Big Beef and Beyond
is a popular education programme to help us stick together and
transform conflict in tough times
Feel like every group you are part of gets stuck in conflict loops? Find yourself wishing for more care and less cancellation in your relationships?
In times of repression, our resources and tempers are stretched paper-thin. A culture of disposability takes hold. Desire for change often comes with demands for purity, perfect behaviour, perfect politics. We use isms and phobias against each other and become stuck.
This approach denies so much of the beautiful complexity of us: messy, imperfect and fallible humans. At worst, it risks the very relationships and communities that we need to build truly resilient coalitions of power against the dark forces of authoritarian fascism taking hold around the world.
So, what if there was another way to show up to conflict, an inevitable part of being with each other?
How do we build resilient group cultures, increasing our capacities for solidarity, care and working with those who may not already agree with us?
What right-sized responses could we offer each other that help to address harms closer to their roots?
What frames can we apply beyond identity to understand how harm happens, and how to tend to it, learning together as we go?
Big Beef and Beyond is a scalable set of workshop sessions cooking in Berlin and online since 2020. A co-facilitated blend of activities, tools, reflections and scenarios grounded in applied psychology, social movement traditions and pragmatic lessons from our decades of community support work, political organising and gender-based violence interventions. It’s for groups, collectives, communities and individuals searching for a more empowering lens on conflict and harm, rooted in principled struggle.
We hope you’ll use these tools to strengthen everyday practices of care and conflict transformation, which are already at work in so many corners of our social movements, cultural spaces and relationships. We’re carving out a critical space to address the tendencies in our communities with curiosity, rigour, humour and love!
Beef Alumni say:
“BB and Sarj are great facilitators who guide you through various tools and frameworks in a compelling way. The course is very interactive and practical you get the chance to apply the new concepts to real cases of conflict. If you’re struggling with punitive behaviour, unhealthy conflict and cancel culture in your movements, orga spaces or collective, then this course is for you!”
– Coco
I would recommend this course to anyone because the topics it explores affect all of us in some way. Harm messiness and misunderstanding are an undeniable part of the human experience and this course offers both deep reflection and practical tools for navigating them with more care and awareness, which feels especially important in a time of increasing division.
– Sarah Farina
“The balance between theory and praxis is what I really appreciated about Big Beef and Beyond: working through real life examples and imagining how to apply what we had just learned really made me understand the concepts. I also loved the dedicated time for exchanging ideas and perspectives with the other participants”
-Eleonora Toniolo
“For me, the sessions were a nourishing place to start doing hard work of transforming my thoughts, feelings & approaches to conflict. BB & Sarj offered so much knowledge & practical tools and held down a cozy nest to hold the work. I’ve applied my learnings to interpersonal & community dynamics, particularly within an organizing group with ongoing long term conflict between x-friends. And whilst I don’t think I’ll ever feel totally comfortable in conflict, I feel so equipped to help transformation happen.”
– Almond
Bryony and sarj created a space of real emotional depth both through sensitive exploration of people’s genuine challenges as well as their nourishing co-facilitation. The many frameworks were clear and actionable. Since the workshop, I’ve shared these tools, especially the reverse drama triangle, with multiple groups, including seasoned facilitators, and they’ve really had an impact!
– Cate Czerwinski
Open sessions
The next Big Beef is happening as part of 90Mil Art School on 31 March, 7, 14 and 21 April, with sliding scale & free soli spots.
Custom sessions
If your group, collective or organisation could use some space to explore and upskill around these topics:
Who we are
Bryony is from Wales and has been a gender-based violence prevention educator in frontline services, schools, nightlife and community settings for nearly twenty years. In her political life she is interested in building power through massive resilient revolutionary coalitions. A co-founder of Good Night Out Campaign (since 2014) and DIY Space for London (2015-2020) she loves making radio and hunting for spirals.
Sarj is a very curious facilitator, participation designer and community care organizer from so-called Texas. A cofounder of aequa (2016), the aequa Workshops Collective (2020), and Berlin Collective Action e.V. (2020) their work and play explore the ways we can practice abolition in our relations, by creating loving alternatives to the systems of empire.
Read more on lineages and a list of resources here. Check out a radio programme about Big Beef And Beyond here.
Get in touch