“Pandemic Care without States: XX Prefigurative Practices in Supplying Well-Being from Below
Length: prose, approx. 75 to 250 words
Due: by or before Sunday, February 8
Email to: cbmilstein {at} yahoo {dot} com
My initial “call” wasn’t clear enough to get the kinds of submissions I’m seeking. So I rewrote the title+subtitle, and created a list of what I’m looking for. I want stories that fall under one or more of these prompts—pieces that:
* describe tangible practices and especially projects that anarchists (you!) kicked off since 2020 or later, including ones that are still ongoing
* share promising, tangible, anarchist(ic) practices, projects, or ideas that emerged at the start of the pandemic that pointed toward what communal and public health care could look like—without hierarchies such as states, capitalism, or nonprofits, or at least at cross-purposes with them
* offer tangible anarchist visions for how we could have radicalized and expanded on the organic forms of collective care that emerged when the pandemic began, or could have more robustly responded to and actively countered the statist/capitalist/liberal/fascist responses, including to do better in the future (and now)
Contributions can include feelings and/or personal experiences, yet I want them to highlight how we prefigure (i.e., model in the here now; live as if we were already free) the kinds of “well-being from below”—communal care, social solidarity, mutual aid, rebellious love, and so on—that we aspire toward for everyone, always.
If it helps, definitely feel free to DM me with your ideas before you turn them into a draft!
And please share this “call” widely, but particularly with folks you know who have done and/or are doing innovative forms of anarchist-oriented pandemic care—whether or not they are dealing with COVID-related illnesses (yet).
(Photos: “authority is the worst virus” tag, Athens; circle A well-being, Athens; anti-ableist action” sticker, Vienna; healing offerings on Alexis’s memorial, Exarcheia)
[PLEASE reshare widely, via text, email, and/or socials]
