Emergent Strategy : Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.

“Necessary, vital, and timely.” —Ayana Jamieson, Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network

“Adrienne leads us on a passionate, purposeful, intimate ride into this Universe where relationships spawn new possibilities.  Her years of dedication to facilitating change by partnering with life invite us to also join with life to create the changes so desperately needed now.” —Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science

“Adrienne has challenged me, enlightened me and reminded me that transformation happens in our natural world every day and we can borrow from it strategies to transform ourselves, our organizations, and our society.” —Denise Perry, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD)

“A word/heart sojourn through the hard questions.” — Makani Themba,  facilitator for the Movement for Black Lives

“Emergent Strategy…reminds us, directly and by example, that wonder (which at its heart is love), is the foundation of our ability to shape change and create the world we want.” —Alta Starr, leadership development trainer at Generative Somatics

“Drawing on sources as varied as poetry, science fiction, forests, ancestors, and a desired future, Emergent Strategy speaks with ease about what is hard and brings us into that ease without losing its way.  Savor and enjoy!” —Elissa Perry, Management Assistance Group

adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, and doula living in Detroit.