Reflections from the Action Season 6 – Knowledge Circle 4 – Event 1: Open forum conversations – Fall 2026
What does courage look like in our personal lives, workplaces and communities? What helps us stay true to our values when the conditions around us make that difficult?
These questions brought UCRF members together on 30 October 2026 for the Knowledge Circle, A Culture of Courage. Drawing on experiences in education, research, industry and community practice, participants shared difficulties and possibilities for action. The conversation offered a safe and supportive space to share, listen, question and consider how we can support one another in working towards change.
Courage in everyday practice
Courage emerged in many forms, including speaking up in a meeting, questioning an established practice, setting a boundary, or acknowledging that we need help. It can also mean staying present with uncertainty and choosing a thoughtful response when frustration or conflict makes that difficult. Participants also reflected on stillness, breathing and connection with oneself and Earth as ways to sustain this work.
This invites further reflection on the relationship between looking inward and looking outward. Attention to ourselves can help us recognize our assumptions, sit with discomfort and respond with care. Attention to the world keeps us engaged with the practical problems and structural conditions that require collective action. Sustaining courage involves both cultivating the capacity to act thoughtfully and working with others to change the conditions we face.
These everyday actions influence how we work and relate to one another. Participants returned to UCRF’s Manifesto and Code of Conduct as commitments to practice in our relationships. Meeting disagreement with respect, making room for others and challenging harmful practices all require courage.
The discussion also acknowledged the strain of working within institutions undergoing upheaval. Encouragement and mutual support matter when the work feels exhausting and its outcomes remain uncertain.
Courage also took collective forms. Organizing together to secure protections at work showed how shared action can influence the conditions people face. Supportive colleagues and leadership were also recognized as important. Sustaining change requires environments in which people can question, contribute and act without carrying the burden alone.
Connecting education, research and industry
Participants described the difficulty of bringing broader understandings of sustainability into established curricula and business practices. Fragmented approaches can leave the underlying causes of ecological and social harm untouched.
Practical openings included working with colleagues, inviting expertise into teaching and projects, drawing on local textile knowledge, and helping students and colleagues encounter the realities of production and waste. These experiences can create space to question assumptions and imagine other ways of working. Farm visits also illustrated how people with different political and professional perspectives can learn from one another through shared experience.
Industry experience added a perspective on persistence. Ideas developed through years of research and teaching can take considerable time to find acceptance. Zero-waste pattern cutting was discussed as an example of sustained work beginning to influence manufacturing practice.
When these ideas are put into practice, possibilities explored through research become tangible changes in how clothing is designed and made. Persistently demonstrating alternatives and continuing difficult conversations can help move these ideas towards practical application. The link between knowledge and action offers encouragement while keeping wider questions of production, consumption and resource use in view.
Looking beyond the activity to its consequences
The conversation questioned what sustainability initiatives actually achieve. Working with discarded textiles can develop skills and understanding, but using waste does not, by itself, establish an environmental benefit.
What are we making, and is it useful? What happens to it later? How does this work address the conditions that created the waste?
These questions connect classroom learning with decisions in design and manufacturing. They also help us recognize the value of learning without losing sight of overproduction and overconsumption. A project can open someone’s understanding while still leaving much to be challenged in the system around it. What feels like a small step to an experienced practitioner may represent a significant shift for someone beginning this journey.
Recognizing knowledge within communities
Reflections on textile reuse in Ghana brought attention to practical expertise and relationships of mutual support. Examples of discarded materials being transformed into everyday clothing challenged assumptions about what upcycling can achieve and whose knowledge is recognized.
The discussion highlighted how people working with these materials develop ways of cutting, making and sharing resources through daily practice. Their knowledge deserves a place in shaping fashion’s future.
Relationships were central to these accounts. Sharing materials, offering help and working together made things possible that would have been harder alone. This echoed a wider theme of the session: collective action depends on how we care for and support one another.
Sustaining courage together
The conversation held frustration and hope together. Participants spoke openly about resistance and slow progress, alongside changing understanding, new collaborations and ideas finding practical expression.
Change can be slow and uncertain. There were, however, reasons to continue: a student beginning to question, a colleague becoming receptive, a different production practice gaining acceptance, or a community sharing what it knows.
For UCRF, the conversation renewed a practical question. How can we support one another in sustaining our work and putting our shared commitments into action?
UCRF is a safe and supportive space for honest conversation, shared learning and mutual encouragement. Members are invited to click here and suggest topics they would like to discuss and share where support from the community could help them continue their work, individually or collectively.
Guided by our Manifesto, UCRF is committed to amplifying diverse voices and perspectives. Our goal is to foster an activist knowledge ecology and lead critical debates on fashion's systemic challenges. While we do not endorse a single viewpoint, we seek to offer a platform for varied ideas that inspire further dialogue and inquiry.
