Listen!

Scott Neigh got involved in social movements when he was an undergraduate in the 1990s, and over the years he has participated in many different ways in many different struggles. These days, most of his involvement centres on building movement infrastructure, particularly related to grassroots and independent media. Neigh is a writer and media-maker, and that work got him thinking about listening and how it relates to social movements. Much of his work has involved listening to and amplifying the voices of people who are part of grassroots struggles for justice and liberation. He has written and edited movement-focused grassroots journalism for 25 years. He did an oral history project in which he interviewed 50 long-time activists from across so-called Canada and published two books based on that work. For ten years, he was the host and producer of Talking Radical Radio, which broadcast on community stations across the country. In the course of his work on the show, he did more than 500 in-depth interviews with activists, organizers and other change-makers. He lives with his partner, their son, and their two cats in Hamilton, Ontario.

• : IntroductionPart 1:: What Listening Is: Listening Practices: Listening to Each Other: Listening Weaves the WorldPart 2:: Listening’s Reach and Limits: The Scream and the Murmur: Failures and HarmsPart 3: Listening and Change: Everyday Resistance: Collective Movements: Learning from Movements: Conclusion: Epilogue

“A vital contribution to the understanding that we are inextricably part of a humming, buzzing collective world, this book is a gentle and relentless invitation to think about listening as collective and political. Neigh’s searching, eloquent engagement in Listen! will surprise and nourish you, offering a generous orientation for the unfinished, imperfect work of listening as part of building a future for all. Read this to learn what it would mean to listen better for the resonances of that possible world!”