Below our Associate, Freddie Wall, introduces themselves and what has brought them to their new role at Shared Assets

For many years, I have worked as a facilitator with social movements, groups and organisations, mostly in England and Wales. Themes across this work emerged around how groups and movements organise together, how we build power, how we tackle power dynamics that emerge between us as we try to dismantle and transform systems and structures to create more just futures where all beings can thrive. For over fifteen years, I worked with climate activists and trade unions, grassroots community projects and housing justice organisers, groups wanting to practice anti-oppression, groups wanting to find ways to deal with conflict better, groups trying to vision better worlds.  

During the lockdown of spring 2020, I found some comfort growing seeds on my windowsill. Getting my hands back in soil, I started to wonder about land. Land seemed to be a thread weaving between so many of the themes of our time from climate collapse and the housing crisis to racial capitalism and the rise of the far right. Inspired by reading Soil and Soul by Alastair McIntosh, and listening to a recording of Leah Penniman’s keynote at Oxford Real Farming Conference, I began to understand land as a site of struggle for dignity, freedom, community, spirit, belonging, and the foundation of the material conditions we all need to thrive.  

Finding out as much as I could about the land justice movement on these isles, I became aware of the work of Shared Assets  - particularly through the Land Justice Gatherings, meeting others involved in this work to transform relationships with land. I was and continue to be inspired by so many of the groups working in different parts of this movement from those resisting the harms of the current land system to those trying to repair the harms of history and how they play out in the present, to those trying to support a different land system trying to emerge.

I became increasingly interested in what knowledge and structures of support this movement and all those within its ecosystem might need to thrive and to win change in ways that might transform. Through my PhD research, I reorientated my project to work with land justice organisers to explore the work emotions are doing in racial justice organising within the land justice movement. I started a project called at the root to look at how the past has shaped the present when it comes to land ownership in this country, and continued to do back-end facilitation support with land justice groups and organisations.

Between January - July 2026, I have been working as Research Coordinator for Shared Assets, picking up projects developed by my predecessor - Kim Graham. In particular, I’ve loved working on the Landmatch England scheme, supporting the Steering Group, the collaboration between LME and Pathways to Land, and conducting a monitoring and evaluation of the first year pilot project. Over these six months, my interests across research and movement building to support the land justice movement have grown. Moving into an Associate role will enable more flexibility to continue to explore projects that might enable the transformation of the land system in England

As an Associate at Shared Assets, I will be working on a number of projects including Landmatch, as well as starting two new projects, thanks to funding from Farming the Future. The first of these is a collaboration between Sustain, Eating Better, the Landworkers Alliance and Shared Assets to map the ecosystem of work happening at the intersection of land, food, farming and racial justice. The second is a collaboration between Ecological Land Cooperative, Fordhall Farm and Shared Assets supporting transitions to community farm ownership, focusing in particular on learning from experiences of land-gifting, what has worked well and what we can learn from.

If you’re interested in collaborating with me to work with people and land for a just future, then please get in touch with me: freddie@sharedassets.org.uk. I look forward to hearing from you.