Perfect activist

The participants

– recognise the inconsistency and unattainability of (their own) requirements, which often remain unspoken.

– question assumptions about hidden hierarchies regarding knowledge, skills, invulnerability, etc.

– feel encouraged to work for a socio-ecological and globally just world in the long term.

Procedure

Background

The exercise „The perfect activist“ comes from the topics of sustainable activism and individual/collective resilience (ability to resist and recover in crises). People who are committed to socio-ecological change and global justice are in constant contact with the multiple crises of this world and often have high expectations of themselves and others.

Preparation

A flipchart with a stick figure on it is placed in the middle of the participants.

Implementation

1. Introduction (3 minutes)

The facilitator formulates introductory words, e.g:

‘We are now going to do an exercise to look at what expectations you actually have of yourselves and others in the context of your own commitment. You may be familiar with the feeling that there are people around you who simply do everything right, or at least ‘better than me’. We want to playfully reveal and express this here.“

2. Reflection (2 minutes)

The participants sit in a circle and the flipchart with the drawn stick figure is in the middle. The facilitator asks introductory questions and invites the participants to spend two minutes on their own.

Example questions:

• What can the perfect activist do?
• What do they do?
• Where does the person come from?
• What do they do for a living?
• What is the person’s everyday life like?
• How is the person doing?
• What do they need?

These questions can be adapted and expanded depending on the area of activity/commitment.

3. Association (10 minutes)

The participants can freely associate and throw their thoughts into the round about what all claims are a perfect activist. The facilitator writes the terms around the stick figure on the flipchart. Conflicting associations are also written down. Depending on the development of the associations, the instructors can also consciously point out contradictions between the individual associations, or invite further associations, ask questions about areas that have not yet been mentioned, etc.

4. Evaluation (10 minutes)

The following questions are suitable:

• Invite feelings: What did these claims trigger in you?
• Where do you notice contradictions?
• Is it even possible to fulfil them?
• What systems/thought patterns do you recognise in these demands that you actually want to criticise, change or abolish? (e.g. meritocracy, competition, etc.)
• Strip away the demands: Invite yourself to shake out or strip away your body.

Variants

After collecting the terms together on the flipchart, the participants go into individual work in which they either freewrite for 10 minutes (stay in a writing flow) or draw. The following questions are given to the participants:

• Where do I recognize these demands in myself?
• Which of these demands do I experience as stress?
• What do I want from people around me in stressful situations/phases?

After the 10 minutes of individual work, the participants go into a 10-15 minute small group discussion about their experiences. These are no longer shared in plenary.

Digital implementation

An online tool is needed in which a stick figure or a person’s head is drawn on a presentation slide. The associated terms of the participants are written into the chat and read out loud by a facilitator.

Tips and notes for instructors

It has proven useful for one facilitator to moderate while the other facilitator writes down the associations made by the participants.

The method enables reflection on how unattainable, stress-inducing and often contradictory these demands can be. It gives the participants access to the topic of resilience and invites them to speak. In addition, it triggers an “unlearning” of one’s own demands, both individually and at group or collective level.

The method can be used in various fields of activity, e.g. voluntary services, educational work, role issues in groups, etc.

Give the participants time to feel their way into the respective demands. Depending on the context, further questions about the perfect activist can be asked in the room. E.g.: “What kind of clothes does the person wear? How do they eat? Where does their knowledge come from? How does the person behave towards others?” The questions and answers can be exaggerated. It is important to demystify the claims that arise afterwards and to realize in a reality check that they are not our common goal at all, that they are unfulfillable anyway and probably contradictory in themselves.

Stripping away is important for physically letting go of demands.