In the Middle of a Whirlwind:

2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movements

www.inthemiddleofawhirlwind.info
Conor Cash, Craig Hughes, Stevie Peace & Kevin Van Meter | Team Colors

Whirlwinds Contributors Survey

Introduction

On May 25th, 2008 Team Colors Collective launched an ambitious one-off online journal entitled In the
Middle of a Whirlwind: 2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movements (Whirlwinds). The purpose
of Whirlwinds was to “inquire into current organizing efforts in the United States,” and through this process
to “provide a strategic analysis of current political composition as a tool for building political power.”
Since May, Whirlwinds events have been held in multiple places around the U.S. and thousands of people
have accessed the online journal.

With the journal complete and the seasons moving, Team Colors has begun a process of strategic reflection
on the Whirlwinds effort. The survey below is a core-piece of that reflection. We know that you’re very
busy, but we feel that coming to understand your thoughts on Whirlwinds is crucial for our work. It is also a
way for us to engage those who contributed to the collection and get a grasp on how they felt about the idea
of the collection, the process we framed and the final outcomes.

Results of the Survey

This survey is being undertaken in the spirit of militant research, and the results and responses from the
survey will be posted on the Team Colors website (anonymously if you’d like, or not at all if that’s your
preference). Additionally, Team Colors is currently writing an article titled “Of Whirlwinds and Wind
Chimes (or ways to listen): Movement Building & Militant Research in the United States – a full English
version will appear on the Team Colors website and will be circulated in print from. This article has been
commissioned by Arranca!, a radical publication for the FELS group in Germany, and a shorter version of
the article will appear in its pages in German.

Relationship Building

In addition to our primary hope of Whirlwinds being an inquiry into movement building and strategic
dialog during the summer of 2008, Team Colors also initiated Whirlwinds to build relationships with
organizations and individuals whose work it respected and who work we believe contributes to movement
building efforts in the United States. We ask that you keep the collective abreast of your activities, consider
us when producing research projects, and contact us if it can be useful to your organizing efforts. We are
currently based in New York City, Portland, OR, Tucson, AZ and the Twin Cities and we would like to host
local events – lectures, workshops, dinner parties – for Whirlwinds contributors and comrades. Contact us
at: TeamColors@WarMachines.Info; and visit us on the web, here you can sign up for the Team Colors E-
Newsletter and access additional materials, at: www.WarMachines.Info.

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Whirlwinds Contributors Survey Team Colors

Survey & Narrative Questions

The following questions come in two forms: survey questions (please choose the appropriate number for
the numbered questions) and narrative questions (describe your answers and reflections below). Team
Colors would be happy to discuss these in more detail via email, phone, and (where able) in person –
which ever you find most useful and productive. We respectively request that all of our contributors answer
the numbered survey questions, so we can have a full return on these questions.

Deadline for Responses: October 20th

COMMUNICATION:
1. How effective was the Whirlwinds Request for Proposals?
2. How clear was Team Colors on the Whirlwinds project and your participation in it?
3. Are you satisfied with the level of contact and communication from Team Colors
during the process of completing Whirlwinds?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

Was the Request for Proposals and your initial contact with Team Colors clear about the
Whirlwind project and your role as contributors? How useful and productive were Team
Colors communications with you? What were the strong points about our
communication with contributors, and how can this be strengthened in the future?

EDITING:
4. Was the editing process with the collective useful for you?
5. Are you satisfied with the final article as it appeared in the journal?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

Was the article editing process useful to you? Was the final product to your liking? What
could Team Colors have done to streamline this process and what should it do to improve
its practice in the future?

WRITING:
Did you engage with your constituencies around Whirlwinds? If not, what prevented you?
Would it have been well received if we had asked you to go that route? Did you distribute
this piece to your members and constituents? Were they involved in the writing process?
Would that have been a useful process for you? What prevented you from doing this?

PARTNERSHIP:
What would have been helpful in this process? How could it have been more reciprocal?
How could Team Colors move from militant research to co-research – that is, research
produced with movement organizations?

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PRODUCING KNOWLEDGE:
6. How engaging did you find the quality of the material in collection?
7. How useful did you find the material in Whirlwinds?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

How clear were we about producing knowledge about current movements? How
effective have we been in obtaining articles that described how organizations, initiatives
and movements functioned? How useful were these articles for your own work?

TEAM COLORS COLLECTIVE:

8. How did you find the quality of the Team Colors introduction and other written
materials for the collection?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

What are your impressions of the collective itself? What are your thoughts on how the
journal was framed, appeared, and publicized?

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES:

9. Did you find the Whirlwinds promotional materials engaging?
10. How did you find the Whirlwinds website engaging and easy to navigate?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

What are among the strongest /weakest and most / lease useful articles in the journal, and
why?

RESOURCES:
As a collective with limited resources, was producing an online journal with
accompanying print outreach materials and events, the right direction? Was it a mistake
not to produce a print journal or book thus far? What do you see as the viability of such a
print project? How would you suggest Team Colors approach such interventions in the
future?

CLASS COMPOSITION:
11. Do you believe the Whirlwinds journal collection is useful in achieving its goal?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

In Whirlwinds Team Colors choose to look at movement composition as a step toward

researching the larger question of class composition, since little attention has been paid to
the structure, function, and content of current radical movements in the United States.
Our reasoning was to utilize Whirlwinds as a way of taking steps toward the deployment
of militant and co-research techniques to intervene in current class composition and
organizing campaigns; in addition to introducing militant and co-research, precarity, and
autonomist concepts to a larger audience in the United States. In what ways did Team

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Colors accomplish this with the collection? How can these practices and concepts be
introduced to a larger audience in the United States?

MILITANT & CO-RESEARCH:

For Organizers: What role does research play in your organizing? For Researchers:
How do you produce and carry out research toward radical and movement-grounded
ends? For both: How do you produce and carry out research that is useful to and for
radical movements?

ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS:
Include any additional questions, comments, thoughts, critiques and opinions not
addressed in this survey.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Anonymous: Y | N
Organizational Affiliation (if any):
Email Address:
Phone Number:

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