Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action

Description

Due to the devastating effects of global warming, natural disasters have been increasing at a brutal pace all around the globe. Shockingly poor state-led relief efforts have been cause for much misery among those affected. In fact, the most successful disaster responses have come from anarchist-inspired social movements. These have been the target of both repression and intense curiosity on part of governmental entities looking to co-opt these autonomous movement practices.*BR**BR*In this groundbreaking and timely book, Rhiannon Firth provides a comprehensive anarchist approach to understanding and responding to natural disasters, drawing on historical and contemporary sources as well as empirical case studies. Offering a new framework to address one of the 21st century's most pressing problems, Firth introduces disaster anarchism as a powerful tool to provide a break from capitalism and the state even beyond the scope of disaster relief. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Interviewees 1. Introduction 2. Backdrop: Mainstream Disaster Studies 3. Critical Approaches: Precarity, Securitisation and Disaster Capitalism 4. Towards an Anarchist Approach to Disaster 5. Occupy Sandy Mutual Aid, New York, 2012 6. Covid-19 Mutual Aid, London, 2020 7. Conclusion Notes Index