-cost production of food is being paid somewhere else. So, if you are buying €1 for a kilo of oranges, someone is paying for that. We are trying to convey is just unfair system that doesn’t only account to the value, so it doesn’t reduce the value of food to its economic price. And that’s when the efficiency concept blows away, because efficiency in the way we are understanding it, it only accounts for the economic value. But when we are talking about relationships, connection, learning, etc., then the agricultural production of food, it gives you way more to a fair economic price as well.

Carl Schlyter:
So, the criticism are really the hidden costs of it and the dehumanization of our food procurement in our daily lives. Because, I mean, to be fair, the supermarket is convenient because I can get my spices and fruit and vegetables and whatever, everything at the same place. So that is convenient for people. But there are so many hidden costs, and there are some so many exploitations before it ends up on the shelves. That’s really the system you want to attack with this campaign.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, I think we need to expand our understanding of like why these costs this particular thing. How is it that a kilo of oranges can cost €1? How is it possible? How is it possible that, honey from China is cheaper than the honey from my local producer? And if you start kind of like inquiry into that using a systems perspective, seeing the interrelationship between things and like widening a little bit further than the just the price, then you start seeing that someone is paying for that, who’s paying for climate change right now, probably taxpayers.

Carl Schlyter:
Or nature itself.

María Llanos del Corral:
And nature. Yeah, definitely. The nature and the well-being of people that have to migrate. The wellbeing of the cultures that are being in war right now. You know, so there are a lot of intricacies into that. So, I think we need to step out of the logic of efficiency based on price and go more into what kind of way of producing and consuming food is according to life. And the same with an economy, an economy that actually puts life at the centre and it’s a service rather than the other way around.

Carl Schlyter:
Yeah, it sounds better than one that puts death in the centre as today. But I’m also fascinated by this attempt to integrate questions of integration, but also like not only global that people need or are forced to move to a place, even if they really didn’t actually want to. And also, the same goes for many villages, not only in Spain, but all over the world, that people leave them because everything is centralised. What you’re doing now is attempting to like, solve those two problems at the same time. Integration and depopulation of the countryside’s everywhere.

My old press secretary there had a very nice experience. She lived in a medium sized city in Sweden, and you had this small village that was being depopulated. You had empty houses, drug addicts moved in, and there were a few old people and drug addicts in the beginning. And then gradually their friends that didn’t use drugs. They had a lot of energy and they thought it was a really nice place and the houses were super cheap. So, they started to create this kind of cultural community, more self-sufficient community food growing community, festivals community, and the old people there, they really got a nice new community building up. and this area, instead of people leaving it, people are struggling to find houses to move in to this area. You see the same effect where you are building up, not only, you know, regenerative agriculture, integration project, new coffee shops and whatever, do you also see this effect? Does this area where you’re involved and know; does it have a pool effect though?

María Llanos del Corral:
Yes, since we’ve been there and I don’t want to create any kind of like, direct relationship, but perhaps we have contributed towards, at least some families and families moving back to the, to this village, which perhaps we were talking about to 0.1%, 10% of increase in population, in the last years. I mean, we definitely had the Kobe crisis and this kind of rethinking of where do we want to leave, you know, like that is that is that I think that happens across the world. But where people decide to go in the rural areas are where there are projects that are interesting and inspiring, where you feel that your values can be met. I think one fundamental aspect of rural regeneration or rural repopulation projects is that there is a project, that there is a vision out there and well marketed. So, when we have been inspired by many other initiatives that have kind of like linked, rural depopulation and agriculture and migration, like Riazze in Italy, Nero, Comini in Italy, that is a very interesting initiative, and mostly that in South Spain, where they have inverted this tendency and there is like queue for people to go on and live there. so that is very interesting, inspiring initiatives out there. But to respond to your previous question, because I think I haven’t responded. So, people get inspired by initiatives that speak to your values and principles. And I think it in a way, what is important is not only to tackle livelihoods per se, creating agriculture logical initiatives or we created a training centre where we brought activists and artists from different places to inquiry in issues such as organisational change, power, privilege, integration, etc. but also, you have to bring the cultural aspect. So, we’ve touch on that as well. And we have a centre where we do cinema, second hand markets, flea markets, we do trainings, we do awareness raising sessions, we do jam sessions. Anything that creates a sense of aliveness and also, spaces for people to come together to have discussions and relate. And that’s how integration efforts in a small scale, like a village, are easier because people can come together and relate. So, this kind of fear of the other reduce is as you enter in relationship. Now a lot of our friends from the Gambia, from Morocco, etc. are living in the in these rural areas that haven’t seen a black person ever before. Sometimes they are not part of the community.

Carl Schlyter:
I think this is something that I see all over the place. I talked with the representative of Auroville in India, there also culture was important and many of these projects, culture is more important than in the daily capitalist economic lifestyle of people, where they don’t have the time or energy for it or the community for it. So here you can say that culture plays a big role. In Auroville they also had some kind of spiritual or other motivation. Is that also present here, or do you think you can build these projects without that aspect, that culture itself is enough? 

María Llanos del Corral:
I think things need to be tackled integrally and because everything speaks to everything else, you cannot have a livelihood initiative without values and a culture. It’s human underneath. So, it’s important to also visualize that and to work at that level of narrative building of values, etc. So just having a cultural aspect to bring forward a project I think would be working in isolation, in silos, whereas I think where when we tackle a more integrated approach, you think about livelihoods, but when you think about how that translates into culture and into values, how do we make this visible through what means? I think this is important. You also mentioned not only cultural but also, spiritual and, definitely think about the spiritual in my relationship with others and my relationship with nature. That is kind of spiritual, that speaks to the soul. And, Schumacher in the Small Is Beautiful talks about livelihood that produce something, you know, the, the crafts, the craft of doing something that speaks to the soul and that benefits the community. And that’s a right livelihood. So, I think that coming back to a relationship with what is transcendent. What is beyond us is fundamental also for the kind of paradigm shift that we need to go towards.

Carl Schlyter:
And you’re helping people working for shifts also with trainings, you have something called EULEX and I checked out a few of the ongoing courses now, and they were really interesting, like one was about how to keep an organisation working even when outside pressure mounts and so on. How would you deal with that if you are in an organisation, like many environment organisations today, they are under ever increasing pressure by more oppressive governments and regimes. What are the kinds of tools you can use so, this outside pressure doesn’t create more internal pressure? Could you give some examples?

María Llanos del Corral:
One example I could give is that I’ve been working recently with Greenpeace Spain that are in the brave process of thinking critically on the ways they can better organise to respond to the changing, volatile quality of the context that we live within and its complexities. So, this means a structural change in the ways we organise the organisation, in a way. So, is it more decentralised, like sociocracy? You see it more distributed? Is it more project driven? But also, it requires a cultural shift. And I don’t mean only that the organization’s culture changes, but also that we do a process of changing ourselves. So, in a way, moving from one way of thinking and organising requires organisational changes and also, personal changes. What I like to speak about is that that is a necessary process of unlearning. So, where we question the mental models that we are working from, that we challenge them. And that is a lifelong process, that’s for sure. But also, that we learn other models, frameworks, approaches that can help us to strategize, for example, accounting for complexity, develop projects that are not so much based on command and control. You know, the logical framework in the international development programs so that are much more agile, much more adaptive, much more in relationship with the context that they are working within. So, we need this process of unlearning our habits, our biases, and a process of learning new ways of thinking and being that can help us transition towards a more sustainable. I think, coherent and relevant therefore organisations. 

Carl Schlyter:
So, what does the difference then is you’re assigned to project lead something and you don’t want to become a project dominator. But really true, a good leader. What would I do differently.

María Llanos del Corral:
So, listen, convey other perspectives so that you and your team gain a better understanding of the context. And always partially, let’s say that we will never know. Or because complex living systems are in constant flux and in constant change. And when you act, there is going to be a reaction. So, learn to listen, work on our ego so that we can be humble in the not knowing. Collaborate and collaborate better. Putting pieces of the pie together to form one pie is not collaborating is just, you know, negotiating, negotiating actions. For example, when we truly collaborate is where something new emerges out of our collective intelligence. That’s the kind of collaboration we require nowadays, I think, and be creative and have fun. because out of fun, there’s ways of thinking and being those releases innovation, and that’s crucial. 

Carl Schlyter:
I think that is also good for the spirit. Generally, if you check old fashioned control and domination, colonialism or patriarchy or whatever, old system you have, then we tried to replace this with a democratic system and democracy, but there you sometimes not have a fully functioning democracy. You have like dictatorship of the majority. And then you mentioned sociocracy before, where you’re moving more towards consensus-based solutions. How would you do this in a nice way to create this kind of consensus atmosphere? What can help you do that?

María Llanos del Corral:
So, I think there is back again to learning. I think it’s fundamental that if organisations go to a more distributed way of working, where power and decision making goes down to where the action lies, we need to training crucial things like power and power dynamics. How do we identify them? How do we point at them? How do we open this base to talk about them because they are going to constantly appear? You mentioned it before. You can create an organisation with the best intentions in the world, but it sits within a wider cultural context, and the systems of oppression that are outside it will triple in somehow through our own actions, because we are still learning as people and the organisation is still learning. So, you need to create a space where power and participation gets checked and looked and reflected upon, and then the organisation can adapt to better, better forms in themselves. So, power and participation checks, and training because we are not, we are not used to collaborate. We are not used to make the decisions together. And I’m not saying negotiation skills because that business has done quite a lot of developing those, but it’s more entering into a kind of conversation that something new can emerge out of both of us, that kind of way of relating to each other. And again, this requires a lot of listening skills that we have lost. So, you need to train conflict resolution in listening and communication and setting up infrastructures for your organisation to learn, to adapt and to change.

Carl Schlyter:
Another of your courses that fascinated me was Anti-Oppressive training. I think that in today’s society we see a rapidly increasing oppression also in Western democracies.

So, what does that mean? That sounds really interesting.

María Llanos del Corral:
So, the Anti-Oppression course aims to bring people to reflect on the oppressive systems that can formulate within our organisations, but that definitely outside. And those are the ones that we try to combat, but also reinforces strategies, methods and ways of doing in repressive systems. And you said it before, and I completely agree and is increasing, we are finding ourselves in increasingly oppressive laws, governments that are putting activists in jail that are really jeopardising our capacity to speak up. So that course kind of like invites us to reflect on those different levels and to gain capacity to sustain ourselves and our action against these, these oppressive systems. 

Carl Schlyter:
So, what kind of toolkit would I need to help my organisation to fight these oppressive tendencies, both outside and internally?

María Llanos del Corral:
I think the first would be like create spaces for critical reflection amongst the organisation. And if you think about it, spaces for reflection within organisations they lack. Because a lot of what we may have been evaluating actions and outcomes, etc. but sitting together and say, what are we doing? How are we doing it? What are the challenges that we are that we are facing? And allow our reflection to go a little bit deeper is rare. So that would be one, second, we gain the knowledge in a way of how other organisations are sustaining their activity within these complexities. And three, work on resilience and on resilience. I mean, our capacity as individuals to be more resilient. So, to avoid burnout, to reach out for help when we are suffering from some kind of trauma or we’ve been targeted by oppression. So, we’re capacity to sustain ourselves and to reach out. And also, as an organisation and part of the vision, I would say, as social movements, how can we create communities of care that could support us in the work that we are doing? Another thing, I’m not talking specifically, about this course, I’m going a little bit beyond. Alliance building is fundamental. I think that the right is doing very good at alliance building and narrative building, I should say, and we need to gain our capacity to work together and to put forward agendas that can really tackle decisions to be made at a European level, for example, or at other more global spaces. 

Carl Schlyter:
You have been making initiatives locally, concretely based on activism and involvement, and you say that you know, everything is organic, there is no specific outcome. Everything is context driven. Therefore, we cannot copy what you have been doing exactly somewhere else. You had to build it up. The structure must be built up then, but in your mind, how would you see a possibility for these kinds of initiatives to spread? What kind of advice would you give people who want to create a local community with the similar values that you have been doing? What can you help us here as an advice from somebody who already did this?

María Llanos del Corral:
Well, first of all is true that we cannot copy recipes, but I could definitely listen to how make you make your cake. But we can tell stories and we can share guiding principles, and then the challenges that we have face etc. And the challenges are as important as the successes that we’ve achieved, perhaps even more so. So, I guess what you are doing, for example, right now here is telling stories about different ways of thinking, different projects, etc. So, telling stories and sharing those stories with others is fundamental. But I think and you tap into something that I have a struggle with, is we need to be better at building networks. And I think this is something that the agroecological movement, let’s say, which is one of the things that La Bolina has been doing, alternative food production and consumption with people that have migrated so that there is a lack of organisation at the state level. And I understand why. I mean, we are too busy producing food, doing our own communication, trying to create awareness, trying to sustain our families. You know, it’s hard to then also go to the level of participating. I know the challenge that we face is you can do quite a lot at the local level, but if the laws don’t change, you’re constantly going to be putting up against a fight. And with this, I mean more protective, for the local production laws, more support in terms of EU funding. We have this new funding coming up, and I’m talking now the ecological food production and consumption only, these new from Farm to Fork strategies in the European Union that are benefiting the same producers, which is bigger scale, concentration, intensification and the specialisation kind of farming, you know, so it’s hard for small producers still to get to these ecological transition funds, at least in our experience. So, the local initiatives really need to come together to lobby for policy change. 

Carl Schlyter:
And also, practical change. Like when I speak to big farmers, they say we need this efficiency. Yes, yes we have climate problems. And yes, there might be power relation problems, but we need as intensive machinery, we need all the calories we take out from the soil. We can change the system.  What would you tell this farmer, what are the benefits after you have change the system you’re talking about this more integrated system? How can you convince such a person that this massive, intensified, earth destroying, social relationship destroying agriculture, that the transition for this farmer would be nice and safe?

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, it’s true, it’s tricky. I wouldn’t say anything to them. I will try to show, and, I think I understood that a lot of the people in the rural areas, there have been kind of a stigmatised by their ancestral, not enough advanced ways of doing agriculture so blamed. And then they buy this model. Now people are telling them to actually go back or move forward. So, I think there is a little bit of a defensiveness there. So, I will show rather than tell. And really, I will sit with them and ask them, how did your grandparents did? How did you see the soil before? And now tell me, what are what have you learned throughout this process of viewers, historically and in your ancestors, your relationship with land, etc.? So, I will I will do those things. Listen, show no tell and you know, and a company then when they are ready, perhaps to jump into another model. 

Carl Schlyter:
This reminds me of one of my favourite but unfortunately, really small FAO-programs. So, the Food and Agriculture Organisation on the United Nation level, they have a small program where they don’t go to tell farmers how to change everything, but rather to use the modern science, but implementing it in the current economic and technological level that the farmers in that community are. So how can you do what you’re already doing slightly more efficient, but without the need for massive investment or destroy the community web? This I think is interesting. Like how can you incrementally change something to the better without forcing people to change culture and lifestyles? That is an interesting project, and it seems like you are doing a little bit of this also.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, I think this tapping into this knowledge that was already there and regain it and put it into conversation with what we are doing right now, but also in conversation with, you know, with the realities that we live, the farmers in Spain, the farmers are being, where I live, I believe farmers are being paid €0.08 for a kilo of oranges. Yes. Nothing so ridiculous, you know, under the cost of production. So, let’s open these spaces for all those elements to be in the conversation. This is wrong. So, and then we put ideas, solutions or other topics in conversation to that so that they can make up their own minds. And I think this is when we were talking about targeting with La Bolina, also cultural issues and awareness raising, these are the kinds of things that we did. For example, we run, an event in the squares where we talked about this. We put a question and then we brought different producers, different people that are even transforming their products, something that no one even thinks about. But you need to integrate transformation as well to create a more circular economy, within the rural areas and to gain back that power as well and that economic gain. So, yes, you open the square and then you bring these conversations up. We had Starhawk talking about social permaculture and permaculture. We had many other people come in to open these conversations in this quest. So those are the ways in which we can go about it. 

Carl Schlyter:
My impression of your work is really that you are like the good parent. You show and do the ideals that you want to live after. Instead of telling people in your own children what to do and not living by those standards yourself. And I think this is also very inspiring. I have noticed many times in politics that when you show that something works, the resistance goes down. People who have met your different projects over the years, what’s the kind of most common reactions? 

María Llanos del Corral:
So first of all, I want to speak to what you just said. I don’t want to portray a vision that has been easy and, you know, and we haven’t made mistakes. We’ve done them, you know, but I think perhaps the difference is that we are willing to share them and we are willing to learn from them. And also, that there is a process of unlearning. I mean, I have been built culturally in a patriarchal, colonial, capitalist economy, but also culture. So, we will be making mistakes as we try to deconstruct some of the ways of thinking and being that we grow up in, in Western countries. That’s a little bit what is underneath of our culture as well, no? And also, I wanted to say that I think it’s important, and we do this with our projects to challenge the idea that there is an organisation doing something in a community or to a community. Well, we have done it integrating ourselves as people, but also as an organisation in the ecosystem of things happening, the ways we organise as well, they are horizontal and distributed. So, people that have migrated have power, in decision making with us in the organisations. So, everything trying to emulate or to respond to the fact that there is no such thing as an object and a subject of research or of action that we are embedded within, and understanding that I think it brings a humbler approach, but also, a more reflective one, because you have to constantly be checking what are you doing, or how you are doing. and what impact is it having? 

Carl Schlyter:
And that’s probably a more fundamental shift in the logic of power itself from the dominant structure today, where you have power from position or wealth or capacity for violence, where a subject is ruled over ordered to do something rather than cooperative power based on consensus, and which is a mutually agreement based power where you decide to do something and put that forward. So, I think this is generally an important lesson here to change the concept of what power is, to take it back.

María Llanos del Corral:
Exactly. And also, to account for the difference of background, the difference of understanding what consensus is, the difference of understanding what participation is and how does it look like, the recognition that we come from different backgrounds, how we have different privileges and all that needs to be put into the pot and into the centre for us to look at it and then find ways to authentically relate to each other. For example, in La Bolina we have people from The Gambia, from Lebanon, from Morocco, from France, from the UK, from Italy, from Spain, in different times of its evolutions. And when we were sitting in a circle, which is a way in which we perhaps understand this a participatory, horizontal way with everyone can speak. It was incredibly disempowerment for people from the Gambia, because in their culture they won’t speak up or against an elder, and if they understood someone as being an elder, they couldn’t speak. And we were there thinking why these people don’t participate, you know? So, we required us to find ways in which we could have more intimate conversations and really distil what was going on behind the scenes to find spaces where we could define participation together and find our own ways. 

Carl Schlyter:
And I think this is connected to what you said before, learning from your mistakes, because both these things can only happen if you have a sense of trust and safety in the group. Then you can start learning from your mistakes. Then you can be honest with them and then you can be better after you’re doing your mistakes. So, I think this is really interconnected.

María Llanos del Corral:
Yeah, I think this is crucial, no? The ways we relate to each other. I don’t think of my co-workers as my co-workers. We are bringing radical friendship at the centre of the ways; we work and the ways we create community. So, whereas we have put radical references at the centre in other ways of doing community development. Specifically, it speaks about not to relate emotionally to beneficiaries or to the communities that you are working with. And I think that that’s a mistake because we need the humanness and the relationship in order to build, therefore human projects as well, and the spaces where you can actually talk about power. I’ve experienced problems with projects where us as external counterparts working with our community and that have been in conflict because we were incapable of understanding each other’s perspectives, and we were too far away to in the project to actually say, let’s stop and redo it again. Let’s stop and rebuild our relationships again. So how do we deal with that? Something that you said is crucial. So, through radical silencing, we build trust. And through building trust, we build the capacity to deal with conflict and to deal with this power dynamics and to deal with the oppressive kind of interactions that perhaps will occur.

Carl Schlyter:
Well, that’s wonderful. I mean, this whole episode has been a little bit about how to strengthen cooperation power rather than strengthening competitiveness power. So, and that’s the dominant concept today, so, we need a shift here. But you have really helped me, and I hope the listeners to understand this shift in what we need to do. So, thank you so much for today.

María Llanos del Corral:
You’re welcome. It’s been a pleasure.