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More Powerful Together: Conversations With Climate Activists and Indigenous Land Defenders
How can social movements help bring about large-scale systems change? This is the question Jen Gobby sets out to answer in More Powerful Together. As an activist, Gobby has been actively involved with climate justice, anti-pipeline, and Indigenous land defense movements in Canada for many years. As a researcher, she has sat down with folks from these movements and asked them to reflect on their experiences with movement building. Bringing their incredibly poignant insights into dialogue with scholarly and activist literature on transformation, Gobby weaves together a powerful story about how change happens.
In reflecting on what’s working and what’s not working in these movements, taking inventory of the obstacles hindering efforts, and imagining the strategies for building a powerful movement of movements, a common theme relationships are crucial to building movements strong enough to transform systems. Indigenous scholarship, ecological principles, and activist reflections all converge on the insight that the means and ends of radical transformation is in forging relationships of equality and reciprocity with each other and with the land.
It is through this, Gobby argues, that we become more powerful together.
100% of the royalties made from the sales of this book are being donated to Indigenous Climate Action www.indigenousclimateaction.com
In reflecting on what’s working and what’s not working in these movements, taking inventory of the obstacles hindering efforts, and imagining the strategies for building a powerful movement of movements, a common theme relationships are crucial to building movements strong enough to transform systems. Indigenous scholarship, ecological principles, and activist reflections all converge on the insight that the means and ends of radical transformation is in forging relationships of equality and reciprocity with each other and with the land.
It is through this, Gobby argues, that we become more powerful together.
100% of the royalties made from the sales of this book are being donated to Indigenous Climate Action www.indigenousclimateaction.com
250 pages, Paperback
Published August 18, 2020
6 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 26, 2025
Actual: 2.75⭐️
October 15, 2020
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
What I liked:
So, one thing this book gets right is it identifies that the left loves to fight with itself over how to solve problems. It's counter-productive and usually leads to groups feeling disconnected to each other and unable to access resources from one another.
Another thing the book gets right is instead of just explaining that settlers of European descent and Indigenous people have different perspectives to climate change, the author actually goes to some trouble to describe what that really means. To me, this was a big takeaway from the book, because as dumb as this might make me sound, it hadn't occurred to me that the reason for approaching climate change differently was not just because of history and resource scarcity but also because of viewing the land in a fundamentally different way.
What I didn't like:
I found it difficult to get as much out of this book as I feel I could have, because it was very repetitive. The writing style was hard to get into because I felt I was presented with the same information and opinions over and over in slightly different ways.
While I respect that the author really wanted to let people's voices shine through, the overwhelming amount of resources used for this book were interviews with members from indigenous communities across Canada. By the end of the book I felt I might have been better served by a book that compiled a series of essays written by the people being interviewed in the book, rather than the interviews being portioned out in sections of the book.
Thoughts overall:
There are some important messages in the book. It's also true that the more people that get on board with meaningful change in terms of climate action, the better. However, this isn't a book I would tell someone to read unless I knew that person was having issues understanding why indigenous communities tend to take a different approach to fighting climate change than non-indigenous people.
What I liked:
So, one thing this book gets right is it identifies that the left loves to fight with itself over how to solve problems. It's counter-productive and usually leads to groups feeling disconnected to each other and unable to access resources from one another.
Another thing the book gets right is instead of just explaining that settlers of European descent and Indigenous people have different perspectives to climate change, the author actually goes to some trouble to describe what that really means. To me, this was a big takeaway from the book, because as dumb as this might make me sound, it hadn't occurred to me that the reason for approaching climate change differently was not just because of history and resource scarcity but also because of viewing the land in a fundamentally different way.
What I didn't like:
I found it difficult to get as much out of this book as I feel I could have, because it was very repetitive. The writing style was hard to get into because I felt I was presented with the same information and opinions over and over in slightly different ways.
While I respect that the author really wanted to let people's voices shine through, the overwhelming amount of resources used for this book were interviews with members from indigenous communities across Canada. By the end of the book I felt I might have been better served by a book that compiled a series of essays written by the people being interviewed in the book, rather than the interviews being portioned out in sections of the book.
Thoughts overall:
There are some important messages in the book. It's also true that the more people that get on board with meaningful change in terms of climate action, the better. However, this isn't a book I would tell someone to read unless I knew that person was having issues understanding why indigenous communities tend to take a different approach to fighting climate change than non-indigenous people.
August 3, 2020
This is book is well-organized, thoroughly researched, and thoughtful. I appreciated the mix of interviews and scholarly thought. This book has lots to say to those working in the environmental sector and to activists, especially to white settlers who are working in climate action and environmental conservation.
July 19, 2021
An great dissection of climate and Indigenous movements in "Canada"
January 12, 2021
Author Jen Gobby managed to live the dream in earning a PhD, embracing the role of activist-scholar with a research project embedded in social movements and aimed at contributing to their advancement. More Powerful Together is one of the outcomes of that research, and as someone who has been actively engaged in climate justice activism for many years, I do think it's an invaluable contribution. Further, as a scholar, I commend the extensive research behind the book. The book examines the climate movement and its intersections with movements for decolonization and social justice, focusing on the Canadian context. Gobby draws heavily on dozens of interviews and surveys conducted for the project, as well as a lot of reading in critical movement theory. As such, it can also serve as a handy reference to an immense amount of valuable scholarship, especially in the realms of Indigenous resistance and resurgence.
I think More Powerful Together can serve a couple of audiences very well, and each will probably read the book quite differently. First, it does offer an excellent introduction to the climate movement. Anyone just getting involved or who simply wants to understand what's behind it will find this essential reading, especially the opening chapters that detail the climate and inequality crises. Especially through foregrounding the voices of interlocutors, the book outlines clearly how climate change is rooted in a crisis of inequality in which capitalism and colonialism are deeply implicated, which helps to make clear why Indigenous movements for decolonization are (or need to be) so important to the modern climate movement. Folks who are new or just trying to learn about these topics might find the latter half of the book harder to wade through as it details theories of and barriers to change. However, it is these latter sections that can be of great value to a second audience: those deeply engaged in these struggles. Again, primarily through foregrounding the voices of activists across the country, Gobby puts together a compelling case as to what is holding the climate movement back from achieving its goals, and importantly, what can be done to overcome this and move forward.
Reading from start to finish can at times feel challenging as the book is often quite repetitive. This can be a useful quality for those unfamiliar with the subject but can feel tedious for those who are more familiar. The style of writing, which is much more descriptive than narrative, can also be a lot to wade through, especially with so many quotations from interviews making up the text. But it's worth wading through. I think this is a book that would be particularly well-suited to group study/discussion.
Overall this book has a lot to offer, and I suspect it's going to be important in helping advance movements for justice across the country.
I think More Powerful Together can serve a couple of audiences very well, and each will probably read the book quite differently. First, it does offer an excellent introduction to the climate movement. Anyone just getting involved or who simply wants to understand what's behind it will find this essential reading, especially the opening chapters that detail the climate and inequality crises. Especially through foregrounding the voices of interlocutors, the book outlines clearly how climate change is rooted in a crisis of inequality in which capitalism and colonialism are deeply implicated, which helps to make clear why Indigenous movements for decolonization are (or need to be) so important to the modern climate movement. Folks who are new or just trying to learn about these topics might find the latter half of the book harder to wade through as it details theories of and barriers to change. However, it is these latter sections that can be of great value to a second audience: those deeply engaged in these struggles. Again, primarily through foregrounding the voices of activists across the country, Gobby puts together a compelling case as to what is holding the climate movement back from achieving its goals, and importantly, what can be done to overcome this and move forward.
Reading from start to finish can at times feel challenging as the book is often quite repetitive. This can be a useful quality for those unfamiliar with the subject but can feel tedious for those who are more familiar. The style of writing, which is much more descriptive than narrative, can also be a lot to wade through, especially with so many quotations from interviews making up the text. But it's worth wading through. I think this is a book that would be particularly well-suited to group study/discussion.
Overall this book has a lot to offer, and I suspect it's going to be important in helping advance movements for justice across the country.
January 30, 2022
An informative, thoughtful and thoroughly researched book with many important insights on the huge systemic changes that need to happen in Canada from a variety of voices. Its a bit of a slog in parts, but I'd still recommend the book to anyone interested in climate change activism, decolonization, land & water defenders.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews