‘This shop will fail’: punk bookstore to get community in the door

From The Lawrence Times

If Lawrencians are going to confuse the Ecumenical Campus Ministries for a church, executive director Jessie Duke at least wants it to seem like a wild one. That’s why she opened a punk, anarchist bookstore in the building. “Because it presents as a church, often people are afraid to come here,” Duke said. “There’s a lot of people that feel isolated from that, or have trauma around being in religious spaces.”

Anarchism is what we call the things we do

From Organise! Magazine

When asked to write this article, I accepted enthusiastically and without hesitation. Admittedly, I love to write and leapt at the chance to work on something other than an instagram caption. (I was of course more eager for an opportunity to reflect on our work). Reflection is something we do everyday as a small team of volunteers. As we get feedback from community members, make adjustments to our workflow, and build more efficient systems of organizing, we are constantly asking ourselves “what works?” and “what sucks?” Still, these are assessments made on the go and rarely are we allowed time enough to think carefully about the ideological facets of our work. I’ll be honest, I find leftist self-critique at this point cliched, approaching hackneyed. Because we are hyperfocused on “what sucks,” you’ll have to forgive me for jumping at the chance to highlight things that don’t. If this article has an overly saccharin tone, I hope it is tempered at least in comparison to a preponderance of the opposite.

Popularizing Autogestión: Punk, Zapatismo, & Anarchist Ethics in Mexico City

From AnthroSource

Autogestión (self-management), has been a popular articulation of radical politics since its emergence in the 1960s. This article examines how Mexico City's anarcho-punk scene transformed autogestión in the 1990s from an anarcho-syndicalist principle into a unique ethical practice detached from industrial material production. It was then popularized and made more mainstream through university rock festivals. As these were Zapatista benefit concerts, autogestión became inadvertently attached to Zapatismo and detached from anarchism and punk. This history is a crucial one for understanding the political development of an entire generation of the political left in Mexico City who were young in the 1990s.

Touchpaper Anarchist Library: FINAL DAYS!

From Touchpaper Anarchist Library

The library is closing permanently due to the closure of The Field which has kindly hosted us since August 2023.

The last normal Touchpaper opening will be Tuesday 22nd April. After this we will not have a permanent place for the library or discussions (for the foreseeable future).

Hamilton: Announcing Black Oak Anarchist Social Space

From North Shore Counter-Info We are thrilled to announce the Black Oak Anarchist Social Space! This space is meant to give us a place to gather, support the organizing and political development of anarchists in Hamilton, and be an entry point for those interested in anarchist ideas.

Celebrating 30 years of the Base for Anarchy and Solidarity in Easton (BASE)

From The Bristol Cable

As the Easton-based social centre reaches its thirtieth birthday, we explore the history of the much-loved volunteer-run community space, which began life as a squat back in the mid-1990s

As the winter of 1995 drew in, a group of Bristol’s anarchist squatters started to talk about where to go next. One comrade heard that a building at 14 Robertson Road, which had previously housed the Bristol One Parent project, had been empty for over six months.

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