A writing project exploring questions of power, social justice and lived experience
Experience + narrative
+ praxis = power
What we experience, how we process and describe those experiences, and what we - and other people - do as a result matters. It is easy to feel powerless; as if nothing we really say or do makes a difference. I certainly feel that way sometimes. But I also know that I am not powerless. I am a complex human being with a mix of power and oppression, presence and marginalisation, potential and problems. In Beyond Binaries, I bring who I am to the table, writing about how experience, narratives, praxis and power come together to inform social justice (or the lack thereof) and impact real lives.
How does the Beyond Binaries project work?
Beyond Binaries is a series of monthly collections, each based on a theme. At the end of each month, the articles will be collected into a collection archive, and will also be shared as a newsletter via Substack. By the end of 2026, the Beyond Binaries portfolio will have explored topics as diverse as politics, narrative psychology, theology, prayer, protest, gender, philosophy, culture wars, media, disability, and more.
I believe that our understandings and our opinions are inextricably linked to what we experience; the ethical, religious and social systems we live within and around the edges of; the power we have and do not have; the language and framing we hear, read and use; and the questions we keep coming back to. Whilst all of my writing tends to pay attention to those five lenses, during this project I am making that explicit by focussing on one lens each week. At the end of the month, I am also writing a monthly roundup, enabling reflection on current affairs.
The weekly lenses are:
Week 1: Lived Experience
During the first week of each month I will reflect on the monthly topic from the lens of lived experience. This is where I will explore how I personally relate to the topic, rooting my analysis in lived experience.
Week 2: Praxis
During the second week of each month I will reflect on the monthly topic from the lens of praxis. This is about where experience meets policies, systems, institutions and ways of thinking and how that intertwining impacts real lives.
Week 3: Power
During the third week of each month I will reflect on the monthly topic from the lens of power. Who decides? Who bears risk? who is protected? Who is empowered? How might power be noticed and redistributed? What might change?
Week 4: Narrative
During the fourth week of each month, I will reflect on the monthly topic from the lens of narrative. This is about words, the arguments they form, and the ways of thinking that they sit within. How might changing language change the world?
Week 5: Unresolved
When there is a fifth week of the month I will reflect on some of the unresolved questions that I still have about the monthly topic.
Monthly Roundup
In each month’s roundup I will reflect on current affairs, with attention to the monthly theme and to each of the weekly lenses.
January 2026 Method and Madness
January 2026 Method and Madness
January’s theme is Method and Madness. This is all about how we think, write and speak. What does it matter? Where are our minds? And what can madness, a part of my personal lived experience and theoretical framing, lend to method? This month’s theme is all about setting the mood for the year.
Welcome to the method. Welcome to the madness.
Week 1 - Nothing Else Matters: Why lived experience matters
Week 2 - Hotel California: Participation and policing
Week 3 - Iris: Representation fatigue
Week 4 - The Sound of Silence: Preferably unheard voices
January Roundup