An open-source collective dedicated to prefiguring a radically egalitarian and democratic future through the socialization of technology, with a specific focus on biotechnology developed through observation and understanding of the Living World.
Open-Source: The documentation, source, and science for any technique, technology, product, or service created by the collective must be made as open and accessible as possible.
Collective: A decentralized organization made up of a mutual association of its membership without an official leadership class within it.
Prefiguration: (AKA Prefigurative Politics) The process and practice of realizing a desired future outcome by laying the material groundwork for it today. A political philosophy where the means are also the ends and the medium as also the message.
Biotechnology: Referring to any knowledge, technology, or technique related to or derived from the Living World. This includes elements such as bio-inspired design, bio-fabrication, and Social Technology.
Living World: The Living World refers to the biosphere and the countless biological systems, relationships, and ecologies present within it. This idea is distinct from the traditional dualistic conception of "Nature" as an external force/presence that exists in opposition to humans/society.
The following principles are the points which individuals must agree to in order to be admitted as a member of the Recomposition Collective. They represent guiding concepts which should animate the purpose and direction of the group’s decisions in its mission to prefigure a radically egalitarian, democratic, and just future.
These points of unity are based on and compatible with those of the Symbiosis Federation, but are not not identical. They are an expansion from those points, and include a number of changes which reflect important philosophical differences between our groups. Most notably, point #7 is not a part of the original Symbiosis Points of Unity - although we're sure they would approve of it.
We aim to have a relationship with our community similar to the relationship a mycorrhizal fungus does to a forest:
As the fungus exists among and between the trees of the forest, connected to all of them and relaying resources and information between them:
So too shall we connect ourselves to the other organizations and individuals within our community, creating more effective communication and coordination - and fostering more efficient transfer of resources - between and among them.
As the fungus consumes the waste of the forest:
So too shall we convert the waste of our community into useful products that help us and our community.
As the fungus exists both within and without the trees and other plants it is connected to:
So too shall we have both members who exist entirely within our organization and members embedded within other organizations, learning and gaining resources, and connecting us to them for the purpose of determining needs and providing communication.
We exist to form meaningful material relationships with other individuals and organizations: without community, we cannot enact the change we need.
Recomposition Collective is a democratic body composed of Members, as described in Membership functioning on a consensus model described in Assembly and Digital Democracy.
Members within the Recomposition Collective may choose to form into Work Groups. These Work Groups should be formed when there is a particular interest or need which must be addressed in order for the group to function (within the bound of the the Points of Unity). Work groups might exist for subgroup organizing: A Black Work Group, a Disabled Work Group, etc. Work groups might likewise exist to handle a specific problem, project, etc.: A Clothing Design Work Group, a Collective Retreat-Planning Group, etc. Work groups may exist for many purposes.
These Work Groups are advised to also use the rules laid out in the Collective Voting and Decision-Making Outline in order to make internal decisions, but regardless, they will meet separately from the main group meetings. Work groups are delegated a scope of powers and are limited to that delegation.
The purpose of Work Groups is to empower people to organize within the collective to articulate a shared interest as an intersectional group rather than leaving the burden on individuals to speak out whenever they feel that something is wrong or deserves addressing. These groups are to serve as a flexible tool for the benefit of collective members, rather than a committee existing as part of a rigid, bureaucratic structure.
The existence of these working groups does not preclude individuals from speaking out; they are a systemic means by which people can be heard, but organization should not become obstacles to individual voices being heard.
The means by which Work Groups may accomplish their purpose within the organization include, but are not limited to: raising awareness within the collective, researching existing solutions and approaches, and forming and proposing their own solutions to identified issues.
The Recomposition Collective and members will be responsible for issuing resources for improving representation and accessibility, including documentation to support Work Groups and Work Group development.
Existing Work Groups are listed in the Work Group Descriptions document.
New members may be added to the collective so long as they are vouched for by at least one existing member. After this, to become a member of Recomposition Collective, the user must agree to the Points of Unity and the Code of Conduct.
Prospective new members may also join the group, but must be subject to further vetting, the process for which is not yet concrete but will be described in a further document once it is.
If on a shared communication platform (e.g. Discord or Matrix), some individuals on the platform may not be proper members. If they are simply present and are not a part of the Recomposition Collective, they should have the “Observer” role. If, however, they are or wish to be a proper member, they should have the “Supporter” or "Active Member" role, depending on their degree of time/resource commitment to the collective. Online, the Supporter and Active Member roles are taken only after agreeing to abide by the Charter and Code of Conduct. Any Observer, Supporter, or Active Member is subject to the rules listed in this document and the Code of Conduct. They may only be removed by going through the process listed under Grievances.
If a proposal requires a particular person or group of people to carry it out and the body deems it necessary, they may elect a delegate. A delegate is a person given the right to act to carry out only what is within the bounds of a particular proposal that was passed by the Recomposition Collective. A delegate can have delegate status revoked at any point by a vote either in meetings or on the Discord server.
A delegate may be elected for many reasons, but in The Recomposition Collective, there are five delegate groups (circles) that exist perpetually to carry out regular tasks within the organization, and to which people should be delegated based on sortition from the membership or election by the membership, when it is decided that there is a need for members to fill those roles (sortition is preferred, but if the pool of available members is small, election may be necessary). Those five circles are: Convener, Monitor, Administrator, Treasurer, and Communicator.
Once a member has been elected to a delegate role or circle, they are thereafter considered a Delegate, even after having left that role or circle (except as a result of corrective action). Delegates are not given any special rights or powers, but are kept track of because it is useful to have ready knowledge of which members have been trusted enough by the membership to fill a delegate role.
The tasks of the people within these circles is as follows:
Required:
Encouraged:
Stretch Goals:
Required:
Encouraged:
Stretch Goals:
Required:
Encouraged:
Stretch Goals:
Required:
Encouraged:
Stretch Goals:
Required:
Encouraged:
Stretch Goals:
In order for general meetings to be carried out in a way where everyone gets their time to speak, it is best that a procedure for discussion and dispute be instituted.
One Mic: Only one person speaks at a time.
Invoked Stack: The Stack Keeper should put any person that is a member of a marginalized group that is not significantly represented within the group (for instance, if there are very few Black members, but a large proportion of Neurodivergent members, the Black member would count, but not a Neurodivergent member), as well as those who have not spoken yet, at the top of the stack. This is to make sure that those with marginalized voices are always heard and are not tread underneath those with majority perspectives or backgrounds.
The stack is invoked when any member of the discussion believes that the discussion is becoming heated (excessively confrontational, energetic, argumentative, etc.), will get heated, or otherwise is necessary.
Mutual Respect: Even when having heated disputes, members should avoid insulting one another or assuming bad faith.
The people in the following positions should rotate from different members of the group in order to prevent appearances of favouritism or erasure, and to ensure these critical organizing skills do not end up concentrated in a small group of members. At the beginning of each meeting, decide who should do each of these tasks.
Facilitator: The job of the facilitator is to moderate the meeting, but not to lead it. This is to say; the facilitator should make sure that the rules are being followed and they should keep the meeting on track, proceeding through the various parts of the agenda, but they should not intercede their opinions or direct discussion in any particular direction. The facilitator should be a neutral party that seeks to maintain good will and ease tensions, while keeping order in the discussions.
Stack Keeper: The job of the stack keeper is to keep track of everyone who needs to speak in the audience, keep a list, keep track of the order of those who have spoken, and enforce the stack if/when it is invoked within a meeting.
Note keeper: The job of the note keeper is to keep a record of the discussions being had and then, at the behest of the assembled membership, either keep the notes somewhere secure or discard them. The note keeper should redact anything that the assembly does not want recorded.
Each section within a meeting should have a maximum set length in order to ensure that meetings do not overflow and prevent the meetings from fulfilling their purpose. The exact length of each meeting section should be laid out in a flexible "Meeting methods and guidelines" document.
The following is a description of how meetings should be structured:
Updates: This is an opportunity for individuals to give reports as to what has taken place in between meetings, especially the decisions of Work Groups and the outcomes of direct actions.
Discussion: This is a period where the floor is opened to discussion of elements of interest brought forwards during Updates as well as events of direct interest to the Collective.
During this period, the facilitator may ask for what is called a temperature check, which is a non-binding vote, on the spot, of everyone that is present, in order to gauge support for an item under discussion.
Closure: After discussion has finished, the facilitator should ask for final comments and announcements, then call the meeting to a close.
Members may propose, vote on, and pass measures online, using the Discord server.
Voting on the Discord server takes place by first presenting ideas as proposals in the #voting channel. Once these ideas have been fleshed out and turned into an operable form, the person who is making the proposal should turn it into a clean and fully descriptive version then post it as a vote, again in #voting, and use the @Active Member and @Supporter alerts to prompt people to vote on it.
In order to get a good idea of what exactly requires voting and what can be done through informal organization, please refer to the Voting and Decision-Making Outline to get a better sense of how to utilize the voting process most effectively.
Voting takes place as described in the Collective Voting and Decision-Making Outline, using a 48-hour Consensus Vote.
Although all of the processes listed above are created precisely to avoid grievances between members of the Collective Assembly, it is nonetheless the case that legitimate problems will arise between members. The following Code of Conduct has been passed to describe the norms and behaviors of the group: the Recomposition Collective Code of Conduct.
Anything contained in this document, the Code of Conduct, or the Voting and Decision-Making Outline (but not the Work Group Descriptions document) can be edited by simply passing a proposal through the general membership meetings. This is a living document and should be changed as the group desires. The Work Group Descriptions document may be edited by any work group member without a vote.
Members looking to put forwards proposals to change the core documentation of the collective can bring proposed changes forwards in to a Collective Development Meetings in order to gain constructive feedback before bringing it to General Membership, but this is not required in order to bring such a proposal forwards.