EP 98: Ecosystems for Change: Embracing Generative Conflict in a World on Fire with Deepa Iyer

The Unburdened Leader

What is your relationship with conflict and disagreement?

Do you see conflict as bad or dangerous or simply a natural part of relationships and being in a group or on a team?

What helps you move through conflict and differences of opinion when things are heavy and charged?

Do you avoid it at all costs? Or do you try to be a peacemaker and help everyone feel heard? Or do you dive right into the arena and take a stand for what you believe?

You probably vacillate between all of these depending on the topic, the people you are around, how you experienced conflict growing up, and the combination of your unique personality, temperament, gender, race, class, etc.

Today’s guest shares a framework that offers a way to contain our overwhelm into some actionable practices that can help you connect to your purpose and your values while navigating the discomfort of disagreement, high-stakes decisions, and deep exhaustion.

Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at the Building Movement Project, a national nonprofit organization. She conducts workshops and trainings, uplifts narratives through the Solidarity Is This podcast, and facilitates solidarity strategy for cohorts and networks.

Deepa’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future, chronicles community-based histories in the wake of 9/11 and received a 2016 American Book Award. Deepa’s most recent book, a guide based on the social change ecosystem map that she created, is called Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The three main components of an ecosystem-based approach to social change
• How an ecosystem creates a container where we can have uncomfortable conversations around our values
• Why a clash in values isn’t an indicator of an unhealthy ecosystem
• How ecosystems for social justice allow us to play to our strengths even in urgent times sustainably
• Questions to ask and red flags of an unhealthy ecosystem
• Why finding joy in the midst of heartbreak is essential to sustainable movements
• Why it’s key to consider who holds power inside and outside an ecosystem when calling out bad behavior or policy

Learn more about Deepa Iyer:

• Website
• Solidarity Is This Podcast
• We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future
• Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection
• Instagram: @deepaviyer
• X: @dviyer

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• (Un)known Project Trail
• Solidarity Is This: Truth Telling From The Banks of the Ohio River with Hannah Drake and Josh Miller
• Meena Alexander
• Honor, Thrity Umrigar
• The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, Rashid Khalidi
• The Mountain Goats - This Year
• Borgen
• The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
• Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost
• The Social Change Map
• Building Movement Project