Community of Practice

Miakoda has never been comfortable with the use of the term “clients” to describe the people we work with. That word feels deeply inadequate in its ability to capture our intensely mutual exchange of learning. Instead, Miakoda refers to these individuals as practice partners and their collective bodies as Communities of Practice (CoPs).

What distinguishes these CoPs from most of the other groups using this term is our implementation, from the beginning, of specific tools and practices that map the power dynamics at play within the group, while also inviting and effectively leveraging tensions between CoP members. Transparently acknowledging power dynamics and openly working through conflicts is an explicit expectation of our work together, and makes the liberatory and radical collaboration nature of our work possible.

Our Approach

A diverse group of about a dozen people posing energetically in front of a red door, some with fists raised and arms outstretched in a gesture of power and solidarity.

What Becomes Possible

The trust built within these Communities of Practice makes the following outcomes possible:

Healing the divides within groups in order to truly show up for one another in authenticity and vulnerability.

Holding ourselves and each other accountable to the ongoing interrogation of how our best work still remains steeped in the harmful behaviors of “business-as-usual.”

Manifesting actual shifts in our personal and collective beliefs, behaviors, and operating practices, so we can embody our values of equitable distributions of power, agency, and sovereignty.

Our Community

A female bodied person with a long braid, gray sweatshirt, and black graphic tshirt, turning to the right, flashing a warm smirk at the other people participating in an embodied training activity
A black female bodied person wearing red leggings and a red top is dancing barefoot in a bright wooden floored room, with two other people dancing nearby with their eyes closed.