negations

The first issue of Resistance Studies has just been made available online. You can find it in PDF format here and read a press release about the project here.

The following is a summary of its content (provided by the publishers):

The article by Karl Palmås discusses the possible rupture in the strategies of activist groups, where the abstract mechanism of the motor is replaced by another abstract mechanism – the computer model. Palmås draws from contemporary debates in philosophy and sociology, as well as from recent societal and economical developments. In his case study of the Adbusters movement, he notices a shift in how the practice of resistance is modelled. Instead of “jamming” or “blocking” capitalism, Adbusters have turned to a computer-like model where capitalism is “hacked” or “re-written” just like software. This, in turn, leads to a new agenda for resistance, an agenda which works by making new arrangements instead of blocking the old ones. Palmås’ text introduces an interesting perspective on resistance and social change, which instructs us to look at the abstract mechanisms and models, both in order to understand resistance as such, but also to understand power.

Tim Gough’s “Resistance: Under what Grace” is another theoretical article on how to understand the concept of resistance. He invokes the paradoxical nature of resistance, and its relationship towards the existing prevailing order. When an order is opposed and changed, and resistance triumphs, it immediately turns into a new order, which in turn may be resisted. Since this paradoxical logic is always at work, we must displace the question of a beginning and an end in terms of our common-sense understanding of the concept of time.

Instead of separating resistance and order, Gough suggests an “awareness which in the context this cunning and simultaneity becomes the act of a being which, in its difference, makes that difference an issue for it; this folded characteristic being the very possibility of resistance”.

Jeffrey Shantz too challenges the grand theories of revolution, and instead discusses how anarchist futures are made right now. He draws his examples from the “anarchist transfer culture”, which is attempting at building sustainable communities within the context of the old society. Instead of purely speculative social analysis, the desirable society must be made, and the only way of doing that is to learn the practices. The capitalist relations between consumers and producers, for example, can be overturned, at least on a small scale, by developing gift-economies. We have seen this trend on a large scale in computer software and copyleft media. However, this model is also applicable in building alternative forms of welfare based on mutual aid and autonomous networks, which could endure the trends of the market or the budget of the State. The concept of resistance, then, turns into something readily available in everyday life, not merely reacting against obvious structures of power, but primarily with a potential positive task of building new arrangements. This is why, Shantz argues, the anarchist futures need to be understood in a present tense, since they are already in the making right now.

Patit Paban Mishra rounds up this issue with the historical case of the Orissa tribals in India, which resisted the 1874 revenue settlement imposed by the colonial rule. The settlement led to poverty and misery or the tribal society. However, in heterogeneous constellations the struggle continued up until 1946, displaying the ever-changing dynamic of oppression and resistance.

For more information, visit this link.

I apologize to regular Negations readers for the lack of new posts recently. I certainly haven’t lost interest in this blog or run out of ideas, but I have been very busy with other things. I have been working hard on my entries for The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest and also doing research for potential, future publications (for instance, I just read Fernando Lopez and Veronica Diz’s Resistencia Liberteria; Warren Belasco’s Appetite for Change: How the Counter-Culture Challenged the Food Industry; and David Graeber’s Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology).

I have also been pondering the implications of a new opportunity that just opened up for me: AK Press, the venerable anarchist publishing and distribution house in Oakland, California, recently decided to pay me to do freelance acquisitions for them. Specifically, I will search out writers with promising projects and help them prepare a book proposal for AK, who will remunerate me with a small sum every time that they agree to publish a work that has passed through my hands.

This is very exciting to me. I spent a lot of time cultivating authors during my years with the Institute for Anarchist Studies and The New Formulation (among other projects) and it is something that I genuinely enjoy doing. I love helping a writer clarify his or her ideas, develop his or her voice, and ultimately make a contribution to the anarchist vision. Doing this has always been deeply satisfying for me.

I am also eager to work closely with AK, a project that I hold in the highest regard. I first got to know AK people in the early 1990s through the anarchist scene, our links deepened as the Institute for Anarchist Studies gathered momentum in the latter part of that decade, and our bonds grew stronger still after they asked me to translate Abel Paz’s Durruti in the Spanish Revolution. I have found AK collective members to be among the most committed, friendly, hard-working, patient, disciplined, and fun militants around. And there is no doubt that their efforts have had an extremely positive impact on the American anarchist movement and the left generally: the excellent books that they publish, and the vast amounts of radical literature that they distribute, has raised the level of discussion about the anarchist alternative immeasurably. I, for one, am deeply grateful for all the contributions that they have made.

At present, I am familiarizing myself with AK’s operations and more immediate publishing goals. This month I will participate in a conference call with Zach, Lorna, and Charles, AK’s publishing team, who will fill me in on key details. The four of us also hope to have a short retreat this March, immediately after the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, during which I will learn even more. I hope to be more or less up to speed by April.

Nonetheless, I don’t believe that it’s too early to put out my first call for manuscripts: please contact me if you have a book that you are working on (or considering working on) that you think might be a good fit for the AK catalog! I would be happy to discuss this with you and hopefully help guide you through the process of submitting a proposal.