Considering solidarity and mutual aid at the intersection of political philosophy and biology, made more urgent and prescient by the COVID-19 crisis, this book is grounded in the work of Catherine Malabou and takes her theories in creative new directions.
To think about solidarity mutual aid is to think about how we can and do live together, and how we might do so differently. Mutual aid is, in Peter Kropotkins famous formulation, a factor of evolution, but also a conscious political strategy undertaken by activists in times of crisis. While this combination of biology and politics has been a source of controversy, and even embarrassment, recent developments demand a rethink. The contributions in this volume aim to renew interest in the idea of mutual aid, and to consider how biological claims might be incorporated into political projects without appearing as essentialist constraints. They do so in dialogue with Catherine Malabou, whose work insists on the importance of the biological while rejecting any notions of biological determinism. They thus point to the necessity of solidarity and mutual aid for understanding our social life, while releasing them from the biological and symbolic chains in which they often appear.
Acknowledgements |
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1 Unchaining Solidarity, Mutual Aid and Anarchism |
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1 | (14) |
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2 Politics of Plasticity: Cooperation without Chains |
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15 | (14) |
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PART I `AN INTERNAL PRINCIPLE OF COOPERATION, ASSISTANCE AND REPAIR' - SOLIDARITY AND PLASTICITY |
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29 | (94) |
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3 Solidarity as Necessity: Subject, Structure, Practices |
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31 | (20) |
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4 What Prevents Mutual Aid? On Trauma and Destructive Plasticity |
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51 | (14) |
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5 The Dynamics of Plasticity: Absolute Knowing and Sympoiesis |
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65 | (18) |
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6 Ethics of the Care for the Brain: Neuroplasticity with Stirner, Malabou and Foucault |
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83 | (20) |
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7 Materialisms, Old and New: Individuation and Anarchy in Gilbert Simondon and Catherine Malabou |
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103 | (20) |
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PART II `THE WAR OF EACH AGAINST ALL IS NOT THE LAW OF NATURE' - MUTUAL AID, ANARCHISM AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY |
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123 | (76) |
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8 The Anarchist Impulse: A Factor of Human and Non-Human Nature |
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125 | (20) |
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9 Mutual Aid Armature: Plasticity All the Way Down |
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145 | (18) |
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10 Solidarity Is Not Reciprocal Altruism |
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163 | (16) |
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11 Selfish Genes, Evil Nature: The Christian Echoes in Neo-Atheism |
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179 | (20) |
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PART III `AT THE END OF THE DAY, IT'S JUST US' - THE ACTUALITY OF MUTUAL AID |
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199 | (58) |
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12 Plastic Encounters: COVID-19 and (De)Racialisation in Canada |
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201 | (18) |
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Jade Crimson Rose Da Costa |
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13 Counterpublics of the Common: Feminist Solidarity Unchained |
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219 | (20) |
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14 Prefigurative Biology: Mutual Aid, Social Reproduction and Plasticity |
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239 | (18) |
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Index |
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257 | (4) |
About the Contributors |
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Petr Kouba is senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of The Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic. His publications include Margins of Phenomenology and The Phenomenon of Mental Disorder: Perspectives of Heidegger's Thought in Psychopathology.
Catherine Malabou is a French philosopher. She is a professor of philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University, at the European Graduate School, and in the department of Comparative Literature at the University of California Irvine, a position formerly held by Jacques Derrida. She is the author of many books, including The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality, and Dialectic, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain Damage and Before Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality. Her most recent book is Morphing Intelligence, from IQ to IA.
Dan Swain is research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Assistant Professor at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. He is the author of None So Fit to Break the Chains: Marxs Ethics of Self-Emancipation and Alienation: An Introduction to Marxs Theory which was nominated for the Bread and Roses prize for radical publishing.
Petr Urban is senior researcher in the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic. He is co-editor of Care Ethics, Democratic Citizenship and the State.