Calling Up Justice: A Mycorrhizal Network for Justice

Calling Up Justice operates like a mycorrhizal network, a complex and interdependent system that thrives through mutual support and diverse participation. Our members come from a wide range of economic realities, some needing to balance their income with state benefits due to disability, while others engage in more traditional capitalist work. Still, others contribute to community-based efforts through donations of time and resources. Despite these differences, we are united by a shared commitment to justice. We build apps, produce events, and hold digital spaces that support our collective goals, ensuring the sustainability of our justice-based practices.

In many ways, we function like the underground networks found in forests and plant communities, where mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with plant roots. These rhizomatic structures connect individual plants, allowing them to share resources and communicate about their environment. Much like these natural systems, our collective benefits from mutual exchange, where all participants contribute to and gain from the network in unique ways.

Mycorrhizal relationships are typically mutualistic, meaning that each partner in the relationship benefits. Similarly, Calling Up Justice operates through mutual support, where the contributions of each member help sustain the whole. The rhizomatic model, rooted in nature and social philosophy, allows for the kind of decentralized, anti-hierarchical collaboration that enables us to thrive in complex environments. In social theory, rhizomes are often used as a metaphor for anti-hegemonic structures that prioritize mutualism, heterogeneity, horizontality, and multiplicity.

The rhizome’s form—a network of interconnected roots and shoots growing from multiple nodes—allows for resilience and adaptability. It’s an ideal metaphor for our collective, which, like the rhizome, grows and expands through a non-linear, interconnected web of contributions. This approach enables Calling Up Justice to sustain itself and grow within the ever-changing ecosystem of justice work. By embracing this model, we ensure that our collective continues to thrive, just as the plants connected by a mycorrhizal network thrive through shared resources and communication.