Disaster Anarchy - Mutual Aid and Radical Action

An inspiring and alarming book about collective solidarity in an increasingly dangerous world. Anarchists have been central in helping communities ravaged by disasters, stepping in when governments wash their hands of the victims. Looking at Hurricane Sandy, Covid-19, and the social movements that mobilized relief in their wake, their efforts revived the term 'mutual aid' into common parlance. As climate change and neoliberalism converge, mutual aid networks, grassroots direct action, occupations, and brigades have sprung up in response to this crisis with considerable success. Occupy Sandy and the COVID-19 response were widely acknowledged to have organized relief more effectively than federal agencies or NGOs. However, anarchist-inspired relief has not gone unnoticed by government agencies. Their responses include surveillance, co-option, extending at times to violent repression involving police brutality. Arguing that disaster anarchy is one of the most important political phenomena to emerge in the twenty-first century, Rhiannon Firth shows through her research on and within these movements that anarchist theory and practice are needed to protect ourselves from the disasters of our unequal and destructive economic system.

About the author

Rhiannon Firth is currently a lecturer in Sociology at UCL. She is the author of two books: Utopian Politics: Citizenship and Practice and Coronavirus, Class and Mutual Aid in the UK. She is active in social movements and popular education projects in London.

Product details

• Authors: Rhiannon (University College London) Firth, Firth Rhiannon
• Publisher: Pluto
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 20.07.2022
• EAN: 9780745340456
• ISBN: 978-0-7453-4045-6
• No. of pages: 256
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geology; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Political Advocacy, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disasters & Disaster Relief, NATURE / Natural Disasters, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Anarchism, Aid & relief programmes, Pressure groups, protest movements and non-violent action, Social impact of disasters, Natural disasters, Anarchism, Pressure groups & lobbying, Aid and relief programmes, Social impact of disasters / accidents (natural or man-made)