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Opponents of states and capital must be prepared to defend ourselves. To understand the nature of the state is to know that it will attack to kill when and where it feels a threat to its authority and power. But the struggles against exploitation, oppression, and repression must also move to the offensive. With the emboldening of reactionary forces on the far Right, there has been a renewed focus on issues of community self-defense, not only against the violence of the state but against organized fascists and Right-wing vigilantes alike. There has also been a developing seriousness, particularly among anarchist and antifascist, or antifa, activists. The goal of all anarchism is not to elimin...
Anarchy and Society explores the many ways in which the discipline of Sociology and the philosophy of anarchism are compatible. The book constructs possible parameters for a future ‘anarchist sociology’, by a sociological exposition of major anarchist thinkers (including Kropotkin, Proudhon, Landauer, Goldman, and Ward), as well as an anarchist interrogation of key sociological concepts (including social norms, inequality, and social movements). Sociology and anarchism share many common interests—although often interpreting each in divergent ways—including community, solidarity, feminism, crime and restorative justice, and social domination. The synthesis proposed by Anarchy and Society is reflexive, critical, and strongly anchored in both traditions.
A compelling discussion of anarchist political practice, providing rich examples of politics grounded in everyday resistance, offers important insights into real world attempts to radically transform social relations in the here and now of everyday life. Written by a longtime activist and sociologist, Active Anarchy provides one of the most significant reflections on contemporary radicalism in theory and practice. It documents an important movement in its complexity, moving beyond the misconceptions that mar both popular and academic portrayals of anarchism.
This is an age of crisis: economic, political, environmental, and social. Yet the nature of contemporary crisis is often misunderstood. Crisis, rather than being accidental or episodic - as is too often assumed - has been a regular feature of state practice in the neoliberal austerity regimes of contemporary capitalism. In this timely work Jeff Shantz gives special attention to the particular manufactured crises associated with austerity regimes and conditions of precarity within contemporary capitalism, and how Crisis States differ from other forms of state practice.Crisis is a powerful weapon of states and capital in the pursuit of accumulation, exploitation, and control. Engaging insights...
Protest and Punishment seeks to advance current debates and discussions on the criminalization of dissent as a common feature of neo-liberal governance in the current period of capitalist globalization. Demands for greater democratization and equality have been met by conservative calls for a "moderation of democracy" and the use of police to stifle growing social movements. Part of that response has been the reconstruction of police forces and policing to maintain public order while limiting popular mobilization. The period of alternative globalization protests has seen a number of dramatic clashes between police and protesters. The protests against the WTO in Seattle in November 1999 gaine...
It is widely understood that the burdens of ecological destruction are borne disproportionately by working-class and poor communities, both through illness and disease caused by pollutants and through the depletion of natural resources from which they make a living. Yet, consistently, the voices of the working class are the most marginalized, excluded, and silenced when discussing how to address ecological concerns and protect the environment from future destruction. Both mainstream environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, and radical environmentalists, such as EarthFirst!, are reluctant to engage with working-class and poor communities, often viewing blue-collar workers...
The Politics of Horror features contributions from scholars in a variety of fields—political science, English, communication studies, and others—that explore the connections between horror and politics. How might resources drawn from the study of politics inform our readings of, and conversations about, horror? In what ways might horror provide a useful lens through which to consider enduring questions in politics and political thought? And what insights might be drawn from horror as we consider contemporary political issues? In turning to horror, the contributors to this volume offer fresh provocations to inform a broad range of discussions of politics.
Constructive Anarchy, the result of more than a decade of direct study within a variety of anarchist projects, provides the most wide-ranging and detailed analysis of current anarchist endeavours. The compelling discussions of anarchism and union organising, anti-poverty work and immigrant and refugee defence represent truly groundbreaking undertakings from a rising scholar of contemporary anarchism. Organised to illustrate the development of the diversity of anarchist strategies and tactics over time, the book begins with a discussion of alternative media projects before turning attention to anarchist involvement in broader community-based movements. Case studies include a discussion of ana...
Organizing Anarchy details the remarkable growth and diversity of anarchist organizational practice in a range of spheres of activity from community centers and social spaces to online activism to labor and workplace militancy—and beyond—over the first decades of the twenty-first century. These projects involve innovative approaches by which anarchists resist current forms of exploitation and oppression while building anarchist relations for the future post-capitalist world in the present. In direct action and solidarity they make anarchism real, rather than a beautiful goal. Organizing Anarchy critically examines the possibilities and problems facing attempts to build radical real world projects, which seek to pose effective challenges to capitalist forms of exploitation and control. The work also engages theoretical developments around these emerging political practices, particularly in terms of social movement theories that tend to downplay, overlook, or misunderstand anarchist movements and forms of organizing.
Fear is a powerful emotion and a formidable spur to action, a source of worry and - when it is manipulated - a source of injustice. Manufacturing Phobias demonstrates how economic and political elites mobilize fears of terrorism, crime, migration, invasion, and infection to twist political and social policy and advance their own agendas. The contributors to the collection, experts in criminology, law, sociology, and politics, explain how and why social phobias are created by pundits, politicians, and the media, and how they target the most vulnerable in our society. Emphasizing how social phobias reflect the interests of those with political, economic, and cultural power, this work challenges the idea that society's anxieties are merely expressions of individual psychology. Manufacturing Phobias will be a clarion call for anyone concerned about the disturbing consequences of our culture of fear.