Hot off the press: Kevin Van Meter’s GUERRILLAS OF DESIRE: NOTES ON EVERYDAY RESISTANCE AND ORGANIZING TO MAKE A REVOLUTION POSSIBLE, published by the Institute for Anarchist Studies, in conjunction with AK Press, has just arrived from the printer! Get your copy now for 25% off list price here!
#Strategy
What Happened in Portland on May Day?
This May Day in Portland, Oregon about 1,500 people rallied and marched against capitalism, racism, and colonialism, including immigrant families, undocumented folks, people with disabilities, and working families with kids. It was International Workers Day, which commemorates the Haymarket affair, which took place in Chicago, … Read more
Guerrillas of Desire: New IAS Book on Everyday Resistance and Organizing Available for Preorder!
Silvia Federici says it is “beautifully written” while illustrating “the power of the refusal of work of those capitalism has subjugated.” George Caffentzis believes it is an “important exploration of the revolutionary possibilities of our time.” Kevin Van Meter’s Guerrillas of Desire: Notes on Everyday Resistance and Organizing to Make a Revolution Possible is the latest Institute of Anarchist Studies book to be published in concert with AK Press.
Perspectives available in Canada!
The current anarcha-feminisms issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (n. 29), and all back issues, including:
Justice, Strategy, Care, Movements, and Climate, are now available in Canada, from Kersplebedeb Leftwing Books!
2017 Institute for Anarchist Studies Writing Grant Awards
We would like to congratulate the recipients of IAS writing grant awards for 2017. We choose the following applicants. Stay tuned for an exciting announcement about our upcoming grants’ cycle.
Indigenist Intersectionality: Decolonizing an Indigenous Eco-Queer Feminism and Anarchism, by Laura Hall
This essay appears in the current anarcha-feminisms issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (N. 29), available here from AK Press! Laura received an Institute for Anarchist Studies writing grant to complete this piece.
The violence enacted against Indigenous women and Two-Spirit/LGBTQ people evokes deep questions about the intent and impact of colonization in a Canadian settler and state context. The horrors of colonial violence—bodies were violated and abandoned at the sides of highways, in ditches, in rivers—tell stories of the vital importance of Indigenous women’s leadership, their warriorhood, their gifts and their medicines, and also of the centrality of gendered freedom and fluid belonging in Indigenous cultures. It is a system of colonization that seeks to erase and subsume these realities and to replace Indigenous truth with illusions of our weakness. We are at a pivotal moment now as state and settler voices seek to understand what is needed, and it is a pivotal moment best informed by threads of anarchist and feminist thought woven within Indigenous worldviews. Vital intersections are made between gender and Indigeneity because the conversation is always in danger of being rerouted by policing and state voices, as well as settler voices.1 The work that Indigenous women and Two-Spirit/LGBTQ people do on the ground—to renew our connections to culture, to renew the innovations and economies of our nations—needs more support in every way, from allies across intellectual lines.
Coming to Terms: Rethinking Popular Approaches to Anarchism and Feminism, by Theresa Warburton
This essay appears in the anarcha-feminisms issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (N. 29) available here from AK Press! Theresa is a past recipient of an Institute for Anarchist Studies writing grant. To save our movements, we need to come to terms with the connections between gender … Read more
Abolishing the “Psy”-ence Fictions: Critiquing the Relationship Between the Psychological Sciences and the Prison System, by Colleen Hackett
This essay appears in the current anarcha-feminisms issue of Perspectives, N. 29, available here, from AK Press!
Tiana is crying. She walks into the room, a large, powerful woman wearing a bland ensemble of a faded green top with similarly colored pants. The silent tears on her face are enough to quiet the many scattered conversations happening among us. Many of us try to make eye contact with Tiana, waiting for her to tell us what is wrong. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t look at anyone. She sits and stares.
We’re all sitting in a classroom in a women’s prison. The space is filled with remedial educational materials for GED students, collages with magazine cutouts of models and vacation getaways, and clichéd motivational posters that inspire the incarcerated to become “ambitious” and “dedicated.” In the moments of silence that follow Tiana’s entrance, I’m reminded of the poster on the wall that lists the amendments to the US Constitution. On this poster the legendary constitutional change, the thirteenth amendment, only includes the part that formally abolishes slavery and does not include the part that says, “Except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Every time I encounter suffering in that room, including my own, I remember that sterilized, whitewashed version of history hanging on the wall and cringe. And I rage, quietly.
Support Radical Writing and Publishing with a Tax-Deductible Contribution!
Friends and comrades, we need you.
As 2016 gets its final punches in, many of us are looking for ways to find hope and positivity in dark times, to connect with those we care about, and to recommit to our collective struggles. If you are dedicated to creating a free society, if you believe in equity, liberation, and mutual aid—then here is a way you can help.
The Institute for Anarchist Studies relies on financial support from you to do its work. We are a largely volunteer-run organization—proof that a small number of dedicated individuals can produce inspiring results! Our goals are to further anarchist analysis and to spread the influence of anti-authoritarian ideas and praxis through reflection, dialogue, and education. Our work takes many forms, including:
- Grants for radical writers,
- Perspectives on Anarchist Theory magazine,
- Anarchist Interventions and other book series through AK Press,
- The Mutual Aid Speakers bureau,
- Sponsorship of educational events,
and more!
Until All Are Free: Black Feminism, Anarchism, and Interlocking Oppression, by Hillary Lazar
Black feminism has a particularly deep resonance with anarchist understandings of mechanisms of power, which similarly foreground a linking across all systems of domination. Again, this is important to note, so as to ensure that the impact of Black feminism on contemporary anarchism is not overlooked. This currency across the two schools of thought is also notable, however, as it very well may be the coming together of Black feminism and anarchism that is encouraging the shift in orientation away from a more fragmented conceptualization of struggle, and towards the idea of our struggles as interdependent. And, especially given the increased presence of anarchism in mobilizations since the Zapatista uprising in 1994, it seems plausible that the confluence of these streams of thought is having a powerful combined impact on radical political thought and culture.