The SHIFT Journal of Social Transformation

Seeing systems change in action

Featured works

The Catch in the Commons: Producing Knowledge on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is, without a doubt, a seminal part of collective knowledge production and sharing. Indeed, as Magdalena Olszanowski writes, "often Wikipedia is the first research step." Rather than ignore it, she argues in this piece that all of Wikipedia must be engaged with critically—the biases, the benefits, and the hegemonic systems that surround it.

Shaping the culture of journalism we need

by Alaina Pert

Using the media to advance narratives that reinforce certain worldviews and values is a strategic way to build different types of power. As Alaina Pert writes, the power grab doesn’t usually happen overnight, it often happens as part of a process of shifting norms. As those norms shift, so do the narratives that become the framework for stories and messages we see circulating around us. Independent media, Pert argues, holds a key role in this process.

A person speaking into a megaphone, surrounded by protestors.

Find Your Own Power First

by Jared Lackman-Mincoff

While we often hear that the role of a journalist is to speak truth to power, Jared Lackman-Mincoff weaves a personal narrative that examines not only what grants journalists the power, but also how they can—and must—cultivate their own sense of purpose and conviction to fulfill this role.

Additional works

Student Hunger needs Solutions not Band-Aids

by Nasreen Begum

As both hunger and food inflation continually rise, Nasreen Begum identifies the glaring shortcomings of our government's response. "The Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit might help me pay for my groceries this week," writes Nasreen, "but it won’t protect me from the next climate disaster that wipes out a harvest. No one can buy their way out of an ecological crisis. To ensure that every Canadian, from the student in Montreal to the family in the North, has a seat at the table, we must rebuild our food system from the ground up."

Hundreds of people marching on the streets of Montreal holding climate justice banners, signs, and Quebec flags.

Climate Action was Never Enough

by Nicolas Chevalier

Adapted from their Honours Thesis, Concordia graduate and member of Climate Justice Montreal Nicolas Chevalier makes the case for why we must embrace a justice-based approach for climate organizing and climate solutions.

How to say goodbye

by Richenda Grazette

As much as we try to prepare for goodbye, we can’t predict the movement of things underneath us and how that movement impacts our planning. As she leaves her position at SHIFT, Richenda reflects on what she's learned about preparing for, thinking through, and saying goodbye through SHIFT's "Sunsetting Process". To her, goodbyes are an ongoing journey: the best we can do is do it together all the way along, be transparent and honest, and keep a healthy balance of grief and gratitude.

Letters for communing with home

from Love Letters to Social Transformation

When we listen to the many voices of the land—the wind, the rivers, trees, even the din of its human and non-human people—we are called back to it, to our ancestors and relations, and to a vulnerable part of ourselves. These pieces represent moments of reflection and slowing down to commune with and speak both of and to the land and home, whether we know it intimately or are in the process of nurturing that intimacy.

Letters for cultivating home

from Love Letters to Social Transformation