about
hey there,
I'm miki kovari.*
I'm a systemic impact consultant focusing on collective organisation, emergent collaboration, and regenerative stewardship. The work I do is also referred to as deep democracy and deep ecology.
In practical terms, I support teams to develop strategies, structures, and systems. Examples include multi-year or multi-generational strategic plans; organisational designs, policies, processes, and practices; monitoring, evaluation, and impact approaches, learning and development programs, and grant proposals.
I work through my company dcntr and with collaborations like the commoning collective and Native Foodways. I research, analyse, write, speak, coach, consult, and collaborate to move us towards more communal, caring, and abundant systems. See my services here.
More about my identity and background
I'm a middle-class, white, cis, male, with Magyar (Hungarian) ancestry and cultural heritage. I believe positionality is critical (learn more about why it is important for me to share my various identities here).
I went to a private school (my dad was a teacher there, we paid 25% of the fees) and completed an Economics Degree at the University of Sydney. I completed my honours in Political Economy and wrote my thesis on Indigenous self-determination and enterprise development.
I'm about as privileged as you get. I am constantly interrogating my power and privilege and thinking about how to share the unearned benefits I receive. Click here to see a list of resources I engaged with and draw on in my work.
I was born and raised on Gadigal land (aka Sydney, Australia) in a Magyar microcosm. I grew up speaking Magyar at home with my parents, grandparents, and sister. I have lived in Magyarország (Hungary) for some years and visit yearly. I have a Magyar daughter who lives in Budapest. I also have two kids who live with my partner and me in Gangagruwan on Dharawal Country (aka Kangaroo Valley, NSW).
My family left Magyarország in the 60s and 70s due to political, economic, and cultural oppression from the occupying Russian forces. My grandparents, some of whom are holocaust survivors, had enough of the turmoil. Leaving their homeland meant relocating to someone else's land. By leaving their home because of colonisers, they became colonisers.
My parents joined the Australian colony and I was born a coloniser. We have contributed to the oppression of First Nations people by participating in the illegal Western political-economic system imposed on people living on these lands. We have benefited from the genocide, dispossession, and oppression of First Nations Peoples.
God, that is hard to write and integrate. Even after all these years of decolonising work. But it's true, and we have to face up to these truths so that we can do all that we can to try to repair the damage. It is impossible to achieve justice and rectify the crimes committed by the British Crown, the Colonial Nation-State, the early colonisers, and us current colonisers. But we must think with an abundance mindset and be open to restorative possibilities (such as how we participate in transformative reparations and landback).
I'm currently exploring how to put 'our private property' (the land we live on and the house we live in) into some form of commons that can benefit local First Nations people. Stay tuned for updates on this. In the meantime, explore Biodiversity Legacy to learn more about innovative commoning models for landowners that can benefit First Peoples and care for nature.
As a coloniser, for almost 20 years, I've been working to support First Nations people to decolonise these lands (see my work). I'm trying to unlearn modern Western-European-American cultural constructs so that I can participate in a nation of nations that centres First Nations Peoples and their ways of knowing, doing, and being.
More to come...
* I don't capitalise my name as I'm against capitalism :) That's a joke, using caps is called capitalisation, but you get the jest. I actually don't use caps in my name to disturb the status quo and show there are workable alternatives to orthodoxy in the smallest of things. We should always be looking to decentre dominating ideas and practices that reinforce negative power dynamics. Our language and grammar is a great place to start. I'm inspired by the example of bell hooks, john a powell, and adrienne maree brown.