May 11: Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation

Posted on April 21, 2025 - April 21, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, CAMAS BOOKS’ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

Next time, we will be reading selections from Sophie Lewis’ Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation (2022). We will be discussing Chapter 1: But I Love My Family! and Chapter 4: Comrades Against Kinship.

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday May 11th @ 6:30PM.

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PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of “Vancouver Island” have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

April 27: Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Rojava

Posted on April 3, 2025 - April 26, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING PORTION HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, CAMAS BOOKS‘ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

ALSO LISTEN (35:00-end, 20m) and WATCH (14m)

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

We will be discussing the Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution methods and praxis of Rojavan revolutionaries in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

VARC-goers are expected to read Peacebuilding in a Conflict Setting: Peace and Reconciliation Committees in De Facto Rojava Autonomy in Syria (2017) by Dr. Yasin Duman, listen to The Women’s War podcast episode 5 Grandma Law And Revolutionary Sacrifice, (2020) and watch the SubMedia video The Fall of the Regime (2025) ahead of time for our discussion.

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday April 27th @ 6:30PM.

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PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of “Vancouver Island” have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

March 16: Accounting for Ourselves: Sexual Assault, Abuse, and Accountability

Posted on February 21, 2025 - March 15, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, AUDIO, CAMAS BOOKS‘ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Readers should note that this reading deals heavily with triggering and upsetting topics. Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

We will be meeting to discuss Accounting for Ourselves: Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes (2017) by Jason Cortez.

“Sexual assault and abuse continue to plague anarchist circles and spaces. In response, we’ve developed processes to hold each other accountable outside of the state. But why can’t we seem to get them right? This essay examines the context in which these community accountability models emerged and analyzes the pitfalls we’ve encountered in trying to apply them. To move beyond the impasse around sexual violence within our scenes, we need to challenge the idea of community itself and take our resistance in new directions.”

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday March 16th @ 6:30PM.

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square. They need help from volunteers.

Mar 3: Intersectional Black Anarchafeminism

Posted on February 19, 2024 - February 19, 2024 by Light

In honour of International Women’s Day on March 8th, combined with our yearning for more Black Anarchafeminism after What Is Black Anarchism?, we decided on reading more on Black Feminism, Anarchism, and Intersectionality.

We will be reading The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) as a primer for our other two readings Femme Queen, Warrior Queen: Beyond Representation, Toward Self-Determination (2021) by Nsambu Za Suekama and Until All Are Free: Black Feminism, Anarchism, and Interlocking Oppression (2016) by Hillary Lazar.

The Combahee Statement includes the early formulation of “identity politics,” and argued that various oppressions such as racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and classism are interrelated and must be addressed as a whole. They also believed that Black feminism was the logical political movement to fight against these simultaneous oppressions.

Femme Queen, Warrior Queen and Until We Are All Free together draw insights from various sources, including the Street Trans* Action Revolutionaries, Claudia Jones, the Combahee River Collective, Frantz Fanon, and Malcolm X. The central message is that centering Black trans women not only advances their liberation but also contributes to the universal freedom of all African and oppressed people. The piece emphasizes the need to transcend divisive discourse and work toward transformative movements that address material conditions and internalized antagonisms within the Black trans struggle1. It invites readers to engage with honesty, good faith, and a commitment to revolutionary learning and movement building.

The Combahee River Collective statement can be read on BlackPast or downloaded here. It can also be listened to as a podcast episode on A People’s Anthology, read by Beverly Smith, one of the original members of the Combahee River Collective.

Femme Queen, Warrior Queen is on the Anarchist Library, as well as Until We Are All Free. These two are able to be downloaded packaged together here as Screen or Imposed Zine.

As always, we meet at Camas Books and Infoshop, 2620 Quadra Street, on unceded Lekwungen Territory at 6:30pm on Sunday March 3rd.

April 30: Autonomous Indigenous Federalism & Feminism

Posted on April 23, 2023 - April 24, 2023 by Light

Last time we discussed misogyny pervasive in our society and permeating into leftist and anarchist organizing, as well as Subcomandante Marcos’ rejection of representative vanguardist politics. This led us to read more into democratic Indigenous organizing, as well as a companion piece that follows an Indigenous-settler anarcha-feminist group’s perspective. Our next two readings are: A Look at the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magón (CIPO-RFM) by the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists digs into the CIPO-RFM, an Indigenous grassroots movement, and Interview with Julieta Paredes of Mujeres Creando, which describes how the Bolivian anarcha-feminist group Mujeres Creando draws from their Andean heritage, from feminism, and from anarchism to fight patriarchy, power, the State and militarism.

The Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists’ “A Look at the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magón (CIPO-RFM)” is available for free to read on the Anarchist Library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/northeastern-federation-of-anarcho-communists-a-look-at-the-popular-indigenous-council-of-oaxac

Interview with Julieta Paredes of Mujeres Creando is also available for free to read on the Anarchist Library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/julieta-paredes-interview-with-julieta-paredes-of-mujeres-creando

As always, we are meeting at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. The next meeting is Sunday April 30 @ 6:30PM.

April 16: Zapatistas Against Vanguardism & Misogyny in ‘The Left’

Posted on April 3, 2023 - April 6, 2023 by Light

After our enthusiastic conversation about the Zapitistas’ model of Participatory Democracy, we wanted to delve more into Zapatista cosmovisión (worldview) and organization by reading Subcomandante Marcos’s “I Shit On All the Revolutionary Vanguards of this Planet,” which is a response to the Basque liberation movement Euskadi Ta Askatasuna’s (ETA) advocation of vanguardist politics. We also teased out the idea of future readings about Rojava in a continuation of our exploration of democratic centralism. Therefore, we decided in anticipation to also include the Feminist Anarchist Border Opposition’s Why Misogynists Make Great Informants, which tackles misogyny and gender violence in left-activist circles and movements.

Subcomandante Marcos’s “I Shit On All the Revolutionary Vanguards of this Planet” is available for free to read on the Anarchist Library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/subcomandante-marcos-i-shit-on-all-the-revolutionary-vanguards-of-this-planet

Feminist Anarchist Border Opposition’s Why Misogynists Make Great Informants is available for free to read here: https://incite-national.org/2010/07/15/why-misogynists-make-great-informants-how-gender-violence-on-the-left-enables-state-violence-in-radical-movements/

As always, we are meeting at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. The next meeting is Sunday April 16 @ 6:30PM.

Feb 18: Autonomously and With Conviction: A Metis Refusal of State-led Reconciliation

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Creatrix

The Land is Ceremony, Erin Marie Konsmo (Metis/Cree)

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.

Dec 17: Women in the Zapatista Movement

Posted on December 8, 2019 - December 8, 2019 by Creatrix

Comandanta Ramona y les Zapitistas

At the next anarchist reading circle, scheduled for Dec 17, we will be diving deeper into the revolutionary theory and praxis of the Zapatistas by specifically focusing on the women in the movement.

Our reading discusses the role and attraction of women to the Zapatista movement. It does not mention any specific female figures associated with the EZLN, but if you want to learn more about one woman, Comandanta Ramona, take a look here.

The reading is available as a download on the bottom right-hand side of our website. As always, we will be meeting at 7pm (with doors open at 6:50pm) at Camas Books and Infoshop (2620 Quadra Street) on unceded Lekwungen territory.

Addendum: In preparation for this reading, many other optional texts were discovered, and will be brought to the circle. We can choose the last reading of December from one of these texts, or from any other text anyone brings to the discussion. See you there!

Aug 27: Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark, Chpt 1

Posted on August 19, 2019 - November 14, 2020 by Creatrix

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

1 file(s) 27.99 MB

Download

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.

Jul 2: Polyamory and Queer Anarchism: Infinite Possibilities for Resistance

Posted on June 23, 2019 - June 23, 2019 by Creatrix

Love is timeless This week we are reading “Polyamory and Queer Anarchism: Infinite Possibilities for Resistance” by Susan Song. It outlines the possibilities for intersecting practices of queerness and anarchism by questioning the social expectations of monogamy.

You can find the link to the reading at the Anarchist library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/susan-song-polyamory-and-queer-anarchism-infinite-possibilities-for-resistance

As always, we meet at 7pm at Camas Books and Infoshop, 2620 Quadra Street on unceded Lekwungen Territory. See you there!

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