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Fundraising Anarchy

by Lake (Chelsea) Roberts

“Put in very blunt terms, they had taken power – not by simply changing the names of existing oppressive institutions but by literally destroying those old institutions and creating radically new ones… Social revolutionaries, far from removing the problem of power from their field of … Read more

Clio Reese Sady Receives IAS Grant for Graphic Novel “WE ALL TRESPASS”

Clio Reese Sady is a tattooist and pen and ink artist living on Ohlone land in Oakland, California. Sady is disabled – living with Bipolar Disorder – and loves making political art with San Francisco direct action group Gay Shame. Sady has had work published … Read more

Beyond Anti-fascism, But Not Without It, update

Thank you to those who have responded to the Beyond Anti-fascism, But Not Without It statement/call put out by the Perspectives on Anarchist Theory journal collective. Clearly there are many people pursuing this conversation in a variety of networks. Stay tuned for pieces coming from Perspectives on the Institute for Anarchist Studies website and in our 2018 Beyond the Crisis print issue.

DM_idkBV4AAU3Yn — “The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“Non-Western” “Anarchisms”

A survey for anarchists, anti-authoritarians, and liberation practicioners of all lands and places from IAS Board member Maia Ramanth, Take the survey here. Greetings all you anarchists, anti-authoritarians, liberation practicioners of all lands and places: I’ve been asked to contribute a piece on “Non-Western Anarchisms” … Read more

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.

hummingbird1000 — (Art by Lesly Yobany Mendoza, justseeds.org)

IAS 20th Anniversary Wish List

It’s our birthday! Want to give us a present?
If you have any of these things lying around,
here are some things we could use:

external hard drive
capable tablet, netbook or laptop- new or used
projector
phone cards
FedEx or Kinko’s cards
frequent flyer miles
filing totes
postage

We always appreciate your monetary donations. We are now a 501c3 so your donations are tax deductible. Make a monthly or one-time donation here.
Thank you!
And if you’re in the Portland, OR area on September 9, please come celebrate with us! Info about our exciting anniversary party is here.

Staying Power: The Institute for Anarchist Studies, Twenty Years Running, by Michelle Renee Matisons

Regarding the earliest days of the IAS, the story is quite simple. I was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn when Chuck Morse called me to ask if I’d like to work with him on a new project. He explained his idea for an organization that would … Read more

IAS Spring 2016 Newsletter

Spring 2016 Institute for Anarchist Studies Newsletter

Angels with Dirty Faces Book Launch!

Fresh from co-editing the wildly successful sci fi collection Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements for AK Press and the IAS, Walidah Imarisha gets very real in her new book about prisons and the legal system, Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemtion (AK/IAS). Join us at Powell’s on Hawthorne (3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd) in Portland, Oregon on Monday, March 14th at 7:30 for the Angels with Dirty Faces book launch!
This is no romanticized tale of crime and punishment. The three lives in this creative nonfiction account are united by the presence of actual harm—sometimes horrific violence. Imarisha, dealing with the complexities of her own experience with sexual assault and accountability, brings us behind prison walls to visit her adopted brother Kakamia and his fellow inmate Jimmy “Mac” McElroy, a member of the brutal Irish gang the Westies. Together they explore the questions: People can do unimaginable damage to one another—and then what? What do we as a society do? What might redemption look like? Imarisha-e1390515471565