Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid
Author: Dean Spade
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1839762128

Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world. Around the globe, people are faced with a spiralling succession of crises, from the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change-induced fires, floods, and storms to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, racist policing, brutal immigration enforcement, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. As governments fail to respond to—or actively engineer—each crisis, ordinary people are finding bold and innovative ways to share resources and support the vulnerable. Survival work, when done alongside social movement demands for transformative change, is called mutual aid. This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout. Writing for those new to activism as well as those who have been in social movements for a long time, Dean Spade draws on years of organizing to offer a radical vision of community mobilization, social transformation, compassionate activism, and solidarity.

Struggle and Mutual Aid

Struggle and Mutual Aid
Author: Nicolas Delalande
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1635420105

A dynamic historian revisits the workers’ internationals, whose scope and significance are commonly overlooked. In current debates about globalization, open and borderless elites are often set in opposition to the immobile and protectionist working classes. This view obscures a major historical fact: for around a century—from the 1860s to the 1970s—worker movements were at the cutting edge of internationalism. The creation in London of the International Workingmen’s Association in 1864 was a turning point. What would later be called the “First International” aspired to bring together European and American workers across languages, nationalities, and trades. It was a major undertaking in a context marked by opening borders, moving capital, and exploding inequalities. In this urgent, engaging work, historian Nicolas Delalande explores how international worker solidarity developed, what it accomplished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and why it collapsed over the past fifty years, to the point of disappearing from our memories.

Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid
Author: kniaz Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1922
Genre: Associations, institutions, etc
ISBN:

Direct Struggle Against Capital

Direct Struggle Against Capital
Author: Peter Kropotkin
Publisher: AK Press
Total Pages: 680
Release: 2014-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1849351716

This is the most extensive collection of Peter Kropotkin's writings available in English. Over half the selections have been translated for the first time or salvaged from long-out-of-print pamphlets and newspapers. Both an introduction to classic texts and a recontextualization of Kropotkin from saintly philosopher to dangerous revolutionary, Direct Struggle Against Capital includes a historical introduction, biographical sketch, glossary, bibliography, and index. Peter Kropotkin was one of anarchism's most famous thinkers. His classic works include The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Iain McKay has edited An Anarchist FAQ (volumes one and two) and Property Is Theft: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology.

Coronavirus, Class and Mutual Aid in the United Kingdom

Coronavirus, Class and Mutual Aid in the United Kingdom
Author: John Preston
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2020-11-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030577147

This book considers how the UK government’s response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic disadvantages the working class, and how mutual aid, based on anarchist principles, can be used as a force for social change. The authors draw on Marxist and anarchist thought in class theory and social movement analysis to demonstrate that the virus and its material and discursive consequences are an active part of continuing class struggle and class interpolation. Preston and Firth examine how plans for quarantine and social isolation systematically work against the needs of the working class, and rely on classed assumptions about how markets and altruism operate. In the face of neoliberal methods of dealing with a pandemic, ranging from marketization, disaster capitalism, to a strengthening of the State, Coronavirus, Class and Mutual Aid in the United Kingdom explains how radical alternatives such as social movements and mutual aid can be implemented to better cope with current and future crises.

A Mutual-Aid Model for Social Work with Groups

A Mutual-Aid Model for Social Work with Groups
Author: Dominique Moyse Steinberg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2014-02-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134473087

Group work is a popular and widely used social work method. Focusing particularly on the central role of mutual aid in effective group work, this text presents the theoretical base, outlines core principles, and introduces the skills for translating those theories and principles into practice. A Mutual-Aid Model for Social Work with Groups will help readers to catalyze the strengths of group members such that they become better problem solvers in all areas of life from the playroom to the boardroom. Increased coverage of evaluation and evidence-based practice speaks to the field’s growing concern with monitoring process and assessing progress. The book also includes: worker-based obstacles to mutual aid, their impact, and their antidotes pre-group planning including new discussion on curriculum groups group building by prioritizing certain goals and norms in the new group the significance of time and place on mutual aid and the role of the group worker maintaining mutual aid during so-called individual problem solving an expanded discussion of anti-oppression and anti-oppressive practice unlocking a group’s potential to make difference and conflict useful special considerations in working with time-limited, open-ended, and very large groups. Case examples are used throughout to help bridge the gap between theory and practice, and exercises for class or field, help learners to immediately apply conceptual material to their practice. All resources required to carry out the exercises are contained in over 20 appendices at the end of the book. Key points at the end of each chapter recap the major concepts presented, and a roster of recommended reading for each chapter points the reader to further resources on each topic. Designed to support ethical and successful practice, this textbook is an essential addition to the library of any social work student or human service practitioner working with groups.

Don't Leave Your Friends Behind

Don't Leave Your Friends Behind
Author: Victoria Law
Publisher: PM Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2012-10-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1604867957

Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind focuses on issues affecting children and caregivers within the larger framework of social justice, mutual aid, and collective liberation. How do we create new, nonhierarchical structures of support and mutual aid, and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? There are many books on parenting, but few on being a good community member and a good ally to parents, caregivers, and children as we collectively build a strong all-ages culture of resistance. Any group of parents will tell you how hard their struggles are and how they are left out, but no book focuses on how allies can address issues of caretakers’ and children’s oppression. Many well-intentioned childless activists don’t interact with young people on a regular basis and don’t know how. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind provides them with the resources and support to get started. Contributors include: The Bay Area Childcare Collective, Ramsey Beyer, Rozalinda Borcilă, Mariah Boone, Marianne Bullock, Lindsey Campbell, Briana Cavanaugh, CRAP! Collective, a de la maza pérez tamayo, Ingrid DeLeon, Clayton Dewey, David Gilbert, A.S. Givens, Jason Gonzales, Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia), Jessica Hoffman, Heather Jackson, Rahula Janowski, Sine Hwang Jensen, Agnes Johnson, Simon Knaphus, Victoria Law, London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group, Amariah Love, Oluko Lumumba, mama raccoon, Mamas of Color Rising/Young Women United, China Martens, Noemi Martinez, Kathleen McIntyre, Stacey Milbern, Jessica Mills, Tomas Moniz, Coleen Murphy, Maegan ‘la Mamita Mala’ Ortiz, Traci Picard, Amanda Rich, Fabiola Sandoval, Cynthia Ann Schemmer, Mikaela Shafer, Mustafa Shakur, Kate Shapiro, Jennifer Silverman, Harriet Moon Smith, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, Darran White Tilghman, Jessica Trimbath, Max Ventura, and Mari Villaluna.

Living at the Edges of Capitalism

Living at the Edges of Capitalism
Author: Andrej Grubacic
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520962486

Since the earliest development of states, groups of people escaped or were exiled. As capitalism developed, people tried to escape capitalist constraints connected with state control. This powerful book gives voice to three communities living at the edges of capitalism: Cossacks on the Don River in Russia; Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico; and prisoners in long-term isolation since the 1970s. Inspired by their experiences visiting Cossacks, living with the Zapatistas, and developing connections and relationships with prisoners and ex-prisoners, Andrej Grubacic and Denis O’Hearn present a uniquely sweeping, historical, and systematic study of exilic communities engaged in mutual aid. Following the tradition of Peter Kropotkin, Pierre Clastres, James Scott, Fernand Braudel and Imanuel Wallerstein, this study examines the full historical and contemporary possibilities for establishing self-governing communities at the edges of the capitalist world-system, considering the historical forces that often militate against those who try to practice mutual aid in the face of state power and capitalist incursion.

Mutual Aid Groups, Vulnerable and Resilient Populations, and the Life Cycle

Mutual Aid Groups, Vulnerable and Resilient Populations, and the Life Cycle
Author: Alex Gitterman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 665
Release: 2005-02-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0231502923

The contributors to this volume examine the role of mutual aid groups and social workers in helping members of oppressed, vulnerable, and resilient populations regain control over their lives. The chapters reveal the ways in which mutual aid processes help individuals overcome social and emotional trauma in contemporary society by reducing isolation, universalizing individual problems, and mitigating stigma. Using the life cycle as a framework the editors establish a theoretical model for practice and demonstrate how social workers as group leaders can foster the healing and empowering process of mutual aid. The contributors also consider the fundamentals of the mutual aid process, the institutional benefits of group service, and specific clinical examples of mutual aid groups. Each chapter offers detailed case materials that illustrate both group work skills and developmental issues for a variety of populations and settings, including HIV-positive and AIDS patients, the homeless, and perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse and family violence. New chapters in this completely revised and updated third edition illustrate the power of mutual aid processes in dealing with children traumatized by the events of September 11, adult survivors of sexual abuse, parents with developmentally challenged children, people with AIDS in substance recovery, and mentally ill older adults.

Normal Life

Normal Life
Author: Dean Spade
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2015-07-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 082237479X

Revised and Expanded Edition Wait—what's wrong with rights? It is usually assumed that trans and gender nonconforming people should follow the civil rights and "equality" strategies of lesbian and gay rights organizations by agitating for legal reforms that would ostensibly guarantee nondiscrimination and equal protection under the law. This approach assumes that the best way to address the poverty and criminalization that plague trans populations is to gain legal recognition and inclusion in the state's institutions. But is this strategy effective? In Normal Life Dean Spade presents revelatory critiques of the legal equality framework for social change, and points to examples of transformative grassroots trans activism that is raising demands that go beyond traditional civil rights reforms. Spade explodes assumptions about what legal rights can do for marginalized populations, and describes transformative resistance processes and formations that address the root causes of harm and violence. In the new afterword to this revised and expanded edition, Spade notes the rapid mainstreaming of trans politics and finds that his predictions that gaining legal recognition will fail to benefit trans populations are coming to fruition. Spade examines recent efforts by the Obama administration and trans equality advocates to "pinkwash" state violence by articulating the US military and prison systems as sites for trans inclusion reforms. In the context of recent increased mainstream visibility of trans people and trans politics, Spade continues to advocate for the dismantling of systems of state violence that shorten the lives of trans people. Now more than ever, Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require.