Last week, I went to Falmouth University in Cornwall, the very tip of South West England, to be in discussion with the local community about violence, self defence, activism and resilience. My two day journey by train allowed me to witness the devastation wrought by the recent storm which tore through Cornwall, flooding great swathes of the county and uprooting tall, ancient trees. It was, perhaps, the perfect backdrop to our discussions which circled around how to approach a collapsing reality.

Battered by the storm, Cornwall was emblematic of our institutional systemic failure to confront a rapidly changing reality. In one of the richest countries in the world, entire communities lost power for weeks, and running water for days. Had the British government adequately addressed climate change, and made contingency plans for these mega-storms, which will only become more frequent with time, the residents of Cornwall may not have faced such dangerous circumstances in the coldest month of the year. Yet, despite its great beauty, and the acute, localised housing crisis driven by the number of properties kept as second homes for wealthy Londoners, Cornwall is impoverished. This large county comprises of mostly rural communities who have been largely forgotten by a post-industrial economy which sees no value in that which cannot be scaled to maximise profit: just before I arrived, the local bus service in Falmouth had been axed.

Cornwall enjoys an impressive network of self-organised resistance, from food co-ops and foraging workshops to marches and those willing to risk jail. I quickly learned how varied and impressive this network is, and felt I had very little to offer by way of suggestions for how to navigate the great eroding we are all living through. But what struck me, as it so often does in such discussions, was how easy it was to veer into conversations about national or even international problems and potential actions to take. I firmly believe that the best path for all resistance is hyper-localised and intimate. Only when we know our neighbours and know what they need, what they seek, can we begin to generate the kind of common ground which becomes fertile soil for the common good. Only when we know our land and all of the relationships that depend on it—what's called our territoria in activist circles in Colombia—can we implement alternative systems which support one another and nurture life. These are the shelters which will see us through the storms.

The tendrils of corruption spread over the land, creating dark shadows on the surface of the Earth. We cannot combat like with like, not with in a time of such great inequality. Limiting our sphere of influence to our geography does not limit the kind of action we can take; these are the roots which hold the soils together, deepened by time and commitment. If every community in every place were to begin digging deep into themselves and one another to create the root system which will support them all through our dangerous future, this would change the very nature of our local and global problems.

In the few days after I left Falmouth, I was repeatedly struck by the importance of the where over the what. In London, I caught up with my former mentor and boss, Clare Rewcastle Brown, the journalist who single-handedly exposed the largest financial corruption scandal in the history of the world with her blog, Sarawak Report. I owe all of my formal skills in journalism to Clare, and a lifetime of training growing up around her, my mother and my godmother, three powerhouse women who changed the very landscape of journalism with their careers. It is a great joy of mine, now, to be able to offer any piece of information, knowledge or connection to the women who trained me, especially when Clare is working on an active story. So we swapped stories over dinner, and I told her my concerns about a latent resource-rush just waiting to hit the Pacific Islands, some of whom have likely only been ignored until now because of their tiny size. I told her I am interested in focusing my investigative reporting there, on what is arguably the most under-reported place in the world. Clare's own investigations have blown the lid off of Chinese exploitation and resource theft in the Pacific, and my work follows in her footsteps, so she knows just how vulnerable these islands are and how little attention they get. While most British journalists would likely be confused as to why a small region like the Pacific holds such great interest in a time where vast territories like Greenland are being targeted, Clare knows intimately how much difference one journalist can make in a place being largely ignored by the rest of the world—especially when that journalist comes from the Global North. She immediately grasped how much these islands offer as an investigative journalist, and how much accurate reporting can offer on islands that do not yet have their own national newspapers, or whose national newspapers belong to the budding elite. I could focus my investigative efforts anywhere in the world, but where I focus them determines what I focus on. It also determines how much impact my work can have. Clare is the shining example of what dedication and years of getting to know a place can do. Her work on 1MDB helped topple the corrupt Malaysian government, throw Goldman Sachs bosses in jail, expose Hollywood's dirty money, and haul the entire network of fraudsters before the United States Department of Justice, repatriating billions of stolen dollars to the Malaysian people and protecting the most diverse island on the planet: Borneo.

The morning after dinner with Clare, I left for Paris on the Eurostar to catch up with an old friend. I have never before taken advantage of Paris' cultural scene, but my partner has his haunts in each European capital, and took me up to his favourite gallery in the city, the Musée de Montmartre. I highly recommend visiting this intimate gallery because the full-time exhibition explains the rise of cabaret on this small hill which was not even absorbed into Paris until the mid 19th century. Overpriced cafés and hordes of tourists now crowd what was once a hillside of vineyards and shanty towns, which were home to France's most exciting and progressive art scene. Even as Montmartre transformed under the pressures of industrialisation, and the shanty towns destroyed to make way for cobbles and brick, this hill remained an outpost of artistic experimentation and cultural resistance, home to household names like Monet, Renoir, and van Gogh.

Local artists, musicians and intellectuals opened up café-concerts on the hill, offering spaces of interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion. Attendees were delighted with shadow theatres and, eventually, cabaret, which playfully pushed the boundaries of class and gender. Artists helped promote these venues, such as the famous Chat Noir, with posters while musicians and actors provided entertainment for the night. The street, too, became the ante-chamber to the show, where the experimentation spilled out into the night, provoking the collective political imagination.

Soon, artists from all over the world flocked to take part in what can only be described as a revolution. The hill became home to Pablo Picasso, Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo and many more, transforming modern art forever. Painters from as far as Tokyo came to Montmartre to involve themselves in what would become known as the "école de Paris". Their lives were made of lively discussions in the cafés, bars and cabarets, a form of collaboration which informed their solitary work in their studios. The Musée de Montmartre currently has a wonderful exhibition, on loan from Warsaw, about this very "école de Paris" and its eventual graduation from Montmartre to Montparnasse, after the highest hill in Paris eventually became overrun with the bourgeoisie who wanted to enjoy this revolution as performance, effectively destroying it in the process.

In all the history I learned in the hours we spent wandering around the galleries, what I was most taken with were the photographs of Montmartre just before the industrial revolution, where the paths were made of soil and the homes thrown up by those who lived there. I could understand the appeal to the artistic soul, seeking to escape the grasp of the city below. I could understand how the cheap rents and close-knit community drew those who wish to align themselves with truth – how the geography of this very hill had made the community who attracted the people who would become the beating heart of France's artistry. I was taken by how important it was they all live near one another and experience the commonality of their experiences, and create the shared spaces they needed to have the conversations life warranted. This small hill allowed a wayward group of people to become neighbours and, as neighbours, they developed the kinds of relationships grounded in each other's existence, creating a web of relationships upon which they all depended. The very nature of Montmartre defined what came out of it, changing the lives of those who chose to make their home there, which in turn birthed the Modern Art movement in Europe, changing the world.

This is the lesson I take from Montmartre, and the communities I have seen all over the world working within their own sphere of influence: We cannot seek to change the world, but we can choose to change where we are, and doing so will change who we are and what we do, and what we do may very well one day have changed all that is far beyond our reach. Resistance is not merely that which we move against, but that which we invite to become. But if we have learned anything from evolution it is that nothing on this great expanse of planet Earth chooses a role for itself. Rather, as organisms, we become what is needed of us by the greater web of life within which we exist. Our shape and our function is not defined by individual machinations nor personal preference. We become who we are through what our territoria asks of us. And because of that immense web of mutuality, we cannot be transplanted or supplanted. We need to be right where we are to do what we need to do.

There is nowhere else but right here.