Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)

Written by Dean Spade

Narrated by Stephen R. Thorne

Around the globe, people are faced with a spiraling succession of crises, from the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change-induced fires, floods, and storms to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, racist policing, brutal immigration enforcement, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. As governments fail to respond to-or actively engineer-each crisis, ordinary people are finding bold and innovative ways to share resources and support the vulnerable.

Survival work, when done alongside social movement demands for transformative change, is called mutual aid.

This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout. Writing for those new to activism as well as those who have been in social movements for a long time, Dean Spade draws on years of organizing to offer a radical vision of community mobilization, social transformation, compassionate activism, and solidarity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781666149562

Dean Spade

Dean Spade has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He works as an Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law. Dean’s book, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law was published by South End Press in 2011. A second edition with new writing was published in 2015 by Duke University Press. Bella Terra Press published a Spanish edition in 2016. In 2015, Dean released a one-hour video documentary, Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!, which can be watched free online with English captions or subtitles in several languages. Dean’s new book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next) was published by Verso Press in October 2020.

Reviews for Mutual Aid

[thumlee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Its my hope that all my friends and crew read this book. Spades understanding the paradigm we find ourselves in now and his comprehensive guide to pathways of building solidarity movements centred around communities of care feel like a life line we have all needed.

[Brigitte Dreger · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the concept and the perspective. Not great as an audiobook - it seems like a good book to read with a group and discuss as you go.