Metaphors of weaving and braiding are often evoked to describe or encourage forms of collaboration between organisations. Both implicitly demonstrate the potential power of interconnectedness, collaboration, cultural awareness, and diverse perspectives in addressing complex social issues. While braiding highlights the integration of diverse contributions in a unified effort, weaving emphasises the organised interplay of roles to achieve collective goals.
But how do these metaphors reflect ways in which we may overcome the hurdles to meaningful collaborative practice? This question is especially relevant for social and civil society networks. Here the persistent competition for scarce resources often drive collaboration decisions even in the face of a reluctance to subjugate identity for money rather than mission.
The Wisdom of Ancient Practices in Contemporary Context
Braiding and weaving are two of humanity’s most ancient technologies: braiding dates back at least 30,000 years, whilst weaving is believed to have emerged some 20,000 years later. Both represent distinct ways of bringing elements together. Each has its own symbolic meaning and process, offering unique insights into how we might approach collective action today.
Braiding, dating back at least 30,000 years, involves intertwining three or more strands diagonally. Each strand maintains its integrity while contributing to a greater whole, symbolising equality and integration of diverse elements. The process itself is often communal, particularly in cultures where hair braiding serves as a container for storytelling and relationship-building. The preservation of identity within unity in braiding offers a perspective on how we might approach collaboration across difference, particularly in honouring distinct cultural traditions and ways of knowing.
Weaving emerged some 20,000 years later, teaching us about structural transformation through the systematic interlacing of distinct threads – warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal). This process creates an entirely new stable fabric from its constituent parts. It emphasises the organised interplay of roles to achieve collective goals. Collaboration is thus highlight structure: different roles and contributions are organised systematically to form a strong, interconnected community. It seeks balance and order in relationships, and individual threads may become less distinguishable in the final fabric.
Temporal Dimensions and Power Dynamics
The way we structure our collaborations inevitably reflects and shapes both temporal rhythms and power relationships. Weaving typically demands a consistent, measured pace – asteady back-and-forth that creates fabric through repetitive action. This often requires concentrated resources and decision-making authority. While it can create efficient channels for resource distribution and coordinated action, it may risk reinforcing existing power imbalances or reducing individual agency.
Braiding, in contrast, can accommodate varying speeds and rhythms, with periods of tight integration alternating with looser connection. It offers a more distributed model of power and resource sharing, allowing for greater autonomy among participants, though this may come at the cost of some collective efficiency.
The challenge lies not in choosing between these approaches, but in understanding how to move between them as circumstances and needs change. The most successful global collaborations often combine the structural clarity of weaving with braiding’s capacity for local adaptation and autonomy.
The Contemporary Challenge
Yet neither the rigid framework of weaving nor the loose flexibility of braiding alone seems to fully capture the requirements for effective collaborative practice. Climate change, social inequality, and systemic injustice require responses that are both structured enough to create lasting change and flexible enough to adapt to rapidly shifting circumstances.
Crisis moments reveal the strengths and limitations of our collaborative structures. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how quickly traditional organisational boundaries can dissolve in the face of urgent need, while also highlighting the importance of having reliable channels for resource distribution and coordination. The most resilient responses emerged from communities that could seamlessly shift between modes, combining stability with adaptability.
This is where the concept of “togetherness practice” offers crucial insights on an integrative path.
The Role of Togetherness Practice
Rather than choosing between different modes of collaboration, togetherness practice suggests we need to develop the capacity to move fluidly between them. It recognises that effective collaboration requires engagement across multiple domains – body, mind, heart, and spirit – and operations on different timescales, from immediate interaction to long-term relationship building. Togetherness practice also reminds us that this work is never finished – it is an ongoing practice of showing up, building relationship, and learning to navigate complexity together. In essence, togetherness practice highlights:
– that how we come together is as important as what we do together. The practice of being in relationship—of learning to navigate difference, manage conflict, and build trust—creates the relational tissue that allows collective action to emerge organically rather than being forced.
– that different moments call for different modes of togetherness. Sometimes we need the tight integration of weaving to create strong institutional responses to challenges. Other times, we need the flexibility of braiding to preserve distinct cultural approaches while working toward common goals.
– that authentic collaboration requires us to engage with both power and trauma. The practice of togetherness includes learning to recognise and work with the ways that historical and ongoing trauma shape our capacity for collaboration, while also addressing the power dynamics that can undermine authentic partnership.
Creating Conditions for Emergence
When we understand togetherness as a practice rather than a structure, we begin to see collaboration differently. This approach suggests several key principles for building collective resilience:
The Path Forward
As we face increasingly complex challenges requiring unprecedented collaboration, we need approaches that can support authentic partnership while preserving distinct identities and ways of knowing.
The key lies not in choosing between different modes of collaboration but in developing our collective capacity to move fluidly between them. This requires us to invest in building both the structural elements that support collaboration (like clear agreements and accountability systems) and the relational elements that make collaboration possible (like trust, understanding, and the ability to work across difference).
In the end, perhaps the most important lesson from both ancient crafts and contemporary practice is that the strength of our working together comes not from how tightly we’re bound but from our ability to maintain connection while allowing for movement, growth, and change. This is the art of togetherness – a practice that, like any art, requires patience, dedication, and a willingness to keep learning and adapting as we face new challenges together.
Resilience Revisited is an occasional blog series reflecting on the need for a deeper understanding of the concept of resilience, one that inspires an exploration of its complexities and a conscious, intentional shift towards achieving strong resilience – and sustainability – individually and collectively. It is a way of articulating my thoughts on my PhD journey. Whilst it is my primary authorship, it comes from the synthesis of many thought contributions for which I am immensely grateful. Thank you to Shaun McInerney whose work on #TogethernessPractice seems to make so much sense in facing this moment.