Briarpatch Staff

Four case studies of projects that are meeting disabled people’s needs through community care.

An interview with Ameil Joseph about the history and present of Canada’s discriminatory treatment of disabled migrants

Members of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario’s Youth Action Council discuss the present and future of the disability justice movement.

We’re trying out a low-cost, low-risk way to produce and publish more journalism about Saskatchewan.

A triumphant update – and a call to sustain!

We’re almost there!

Briarpatch is in an urgent financial crunch.

An interview with Brown, Black & Fierce

Radical perspectives on the federal election.

Conservatives are serious about developing young leaders. How about progressives?

Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is a continental network of artists committed to making print and design that reflects, builds, and sustains the aspirations of radical social movements. With two dozen artists from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds is a worker-owned co-op where the sensibilities of individual artists coalesce in shared objectives.

Justseeds artists produce collective portfolios, contribute graphics to grassroots struggles, work collaboratively both in and out of the co-op, build large installations in galleries, and wheat-paste in the streets – all while offering each other daily support as allies and friends. Justseeds artists Erik Ruin and Meredith Stern spoke with Briarpatch about aesthetics and politics, empathy and influence.

“Briarpatch has always been a labour of love, and I believe that’s the key reason for the magazine’s unlikely success.”

Number of Facebook fans in Pakistan: 85

From curling bonspiels to baseball tournaments and fundraising dinners, we present a series of photos from the Briarpatch archives.

There are two schools of thought. One is that government should be neutral and provide funds for magazines. The other is that if you’re reliant on government for funding, chances are that you’ll back off from criticism, which we never did, and we paid the price.

The Occupy movement has demonstrated a tenacious and effective commitment to non-violent, collaborative tactics. These photos, from various photographers, capture some of the ways in which the Occupy movements have helped us to reimagine how we organize and relate to one another within our collective struggle for justice.

In summer 2011, several people from communities in northern Saskatchewan walked 820 kilometres from Pinehouse to Regina to raise awareness about the storage and transportation of nuclear waste in the province, and to oppose a proposed nuclear waste dump near Pinehouse. This is an excerpt from their radio interview with Don Kossick following the walk.

Meet the youth at the heart of a movement to raise awareness about a proposed nuclear waste dump near their communities. These five young people participated in an 820-kilometre walk from Pinehouse to Regina, Saskatchewan to oppose the storage and transportation of nuclear waste in the province.

A recent study on the Canadian food movement found it to be uniquely decentralized and self-propagating in comparison to other social movements. Through phone and e-mail conversations with foodies across the country, Briarpatch learned about dozens of inter-connected but independent food-related initiatives that together are crafting a network of more sustainable, democratic and inclusive food systems that challenge our current corporate, industrial model. What follows is a small sampling of the most exciting initiatives we came across.

After years of working for cash-strapped environmental organizations, Rick Morrell founded an organic grocery store in 1996 with the goal of directing profits into the environmental movement. Fifteen years later, Morrell is still struggling to find those profits, but the store has become a mainstay in Regina’s activist community.