Work — Amanda Tattersall

Research

The Relational Method: How Community Organizing Can Reshape University Research

This is an academic peer-reviewed article about the relational method – a form of community engagement that applies…

Books

Conscious Tribes – coming out August 2026

People Power in Cities by Amanda Tattersall and Kurt Iveson travels to cities around the world in search of…

Books

People Power in Cities – June 2026

People Power in Cities by Amanda Tattersall and Kurt Iveson travels to cities around the world in search of…

Blogs & Speeches

Speech – How living with mental illness teaches us about making a difference

Amanda Tattersall gives a speech reflecting on how living with mental illness teaches us about how to make…

Research

Creating a new climate transition politics? Reflections on a Real Deal for Australia.

This is an academic peer-reviewed article with an enormous team of academic and community authors about the Real…

Research

Organizing is Not a Silver Bullet

This is a peer-reviewed article that seeks to reframe community organisng – not as a superior form of…

Blogs & Speeches

Big Ideas Podcast – Living out your mental illness in public paves the way to lasting change with Amanda Tattersall

Amanda Tattersall, co-founder of the campaigning organisation Get-Up, speaks powerfully about her experience of living with bipolar disorder…

Podcasts

Grace Tame—ChangeMakers Chat

It certainly feels like this is a big year for thinking creatively and deeply about how to make…

Blogs & Speeches

Endure or peter out? Here’s what Northern Rivers organisers and Stop Adani can teach us about organising climate groups

Over the last decade, several groups in Australia have successfully mobilised against fossil fuel interests. But which ones have gone…

Policy

Organising Together Across Difference: Relational Experiments in Community Organising

In a world of increasing polarisation, this report documents an 18 month research project that analysed how Citizens…

Blogs & Speeches

Why Organizers need Mobilizers and Mobilizers need Organizers

In an “ecosystem” approach, different theories of change – like mobilizing and organizing – can reinforce and strengthen…

Research

Prefiguring Pragmatically? Prefigurative Politics and the Constellation of People Power Strategies for Winning Affordable Housing in Cape Town.

This is an academic peer-reviewed article about the social change strategy called ‘prefiguration’ which is the practice of…

Research

Democratising Cities: introduction (special feature)

This is an introduction to a peer-reviewed special feature in the journal City. This piece provides a theorisation…

Policy

A Real Deal for Gladstone: Community Listening Report to Shape Economic and Social Transition

This Community Report documents “Listening Campaign” run in Gladstone Queensland, the first step towards creating a community-led agenda…

Blogs & Speeches

To get to net zero, policymakers need to listen to communities. Here’s what they can learn from places like Geelong

Learning lessons from building a community-led climate transition agenda in Geelong.

Policy

A Real Deal for Geelong: Community Listening Report for Climate Transition

This report outlines a new approach to generating strategies for climate transition, created through a community-led agenda built…

Research

Urban people power strategies in a connected world: exploring the patterns of practice, exchange, translation and learning.

This article looks at the spread and transmission of different forms of people power across the world.

Policy

Rethinking People Power Strategy in the Climate Movement: lessons from organising with Multicultural Communities in Western Sydney

Over the last decade, several groups in Australia have successfully mobilised against fossil fuel interests. But which ones have gone…

Blogs & Speeches

Our mental health debate needs a proper dose of crazy to get it on the right track

A radical idea to transform how we think about mental health – and make mental health policy.

Blogs & Speeches

Scale is the most confusing word in social change

What does the word scale mean when it comes to social change? This piece explores four different ways…

Blogs & Speeches

Our collective mental health is stuffed, and its more than just a medical problem

Turning how we think about mental illness upside down to find a new way through.

Research

The people power strategies of the Pobladores housing movement? A review of the right to dignity: housing struggles, city making and citizenship in Urban Chile (book review

This article looks at the spread and transmission of different forms of people power across the world.

Blogs & Speeches

Why the ALP should DLP the LNP

What coalition building strategies have to teach modern political parties.

Research

School strike for climate are leading the way: how their people power strategies are generating distinctive pathways for leadership development

Since November 2018, Australian high school climate strikers have become leaders in the movement for climate action, giving…

Blogs & Speeches

Scaling Change – Negotiating the challenges of big and small

Over the last decade, several groups in Australia have successfully mobilised against fossil fuel interests. But which ones have gone…

Research

People Power Strategies in Contemporary Housing Movements.

This is a peer-reviewed article that explores different ways in which social movements and urban coalitions are seeking…

Blogs & Speeches

We need to start talking about the explosive culture of sexual assault and rape in high schools

What it might take to be a “changemaker” when it comes to sexual assult.

Blogs & Speeches

We can build a more inclusive government and economy out of the pandemic – this blueprint shows us how

A short conversation piece about the Real Deal report produced in 2020.

Policy

A Real Deal: a research action agenda for transforming Australia in and beyond the pandemic

This Community Report documents our “Listening Campaign,” the first step towards creating a community-led agenda for economic and…

Blogs & Speeches

University under siege: a dangerous new phase for the Hong Kong protests

A look at the Hong Kong protests in 2019 as the contest around democracy entered the university space.

Blogs & Speeches

With no end in sight and the world losing interest, the Hong Kong protesters need a new script

A look at the Hong Kong protests in 2019 – and the challenges they faced in sustaining a…

Blogs & Speeches

Like ‘shooting water’: why the Hong Kong government must accept that compromise is the only way forward

How the protest strategies in Hong Kong had their roots in lessons learnt from the Umbrella movement and…

Blogs & Speeches

The Hong Kong protesters have turned militant and more strategic – and this unnerves Beijing

The Hong Kong protests were underpinned by a series of sophisticated principles and practices that others can learn…

Blogs & Speeches

What Parkland’s experience tells us about the limits of a ‘security’ response to Christchurch

I interviewed leaders from the March for our Lives movement days before the Christchurch massacre. Here are some…

Research

How do we build power in coalition? Rethinking union-community coalition types 12 years on.

This is article is an invited contribution based on a piece about coalition building first published in this…

Blogs & Speeches

In the ‘fearless city’ Barcelona residents take charge

Barcelona en Comu is a new urban political force produced out of years of citizen discontent and uprising….

Blogs & Speeches

How do we ‘change everything’ as Naomi Klein suggests? Let’s start by getting ‘adversaries’ to listen to one another

The kind of social movement required to respond to climate change will need to be far broader and…

Blogs & Speeches

A billion acts of courage on 3.6 planets: a conversation with Greenpeace’s Kumi Naidoo

Unpacking how to change the world with the head of Greenpeace International.

Research

The global spread of community organizing: how ‘Alinsky-style’ community organizing travelled to Australia and what we learnt?

This is an academic peer-reviewed article about the spread of community organising to Australia. It documents conceptually and…

Blogs & Speeches

Community organising aims to win back civil society’s rightful place

How Saul Alinksy’s Chicago approach to community organising is finding a home in Sydney.

Research

There is Power in Coalition: A framework for assessing how and when union-community coalitions are effective and enhance union power

Since November 2018, Australian high school climate strikers have become leaders in the movement for climate action, giving…

Blogs & Speeches

After the march, what now?: International lessons for the UK anti-cuts campaign – insights from power in coalition

What happens after the rally? This piece explores strategies for building power after mobilisation.

Books

Power in Coalition: Strategies for strong unions and social change

How can we change things in an age in which governments are fixated on the bottom line and…

Research

A Little Help from Our Friends: Exploring and Understanding when Labor-Community Coalitions Are Likely to Form

This is an academic peer-reviewed article about the union-community coalitions and the connection between coalition building and union…

Research

The Shifting Power of Labor-Community Coalitions: identifying common elements of powerful coalitions in Australia and the USA

This is an academic peer-reviewed article coalition building between unions and community groups, drawing lessons from a series…

Research

Powerful Community Relationships and Union Renewal: a framework for analyzing examples of community unionism in NSW, Australia.

This is an academic peer-reviewed article coalition building between unions and community groups, drawing lessons from a series…

Research

Bringing the community in: possibilities for public sector union success through community unionism.

This is an academic peer-reviewed article looking at coalition building in public sector workforces. It examines the Vinson…