During the spring of 2014 the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (BATJC) began using the term “pod” to refer to a specific type of relationship within transformative justice (TJ) work. We needed a term to describe the kind of relationship between people who would turn to each other for support around violent, harmful and abusive experiences, whether as survivors, bystanders or people who have harmed. These would be the people in our lives that we would call on to support us with things such as our immediate and on-going safety, accountability and transformation of behaviors, or individual and collective healing and resiliency.
Prior to this, we had been using the term “community” when we talked about transformative justice, but we found that, not surprisingly, many people do not feel connected to a “community” and, even more so, most people did not know what “community” meant or had wildly different definitions and understandings of “community.” For some, “community” was an overarching term that encompassed huge numbers of people based on identity (e.g. “the feminist community”); while for others “community,” referred to a specific set of arbitrary values, practices and/or relationships (e.g. “I don’t know them well, but we’re in community with each other”); or some defined “community” simply by geographic location, regardless of relationship or identity (e.g. “the Bay Area community”). We found that people romanticized community; or though they felt connected to a community at large, they only had significant and trustworthy relationships with very few actual people who may or may not be part of that community. For example, someone might feel connected to “the queer community,” but when asked who from that “queer community” they felt they could trust to show up for them in times of crisis, vulnerability or violence, they could only name 2 or 3 people.
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I came across pod mapping a couple of months ago as a way to organize community care and support. I was excited by how this is something that could be potentially useful for aros (although by no means only meant for aros), so based on the original pod mapping, here's a little guide on how to pod map!
Average reading time: 5 minutes
Word count: 1023 words
What’s pod mapping?
Pod mapping originated within transformative justice work as a method of support around violence, abuse, and harmful experiences. It was created by Mia Mingus with the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (BATJC). It’s used to describe relationships of support around safety, accountability, transformation behaviors, or healing. Although it was originally developed for dealing with harm within communities, it can be adapted for more general support.
Living in an amatonormative society can leave many aromantic folks feeling as if we’re missing support systems that can be crucial to our everyday well-being and needs. While some of us engage in partnerships, whether they be romantic, platonic or queerplatonic, many of us don’t and are potentially lacking in support and connectedness. When society deems that long-term care occurs within romantic relationships or nuclear families, this can leave many of us with little options for support. Many of us feel isolated and don’t know who to turn to in times of need. Perhaps we have some friends we can receive emotional support from, but when it comes to more domestic or instrumental needs, which are often relegated to partnerships, we might not have someone to rely on. This is especially so if you are disabled or marginalized in other ways. This amatonormative capitalist nuclear family world isn’t built for us, especially those of who reject (romantic) partnerships. To remedy this, turning to community care may be a necessity (and a form of resistance against the systems that put us in these situations!). Pod mapping subverts the idea of care being based on love and desirability.
Who can be a part of my pod?
Pod mapping can be used to determine who can support you and who you can support. You can create a pod map for specific circumstances (for instance, related to disability needs) or one that is more general. It’s important to keep in mind that this requires reciprocity. Pod mapping incorporates mutual aid, and it should therefore be mutual. For every person you include in your pod, you have to think not only on what they can do for you but also what you can do for them.
The people in your pod don’t necessarily have to be your closest or most intimate relationships. They can also be neighbors, people from a club or organization you’re a part of, co-workers/colleagues, university cohort mates, fellow aros, etc…! The key ingredients for anyone in your pod are trust, care, respect, vulnerability, and accountability. Care in this situation does not have to be based on emotional closeness or love.
An important part of pod mapping is consent. Those you include in your pod should be aware of their place in it and what you’d like from them and what you’d be able to do for them. We all have something to contribute- if you’re unsure of what skills you have, check this out. There are many ways to contribute:
delivering groceries
financial support
emotional support
being a buddy (going places with someone or running errands with them)
(cooking) food
helping with chores
helping with disability needs
being a sounding board or helping someone problem-solve
providing a room or a couch for someone to crash on
giving people rides
translating documents
babysitting/helping with child-rearing
helping navigate bureaucracy and paperwork
and more!
If you have any mental health or psychosocial disability needs, you can consider filling in a mad map. This can be especially useful for your pod when you are in need of aid because your pod won’t have to be trying to figure out what you need. With map mapping, you already make it clear what you need. You can listen to a tutorial here. Even if you don't live with mental “illness” (not everyone identifies with illness) or madness or disability, map mapping might still be useful for times of crisis and need!
Asking someone to become a part of your pod can look like:
“Hello, I am looking for someone to become a part of my pod or support/mutual aid group. Would you like to be a part of it? I generally need support with [insert your needs]. What do you think you can contribute? In return, I can [insert what you can contribute]. What can I contribute to you?”
Having a conversation on mutual trust, respect, and accountability are also recommended to make sure that you and your pod are on the same page together.
Filling in your pod map
To fill in the pod map, you’ll first need the worksheet. The map can be accessed here.
[Image Description: A diagram composed of three rings of circles with a grey circle in the middle. Surrounding the grey circle is a ring of bold-outlined circles. The next outer ring is composed of dotted circles. The most outer ring is comprised of larger regular black outlined circles. At the bottom of the image there is text that says “Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective Pod Mapping.”]
The instructions below are written by Mia Mingus for the BATJC:
1) Write your name in the middle grey circle.
2) The surrounding bold-outlined circles are your pod. Write the names of the people who are in your pod. We encourage people to write the names of actual individuals, instead of things such as “my church group” or “my neighbors.”
3) The dotted lines surrounding your pod are people who are “movable.” They are people that could be moved into your pod, but need a little more work. For example, you might need to build more relationship or trust with them.
4) The larger circles at the edge of the page are for networks, communities or groups that could be resources for you. It could be your local domestic violence direct service organization, or your cohort in nursing school, or your youth group, or a transformative justice group. [This can also include queer support groups!]
You can also watch this video on how to create a pod map!
Credit goes to Mia Mingus and BATJC. Be sure to check out the original source of pod mapping at BATJC for further information and to honor the original intention of pod mapping.
Hey yall, this is one of the series of webinars I was talking about for the transformative justice program I'm building out with my friend. Pods and Pod Mapping is the idea that you assess and build out community with those around you who could be there for you in an emergency. This practice let's us build relationship with folks, move us to be accountable with folks we can trust, and help us transform harmful behaviors within ourselves and others.
If interested in learning more, you can register here.
At the study group yesterday our focus was on values, and one specifically, trust. I'm still working out how it all comes together for me, my brain hasn't been able to let the idea of trust go because I realized there are very few people I trust.... like completely trust. It was good, working with my pod on it, because it was comforting in a strange way that B was struggling to find more than a couple of people that they trusted too. And we talked through the emotions with that, and why that is and it was.... super enriching.
That's why the study group is the one thing I'm fully committed to this summer. It helps to work through these super complicated emotions that other organizers really don't clue you in on before you get started in whatever your activism becomes. And it's a pivotal point to organizing, isn't it? Something to think about and work on, for sure.
Next session is all accountability and I'm really interested in this one because I feel like I hear about it everywhere but as a process I can't see, currently, what's the big deal. And I mean that in the sense that I'm still immersing myself into activists spaces and I don't know all the rules, or actions that make organizing successful, and this seems to be a big deal in activist spaces. I want to know what that's about.
And there was this person at the study group, V, who consistently very intriguing and has this super thoughtful comments about the stuff I feel like don't get talked about, or I've not seen so much of it. But V's comment was about wanting to see more support and discussion based around the ugliness of working through the different types of justice we want to achieve. They're (and I can't remember their pronouns so I'll update as I get them confirmed) wanted to talk about not forgiving and rage and making space for that, and a v important critic of being unable to forgive and trying to work for justice anyway. When we were going to lunch they kind of slowed down to walk in step with me and I took the opportunity to engage them in further discussion about it and....I really enjoyed talking with them and I want very much to have many, many more talks with them and learn about them, not in a sexual way (which I'm going to stop saying and you're all going to stop assuming unless I say otherwise, LMFAO). I feel a kindred spirit in shared trauma with V, unfortunately, and I hope we can explore that together and maybe we can reach healing together, or at least bond and become friends. They live in another city, but me and my pod exchanged number with them so I'm hopefully about future interactions. I really want them to be my friend.
Anyhow.
It's in two weeks and I put in my shift change request so I feel bad for them if they don't approve it again, lmfao.
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