Month: April 2021

Based on a paper given at the Anarchist Studies Network panel at the 2021 PSA conference, Cristopher Morales argues that the spontaneous emergence of mutual aid organising in response to the COVID-19 crisis had proven to be a temporary exception to the statist/capitalist norm, and that as ‘normal’ daily life returns, these solidaristic social relationships have disappeared.

Mutual Aid in the COVID-19 Crisis – a Short-Lived Exception?

[Part of a series of articles reflecting on anarchist responses to the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown, one year on].

In this article, Thomas Swann applies the lens of Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) to assess the threats posed to effective mutual aid self-organisation, including issues around top-down control, complex communication infrastructures, and preconditions such as community identity and organising experience. Swann argues that cybernetics can help us to collectively learn from, and overcome, the challenges of mutual aid organising during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, and that we must do so to meet looming future crises.

Anarchism, Cybernetics and Mutual Aid – A Reflection One Year On

[Part of a series of articles reflecting on anarchist responses to the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown, one year on].

Taking a reflexive anthropological view of the disruption caused by the Covid-19 crisis, Laney Lenox considers the transformative potential of slowing down in everyday life.

Everyday Anarchism – Temporal Impermanence and Liberation in Everyday Action

[Part of a series of articles reflecting on anarchist responses to the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown, one year on].