Issue 38 | November 2025

November 05, 2025

Welcome to the November 2025 edition of Miaaw Monthly, courtesy of our current newsletter provider Beehiiv.com.

We continue with a new podcast every fortnight, and a growing humof behind-the-scenes research and archiving.

And, as usual, we continue to hope that you will send us something that you want to include in Miaaw Monthly, or something that you want to suggest for the podcasts, by emailing us at [email protected]. We will be happy to include your news and suggestions here and hunt down the topics you want to hear in the podcasts.

PODCASTS FOR NOVEMBER 2025

Friday October 7

Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse| Episode 80

This month Owen Kelly looks into the idea of cultural coherence, something that bubbled to the surface after a Conservative Party member used it in an interview with the Sunday Times. She appeared to use it one way, and then later claimed she meant it in a rather different way.

What do people mean by cultural coherence? Should we regard the idea as dog-whistle politics, or should we see it as a useful idea we need to use wisely, before it gets claimed by those who would whistle to dogs?

Friday October 21

A Culture of Possibility | Episode 58

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso talk with writer and curator Laura Raicovich, one of the initiators of Fall of Freedom, an action beginning 21 November in the US.

This is described as “an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation”. It intends to start “activating a nationwide wave of creative resistance.”

A THOUSAND WORDS

Remembering Michael Wadada (see piece below)

WTF Can Artists Do? (part 2)

The USDAC sent us an impassioned essay by Jordan Seaberry in an email newsletter:

When I sat down to make a follow-up to WTF Can Artists Do During a Fascist Takeover?!, I froze. Every idea felt too small for the scale of crisis we’re in.

So I turned back to a place where I’ve found real clarity and possibility: movement wisdom. This summer, we partnered with Beautiful Trouble to host a training called Artists Against Authoritarianism. The session was led by the brilliant Nadine Bloch, who reminded us that resistance isn’t magic, it’s a strategy. I left that training energized and clearer than I had been in a long time.

Instead of trying to solve everything at once, I decided to focus this next comic on three simple (but essential) questions:

  1. What do authoritarians around the world actually do?

  2. How do we organize effective, creative resistance?

  3. And what role can artists play in that struggle?

These questions cracked something open for me, and I hope this comic does the same for you.

You can click here to read the full comic.

Remembering Michael Wadada

Wikipedia notes that “Suns of Arqa are a world music collective founded in 1979 by Michael Wadada. Since the group's formation, over 200 people from around the world have played and recorded with them, and in many cases these were like-minded musicians Wadada met as he travelled the world. Pioneers of World Beat, Ambient, Downtempo and Electro-Dub, Suns of Arqa draw inspiration from around the world, interpreting indigenous, tribal and classical folk traditions. They have created an impressive legacy and earned worldwide recognition.”

Michael Wadada died at sunset on October 24, 2021. The last album he led was The Wolf of Badenoch. If you want to know more then you can read an interesting essay about Wadada, by Steve Barker at The Wire, if you click here.

I was reminded of this by an email from The Suns of Arqa a few days ago from Bandcamp, celebrating the fourth anniversary of his passing.

You can find a lot of The Suns of Arqa’s music on Bandcamp.

The GreaterThan Lab

The GreaterThan Collective Ltd works from Bristol in south west England. They have a regular newsletter, in which they explain what they do and how their work has progressed. This is part of the current newsletter:

“Research has shown that democratic participation at work can nourish participation in political life—just as non-democratic structures can quietly normalize authoritarian patterns. The way we organize is never neutral; it either reinforces the status quo or opens up space for more regenerative structures and cultures. 

The stakes are too high not to shape more postgrowth, less hierarchical, democratic, conscious or regenerative (pick your term) organisations and institutions. It is about organising in ways that nourish life rather than extract from it. 

The theoretical knowledge for postgrowth organising is already there through ample research and practice. Now is the moment to act, strengthen and elevate the living examples that apply this knowledge that is grounded in pre-capitalist old wisdoms and translated to modern contexts”.

These are some of the paragraphs from what we now call The Greaterthan Lab; one of the new ways we have of understanding ourselves and the impact we have at Greaterthan. 

“The Greaterthan Lab is our living laboratory and practice space for experiments with postgrowth organizing; through Greaterthan Services we walk alongside other teams and organizations, offering accompaniment as they navigate their own questions around culture and structure. We don’t offer blueprints—we meet people where they are, and we learn together”.  

You can find out more about the GreaterThan Collective if you click here.

Oops

The web page for edition 20 of Friday Number Five, which went out on Friday October 31, was briefly online with none of the promised references showing. We fixed that as soon as humanly possible, and if you have a look now you will find all the track listings present and correct!

The next edition of the Miaaw Monthly will appear as if by magic on Wednesday December 3rd. Any contributions, comments, or suggestions gratefully received!