Queering Anarchism: Addressing and Undressing Power and Desire
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 1849351201
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
"Definitely a book worth reading, regardless of the labels of normalcy you've pasted up to yourself or grown accustomed to letting others do the nasty gluing for you."—Bookslut
"The divide is growing between the pro-military, pro-police, marriage-seeking gay and lesbian rights politics we see in the headlines every day and the grassroots racial and economic justice centered queer and trans resistance that fights to end prisons, borders, war and poverty. Queering Anarchism a vital contribution in this moment, providing analysis and strategies for building the queer and trans politics we want and need." —Dean Spade, Normal Life
“A much-needed collection that thinks through power, desire, and human liberation. These pieces are sure to raise the level of debate about sexuality, gender, and the ways that they tie in with struggles against our ruling institutions.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Outlaw Woman
“Against the austerity of straight politics, Queering Anarchism sketches the connections between gender mutiny, queer sexualities, and anti-authoritarian desires. Through embodied histories and incendiary critique, the contributors gathered here show how we must not stop at smashing the state; rather normativity itself is the enemy of all radical possibility.”—Eric A. Stanley, co-editor of Captive Genders
What does it mean to "queer" the world around us? How does the radical refusal of the mainstream codification of GLBT identity as a new gender norm come into focus in the context of anarchist theory and practice? How do our notions of orientation inform our politics?and vice versa? Queering Anarchism brings together a diverse set of writings ranging from the deeply theoretical to the playfully personal that explore the possibilities of the concept of "queering," turning the dominant, and largely heteronormative, structures of belief and identity entirely inside out. Ranging in topic from the economy to disability, politics, social structures, sexual practice, interpersonal relationships, and beyond, the authors here suggest that queering might be more than a set of personal preferences?pointing toward the possibility of an entirely new way of viewing the world.
Contributors Include: Ryan Conrad, Sally Darity, Jamie Heckert, Farhang Rouhani, Jerimarie Liesegang, Benjamin Shepard, Gayge Operaista, CRAC Collective, Stephanie Grohmann, Sandra Jeppesen, Susan Song, Diana C. S. Becerra, Jason Lydon, Liat Ben-Moshe, Anthony J. Nocella, II, AJ Withers, Saffo Papantonopoulou, and Hexe.
Deric Shannon, C.B. Daring, J. Rogue, and Abbey Volcano are anarchists and activists who work in a wide variety of radical, feminist, and queer communities across the United States.
the recent experience of the “occupy” movements) attest, the “mere” creating of alternatives is often treated as dangerous and/or threatening by powers that be, and responded to with force and violence. Peaceful prefigurative politics[4]—whether anarchist collectives in revolutionary Spain of the 1930s, the communes of the 60s in the US, or the “free spaces” of food coops, book exchanges, childcare exchanges, or “radical queer spaces”—may well be ignored only until they start being successful,
at which point they confront the full force of the economic, religious, sexual, and/or police powers to which they pose a challenge. How do we begin to talk about these challenges—or the goals to which they aspire? If we use the language of “empowerment”—even in the sense of “power to,” rather than of “power over”—we find ourselves, willy-nilly, in the discourse of “power,” and, perhaps, in the midst of the very binaries that we are trying to avoid or challenge. How do we challenge that binary—or
ourselves. I practice meditation, not just for myself, but so that I can go out into the world unarmed. Unarmored. Enamored. When I feel a love for life itself, I see anarchy everywhere. I notice all the little ways, and not-so-little ways, that people already support each other, already speak for themselves, already listen to each other, already make decisions, and act together. These aren’t just “seeds beneath the snow,” as Colin Ward put it. They are blossoming flowers. An other world is not
torture devices designed to treat mental illness, he railed against bodily pleasure as “a disease of the body and the mind.”[23] Over the years, this prohibitive logic only gained steam. The nineteenthcentury Temperance Movement sought moral reform and the prohibition of the consumption of alcohol.[24] The Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution was ratified in January of 1919. The era set in motion a cavalcade of unintended consequences as markets for alcohol consumption moved from legal,
flows of resources and the overall demand for them. Sexuality is not something that is scarce in the world, and trading sex acts does not suddenly make it true. If scarcity of sex were true, the simple act of having more sex would reduce the overall amount available. It wouldn’t matter if sex were sold, simply had for fun, obligation, or pleasure. Scarcity is a myth of capitalism used to manipulate our sense of need toward an object or resource. Sacred sexuality is the idea that our sexuality is