On Wednesday 27th September 2023, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action by Rhiannon Firth. The book looks at the disasters of Hurricane Sandy, Covid-19, and the social movements that mobilised relief in their wake – often on anarchist principles, contrasting these with the “Disaster Capitalism” and ensuring that collective solidarity in a dangerous world isn’t missed in academic “Disaster Studies”.

As usual we’ll discuss what we made of the book and how it might be relevant to us in our own lives. We enourage people to read the book but you are also welcome even if you haven’t read the book – to listen to the discussion and ask questions. This book is the first in a 3-part series on Crisis, Mutual Aid, and Radical Action, which will also cover work by Mike Davis and the Care Collective (full details to follow). You don’t have to attend all the events in the series, but you are invited to!

On this webpage you can find details to buy the book at a discount, free resources, and information about the author, the book, how our sessions work, and the venue. We’re planning to once again be at the SISTER Summer School – but as this is a building Stroud in Internationalist Solidarity Together for Earth Repairs (SISTER) have reclaimed on Lansdown Road.

Till the end of August, you can get a 50% discount on Disaster Anarchy from publishers Pluto Press – making it £9.99 instead of £19.99.

After August, the book is available from Yellow Lighted Bookshop for £19.99, and you should be able to get a 12% discount: after adding the book to your ‘basket’, view your basket where there is an option to enter a ‘Coupon code’. Add the code “StroudRadical23” and click/tap “Apply coupon” (final cost should then be £17.59).

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Free resources

• Read the full book online for free (webpage with link to pdf download)
• Two excerpts from the book have been published in Dope Magazine which is distributed on the streets of Stroud by people experiencing homelessness, and available online as a pdf: Issue 21 has part one, Issue 22 has part two.
• Audio interview where author Rhiannon Firth discusses “Mutual Aid in an Age of Climate Change” on the It’s Going Down podcast (50 minutes)
• Audio interview with Rhiannon Firth discussing the ‘Politics of Care and a Utopian Future‘ on the ‘Politics of Care in Pandemic Time’ podcast series (35 minutes – this podcast looks at Firth’s work before Disaster Anarchy was published)
• Video of Rhiannon Firth discussing Anarchy, Utopia and Mutual Aid with the Anarchism Research Group (18 minutes)
• Rhiannon Firth on twitter

About the author and the book

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.

Publishers Pluto Press say:

“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 mobilised relief in their wake, Disaster Anarchy is an inspiring and alarming book about collective solidarity in an increasingly dangerous world.

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 was widely acknowledged to have organised relief more effectively than federal agencies or NGOs, and following Covid-19 the term ‘mutual aid’ entered common parlance.

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 is needed to protect ourselves from the disasters of our unequal and destructive economic system.”

Endorsements:

‘Commendable – a book that prepares us to think about and react to system failures’ – Peter Gelderloos

‘Firth bridges the theories and methodologies in the continuing development of anarchist and liberatory frameworks of decentralised disaster responses, first articulated after Hurricane Katrina. They demonstrate through personal histories and analysis deeper paths forward in anarchist processes and practices that allow our liberatory imaginations to resist the collapse while creating viable alternatives without state coercion or interference’ – scott crow, author of ‘Black Flags and Windmills: Hope , Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective’

‘A clear, timely and rigorous account of anarchist responses to catastrophes. It avoids romanticisation, as Rhiannon Firth incisively unpicks state and corporate strategies of co-option’ – Benjamin Franks, Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy, University of Glasgow