Category: Theory/Praxis
Sept. 8th, 7PM: The Commodification of Activism
For our next reading circle, we will be discussing the commodification of activism; we will do so by reviewing a piece from Damani James Partridge called “Activist Capitalism and Supply-Chain Citizenship: Producing Ethical Regimes and Ready-to-Wear Clothes.”
In his paper, Partridge examines new models of citizenship that are the direct result of globalization.
In those new models, capitalistic enterprises such as global supply chains and global corporate axes become intertwined with social projects. Partridge examines new collaborative models, which are the results of “[…] links between corporate governance, negotiations between corporate and nation-state sovereignty, and the related setting and enforcement of global labor and environmental standards.
Link to the paper
The PDF is also attached for those who cannot access the link:
Activist Capitalism and Supply-Chain Citizenship
For a complementary reading, see Nike’s Kaepernick ad is what happens when capitalism and activism collide, by Marc Bain.
Link to the article
Although we are no longer physically meeting as a group, we still operate on occupied, unceded Lekwungen territory. Our next meeting will be held on our private Jitsi server on Tuesday, September 8th at 7pm PST.
Jitsi is open-source software that is fully encrypted end-to-end, and which does not track your IP address. In the time when it seems like everyone’s falling for the most insecure communications platforms motivated solely to collect, sell and trade in your data, we created our own Jitsi instance as an infrastructural countermeasure.
If you are interested in participating in this week’s reading circle, please contact varc[at]victoriaanarchistreadingcircle.ca introducing yourself to confirm your place in the shadow-cabinet list and obtain access to the meeting.
June 30: Art as Resistance
Resistance is a process that pushes to understand how to unravel social dynamics and tensions, in the hope that from such an act would emerge meaningful solutions. Art, as a mean of expression, can speak and address such tensions.
For our next reading circle, we will be reading and discussing the following two writings:
> Pedagogical Subversion: The “Un-American” Graphics of Kevin Pyle, by Allan Antliff. Allan explores the work of Kevin Pyle, an illustrator whose work highlights the many social issues in the United-States. The writing discusses how Art can be used to unravel some of the state’s ideological tools and motivations, including the prison and the legal systems.
> Accomplices Not Allies, from Indigenous Action, is an indigenous perspective on the “ally industrial complex”, which stems from the “institutionalization” of allyship and its steering away from meaningful support.
Although we are no longer physically meeting as a group, we still operate on occupied, unceded Lekwungen territory. Our next meeting will be held on our private Jitsi server on Tuesday, July 28th at 7pm PST.
Jitsi is open-source software that is fully encrypted end-to-end, and which does not track your IP address. In the time when it seems like everyone’s falling for the most insecure communications platforms motivated solely to collect, sell and trade in your data, we created our own Jitsi instance as an infrastructural countermeasure.
If you are interested in participating in this week’s reading circle, please contact varc[at]victoriaanarchistreadingcircle.ca introducing yourself to confirm your place in the shadow-cabinet list and obtain access to the meeting.
May 12, 8pm (PST): Homeland: Anarchy and Joint Struggle in Palestine/Israel by Uri Gordon
This week, we are reading Chapter Six, titled, “Homeland: Anarchy and Joint Struggle in Palestine/Israel” by Uri Gordon. This is the final chapter in Anarchy Alive! (2008) and it offers insights on the issues, challenges, and movements involved in solidarity and direct action struggles within occupied and contested State forms. Gordon demonstrates there is much more going on in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict than what is shown in the news.
The chapter begins with a historical account of the Israeli State project and an introduction to the occupation of Palestine as well as the anarchist presence in the region at this time. The chapter discusses solidarity in terms of allies as supporters/followers, the consequences of resistance, including State repression, blacklisting, violence, and even death, which these activists routinely face, and the resulting contractions that can arise when working for change across varying degrees of social and cultural differences.
Gordon introduces examples of solidarity and resistance as practiced by two groups, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Anarchists Against the Wall, the direct action group formed in opposition to the ‘Segregation Barrier,’ a.k.a. the ‘Apartheid Wall.’ ISM is known for the cooperation they have achieved between Jews and Palestinians, as well as Internationals, who, among other things, act as human shields in zones of increasing militarised violence within the region. Complimenting this history, the Anarchists Against the Wall movement consciously integrates diverse struggles, creating networks of resistance intersecting across different forms of oppression, as exemplified by the relationships between the anarchists and queer and animal liberation movements. In the end, Uri Gordon offers a path of shared development in struggle that argues for the nuanced articulation of place-based identity in terms of Indigeneity and bioregionalism.
Get it here: Uri Gordon - Homeland (Chapter 6, Anarchy Alive!)
Although we are no longer physically meeting as a group, we still operate on occupied, unceeded Lekwungen territory. Our next meeting will be held on our private Jitsi server on Tuesday, May 12th at 8pm PST. Jitsi is open-source software that is fully encrypted end-to-end, and which does not track your IP address. In the time when it seems like everyone’s falling for the most insecure communications platforms motivated solely to collect, sell and trade in your data, we created our own Jitsi instance as an infrastructural countermeasure.
If you are interested in participating in this week’s reading circle, please contact varc[at]victoriaanarchistreadingcircle.ca introducing yourself to confirm your place in the shadow-cabinet list and obtain access to the meeting.
Mar 17: Reflections on Julien Assange & Wikileaks
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks including the Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, and Cablegate. Following these leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks. In 2019, Assange’s asylum was withdrawn following a series of disputes with the Ecuadorian authorities, got arrested and was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison in the United Kingdom.
The United States government charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917; editors from many newspapers heavily criticized the government’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage. Assange is incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh, reportedly in ill health.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, shares his findings and concerns about Julian Assange’s case, one of the most important cases of the century. https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange
We will be analyzing Assange’s situation at our next Anarchist Reading Circle, scheduled for Tuesday March 17th – doors 6:50, discussion at 7:00pm. As always, we will meet at Camas Books (2620 Quadra) on unceded, occupied Lekwungen Territory.
Feb 18: Autonomously and With Conviction: A Metis Refusal of State-led Reconciliation
In light of the recent events that have been mobilizing our movement this last week – the arrests of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and the Matriarchs, and the resulting uprisings that have responded to this outrage across so-called Canada (including our disruption of the throne speech, etc) VARC organizers have selected a special reading for the next meeting.
When I was forwarded the link, I was thrilled to discover the words of Southern Wind Woman had finally been transcribed. Southern Wind Woman is Michif-Cree from Saskatchewan, and these are some of the most powerful and threatening Indigenous teachings (and dare I say also anarcha-feminist) out there today.
For those of you who learn better by listening, you can hear this text in it original form as a keynote speech here: https://fromembers.libsyn.com/against-reconciliation-decolonize-means-no-state
For anyone who prefers the written word, you can access the text here: https://itsgoingdown.org/autonomously-and-with-conviction-a-metis-refusal-of-state-led-reconciliation/?fbclid=IwAR0opfo2guaKvySv0K0xj26VS3FlzxHKbJIePsVO-y8GAS84Q7bF55LcPYQ
As usual, we will be meeting on Tuesday, Feb 18th at 2620 Quadra Street, unceded, occupied Lekwungen territory. Doors will be open at 6:50pm, and discussion starts at 7pm.
Feb 4: ‘Who will protect us without police?’
Sept 24: Neither Victims nor Executioners by Camus, 1946
On Tuesday September 24th, we will be reading a classic pamphlet by Algerian-French militant, author, theorist and Nobel Prize awardee Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) titled “Neither Victims nor Executioners” (1946). This essay was first serialized in 1946 in the French Resistance newspaper Combat (founded, 1941) and addresses the issue of violence.
Camus’ anarchist orientation is well known: symptomatically, his major statement on anti-authoritarian ethics and social change, The Rebel (1951), was viciously attacked by French Communist Party ideologues such as Jean-Paul Sartre. The English-language version of Neither Victims nor Executioners first appeared in 1947 in the American anarchist journal, Politics (1944-1949). The pamphlet is an imprint of the pacifist-anarchist journal, Liberation (1956-1977).
The reading has been scanned and is available by scrolling down to the lower right side of this website.
As per usual, we are meeting at Camas Books and Infoshop, on unceded Lekwungen Territory, 2620 Quadra Street. The doors will be open at 6:50pm, with the discussion beginning at 7pm.
PS: I have always wanted to say “We are reading Camus at Camas!”
Sept 10: Landauer – Through Separation to Community
This week we are reading “Through Separation to Community” by German anarchist Gustav Landauer (1870-1919). Landauer is best known for arguing the State is “a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.” Novelist, playwright, author of three theoretical works and editor of the anarchist newspaper, Der Sozialist (intermittently published between 1893-1899; 1909-1915), he endured frequent stints in prison before the outbreak of World War One. Landauer anticipated the war would lead to revolutionary uprisings and, in November 1918, when workers and soldiers rose up and overthrew the conservative government of Germany’s second largest state, Bavaria, he joined the effort.
Landauer’s writings were very influential and his advocacy of decentralized self-governance based on local councils had an impact. When a new Council-based government was declared by revolutionaries in Bavaria’s capital, Munich, on April 7, 1919, Landauer accepted the appointment of Minister of Culture and Education. The German army immediately mobilized militias of demobilized soldiers, who marched into Munich and took over. A wave of terrorism ensued as revolutionaries were rounded up and shot. Landauer was arrested, jailed and brutally killed by a gang of soldiers on May 2, 1919.
Gustav Landauer: Through Separation to Community
As per usual, we are meeting at Camas Books and Infoshop, on unceded Lekwungen Territory, 2620 Quadra Street. The doors will be open at 6:50pm, with the discussion beginning at 7pm.
Aug 27: Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark, Chpt 1
This week, the circle decided to read a chapter from the acclaimed anarcha-femininst and witch, Starhawk. Starhawk is founder of the Reclaiming Tradition of witchcraft, which combines magickal practices with social and ecological activism, communialism, as well as sustainable land-based reclaiming techniques, such as permaculture gardening, and so on.
On Tuesday August 27th, we will be reading Starhawk’s first chapter from the 1990 edition of Dreaming the Dark. This is where she explains the difference between ‘power-over’ and ‘power-from-within.’ The reading has been scanned (and you will be able to read all my notations!) and is available below.
Starkhawk, Dreaming the Dark (1990 edition), Chapt 1
As per usual, we are meeting at Camas Books and Infoshop, on unceded Lekwungen Territory, 2620 Quadra Street. The doors will be open at 6:50pm, with the discussion beginning at 7pm.