Liberatory Lineage: The Thinkers Who Shape Fifth Element’s Framework

At Fifth Element, we don’t just teach regenerative business—we build it on the shoulders of liberatory giants. Our methodology is deeply influenced by scholars, organizers, and storytellers who have redefined what it means to lead, relate, and repair. This post honors five foundational thinkers whose work shapes our curriculum, our coaching, and our commitments.

bell hooks: Love as a Political Act

bell hooks taught us that love is a verb—a practice of justice, care, and accountability. In Teaching to Transgress, she reframed education as a site of liberation, not indoctrination. Her insistence that “there can be no love without justice” underpins our approach to relational repair, group facilitation, and curriculum design.

• What we carry forward: Love as praxis. Teaching as liberation. The refusal to separate intellect from emotion.

adrienne maree brown: Emergence, Fractals, and Pleasure

In Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown invites us to organize like mycelium—adaptive, decentralized, and rooted in relationship. Her work reminds us that small is all, and that transformation happens through iteration, not control. She also centers pleasure as a liberatory force, which we honor in our celebration practices and somatic check-ins.

• What we carry forward: Fractal design. Adaptive facilitation. Pleasure as a compass.

Paulo Freire: Dialogue and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a cornerstone of our teaching model. He rejected the “banking model” of education and instead championed co-creation, dialogue, and critical consciousness. His belief that learners are also teachers informs our facilitator model and our refusal to position expertise as hierarchy.

• What we carry forward: Dialogue as method. Co-creation over consumption. Education as liberation.

Audre Lorde: The Erotic, the Margins, and the Master’s Tools

Audre Lorde’s essays—especially “Uses of the Erotic” and “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”—are foundational to our rejection of dominant professionalism. She taught us that the erotic is not sexual but a source of deep knowing, and that systems of oppression cannot be dismantled using the logic that built them.

• What we carry forward: The erotic as power. Margins as sites of innovation. Refusal as strategy.

Robin Wall Kimmerer: Reciprocity and the Grammar of Animacy

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer weaves Indigenous wisdom with scientific knowledge to teach us about reciprocity, gratitude, and the personhood of the more-than-human world. Her framing of the land as being in an abusive relationship with humans has profoundly shaped our environmental justice lens.

• What we carry forward: Reciprocity as governance. Gratitude as discipline. Land as relative, not resource.

Why This Matters

These thinkers don’t just inspire us—they structure us. Their work is embedded in our curriculum arcs, our facilitator agreements, our compensation models, and our rituals of repair. We cite them not just to honor their brilliance, but to remind ourselves: we are not originators—we are stewards.