Power and Social Transformation
Week 5 - 9/26/2019
“All our categories of thought, all our assumptions about what is reality, or what is politics or economics or even where we live, are so permeated by power that just to say “no!” to power precipitates us into a vertiginous world in which there are no fixed reference points to hold on to other than the force of our own ‘no!” Power and social theory exist in such symbiosis that power is the lens through which theory sees the world [...]. To try to theorize anti-power is to wander in a largely unexplored world. How can the world be changed without taking power? The answer is obvious: we do not know. That is why it is so important to work at the answer, practically and theoretically”
- John Holloway, Change the World without Taking Power, p. 22
Openings
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What is “power”? What work do (theories of) power do/not do?
primers
“Power” in Encyclopedia of Political Theory
Christian Scholl. 2016. “Prefiguration” in Fritsch, Kelly, Clare O'Connor, and A. K. Thompson (eds). Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle. AK Press.
adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha. 2015. “Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.” AK Press. Selections.
What might it mean to reimagine power and ourselves in relationship with one another for the purposes of social transformation?
Re/imagining power
Frances Fox Piven. 2008. “Can Power from Below Change the World?” American Sociological Review.
John Holloway. 2002. Change the World without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, Ch. 3. “Beyond Power?,” pp. 19-42. Pluto.
What praxes suit the reconfiguration/dissolution/prefiguration of power and society as we know (or don’t yet, know) them?
Praxes
Charlene Carruthers. 2018. Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, Ch. 4, “Three Commitments,” and Ch. 5, “Five Questions” pp. 63-110. Beacon Press.
adrienne maree brown. 2017. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Selections: “principles of emergent strategy,” “intentional adaptation: how we change,” and “interdependence and decentralization: who we are and how we share,” pp. 41-42; 67-83; 83-103. AK Press.
Transformative Movement Building
Regotsofetse Chikane. 2018. “Should Coconuts be trusted with the revolution?” Chapter 16 in Breaking a Rainbow Building a Nation: The politics behind #MustFall Movements. Picador Africa. pp. 233
Patrisse Cullors. 2019. “Abolition and Reparations: Histories of Resistance, Transformative Justice and Accountability.” Harvard Law Review.
Antony Dapiran. Aug. 1, 2019. “’Be Water!’: seven tactics that are winning Hong Kong’s democracy revolution.”New Statesman.
Jacqueline Villarrubia-Mendoza and Roberto Vélez-Vélez. Aug. 24 2019. “Puerto Rico: The Shift from Mass Protests to People’s Assemblies.”Portside.
Youth United for Change. 2019. “Y’all Tryna Win or Nah? Lessons on Organization Development and Youth Organizing on Shifting Terrain.”
Class Recap
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Quotes from Class Notes
Can we organize without making spaces for ourselves to heal first? Being whole cannot be a requirement for organizing because we will never move. But organizing cannot be sustained without love and an attempt to heal.
Maybe healing and restoration don’t necessarily mean returning to a previous state, but moving forward with those scars and traumas.
“Anti-politics is the explicit affirmation in all its richness of that which is denied…” Dignity is everyday acts of love, choice to exist in the world in a different way, existing as a collective and not individuals.
Punishment is easy; accountability is hard (drawing on Marian Caba). Confusion between power, punishment, and accountability.
Love as a praxis: if movements are going to be sustained and generative in order for another world to be possible, we need love.
“There are three collective commitments to our movements must take up to regenerate: 1. Building many strong leaders, 2. Adopting healing justice… 3. Combating liberalism with principled struggle.”