Don’t miss this recent webinar, packed full of info about the current ways that mutual aid work is being criminalized and attacked, and how organizers can keep doing our work even as pressures build.
New Interview with Sad Francisco Podcast
It was delightful, as always, to talk with Toshio Meronek about nonprofitization, queer resistance, gentrification, cops and more. Check it out.
Videos: Romance Myth Webinar Series Updated with 2024 Video
I had the pleasure of collaborating with Fireweed Collective again to put on a fourth installment of my Dismantling the Romance Myth webinar series. The fourth webinar focuses on how we get caught in fears of abandonment and engulfment and what we can do to act in alignment with our values when those fears show up. Below you’ll also find the prior years’ videos and links to the slide decks from each year’s webinar.
Fourth Webinar with ASL:
Fourth Webinar with Spanish Interpretation:
2023 Webinar:
2022 Webinar:
2021 Webinar:
Old anti-marriage animated video
Something I made a long time ago, when it was fun to make animated characters say your propaganda for the first time. Content warning: dry humping.
EVENT: Should Social Movement Work Be Paid? January 5, 2023
Should Social Movement Work be Paid?
Thursday, January 5, 2023
7PM EST/ 4PM PST
Sponsored by the Patricia Wismer Professorship in Gender and Diversity at Seattle University, and BCRW
REGISTER HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dean-spade-should-social-movement-work-be-paid-tickets-483783729157
The COVID pandemic and George Floyd/Brionna Taylor rebellion of 2020 brought new attention to the role of mutual aid work in surviving crises and organizing resistance. People started thousands of projects giving out food, rent money, and bail money, doing errands for each other, providing childcare, emotional support, transportation, and other essentials. Many people learned more about the histories of mutual aid in social movements as vectors of survival and mobilization. The long-time critique of non-profitization of social movements reached newly politicized people as debates surfaced about whether to register mutual aid projects as non-profits.
In this talk, Dean Spade will explore a vexing question being discussed in many movement groups: should people be paid to do this work? Should groups should seek funding to create staff positions or stipends for people participating in the work? Is it a matter of racial, economic, gender and disability justice to pay people to be part of movement groups? Does the process of raising money tie groups too closely to philanthropists or governments? Does paying participants limit the potential growth of movements? Is payment the best way to recognize labor in groups? Is paying people a good way to reduce barriers to participation? How does paying people impact the culture of social movement work? Does it institutionalize the work? These questions have immediate practical significance, and also unearth larger themes about what it means to do resistance organizing within capitalism where people are demobilized, isolated, and struggling to meet basic needs.
This event is a continuation of the Building Capacity for Mutual Aid Groups workshop series, which started as a series of four online workshops led by Dean Spade:
Workshop 1 – No Masters, No Flakes! (October 28, 2021)
Workshop 2 – Decision-Making (November 11, 2021)
Workshop 3 – Skills for Abolitionist Practice (December 9, 2021)
Workshop 4 – Bringing New People into the Work (January 20, 2022)
ACCESSIBILITY
ASL and live transcription will be provided. This event is made possible by the Patricia Wismer Professorship in Gender and Diversity at Seattle University.
Podcast Interview about Jealousy, Relationship Anarchy and the Romance Myth
Creative rest conversation with Jewish Studio Project
Conversation with Liat Ben-Moshe and Beatrice Alder-Bolton on the Law and Political Economy Blog
The LPE Blog recently published an excellent symposium on Capitalism and Disability that includes, released today, a conversation between me and Liat Ben-Moshe and Beatrice Alder–Bolton about the work of Marta Russell.
New Podcast Interview: Against Everything with Conner Habib
Had a fun conversation with Mitch Horowitz and Conner Habib. Check it out!
May-June 2022, Events in Europe
I’m so grateful that Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis and the Next has been recently published in Italian, Catalan, and Czech and is forthcoming from various publishers in Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, German, Korean.
I’m doing some events this May and June in Europe related to these versions being published. Here’s the current information on events, some still being finalized.
May 28, 18:00, Prague Anarchist Book Fair
June 2, Desgraca, Lisbon
June 8 Barcelona
June 10 Ateneo La Maliciosa, Madrid
June 15 Milan – Circolo Anarchico Ponte della Ghisolfa
June 16 Florence – Comitato di vicinato di San Casciano (Firenze)
June 17 Bologna – Vag 61 Social Center
June 19 Rome – Forte Prenestino Social Center
Last week in June, details still TBD, Berlin. Book forthcoming from _worten&meer_.