Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
461542385
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
Shantz, Jeff,1966-
Title
Organizing anarchy : political practice and contemporary anarchist movements.
Degree
Ph. D. -- York University, 2006
Publisher
Ottawa : Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, [2008]
Description
5 microfiches
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
The relative lack of empirical analysis of anarchist politics has meant that the actual practices and acts of this major, and growing, contemporary movement remain obscured. Mostly absent in recent analyses are the creative and constructive practices and acts undertaken daily by anarchist organizers seeking a world free from violence, oppression and exploitation. An examination of some of these constructive anarchist projects, which provide examples of politics grounded in everyday resistance, offers insights into actual attempts to radically transform social relations in the here and now of everyday life. In order to bring their ideas to life, anarchists create working examples. To borrow the radical union phrase, they are "forming the structure of the new world in the shell of the old." These experiments in living, popularly referred to as "DIY" (Do-It Yourself), are the means by which contemporary anarchists withdraw their consent from authoritarian institutions and begin contracting other relationships. DIY releases counter-forces, based upon notions of autonomy and self-organization as motivating principles, against the normative political and cultural discourses of neo-liberalism. Anarchists create "autonomous zones" in which they can develop the experiences and resources-education, communication, housing and food sharing, for example-needed to sustain communities that resist the State. This dissertation critically examines the possibilities and problems facing attempts to build DIY community-based social and political movements, which seek to radically transform social relations. The work also engages theoretical developments around these emerging political practices.
ISBN
9780494295267
0494295260