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

[lake phillips · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great hands on practical book. Best used in dialogue with others in an organization, better read than listened Too

[Jaclyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think a very thoughtful and concise workbook for groups and organizations looking to mobilize in a way that the process itself brings about transformational change. Lots of practical insights and agree with other reviewers this books seems ripe for discussion within a book club or larger groups where the applications can be discussed and implemented.

[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.

[llkeyes-639626 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've been doing mutual aid work since the early 1990s, but I never had a name for it. I called it "street work." Mostly outreach and help to our unhoused population in the cities I've lived in. This book was helpful in that I can now put a name to what I've intuitively been doing. I love the idea that we are "solidarity not charity."

The first part of the book was a great primer in what mutual aid actually is (and isn't). The second part was extremely helpful in allowing to me identify what has gone wrong in some of these groups I've been part of.

I'm currently involved in a local group here in Vancouver, WA addressing the many food insecure people in our city. The group I joined has been around for a while and even though it's pretty non-structured, all the personalities work well together and are welcoming.

I found this group after leaving another one addressing the same issue in a slightly different way. After joining that group, I realized the leaders were projecting their own life struggles onto the group and trying to make members responsible for meeting their needs, or at a minimum being targets of that projected stress.

Reading Part II was an eye opener and helped me to put a name to the various dynamics that were happening. That experience caused me to look for a book, and I found this one.

Now, I feel very well equipped to not only address problems in the future, but to be a part of the solution. Everyone benefits that way.

[askelmore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Best for:
Anyone who is interested in building community and addressing challenges while working outside the traditional methods.

In a nutshell:
Author Spade discusses the concept of mutual aid and how it differs from the concepts of non-profit and charity work, and offers tips for successful solidarity work.

Worth quoting:
(There is a lot, but the below paragraph I think helped me to shift what changing the world means to me.)

“Solidarity is what builds and connects large-scale movements. In the context of professionalized nonprofit organizations, groups are urged to be single-issue oriented, framing their message around ‘deserving’ people within the population they serve, and using tactics palatable to elites. Prison-oriented groups are supposed to fight only for ‘the innocent’ or ‘the nonviolent,’ for example, and to do their work by lobbying politicians about how some people — not all people — don’t belong in prison. This is the opposite of solidarity, because it means the most vulnerable people are left behind: those who were up-charged by cops and prosecutors, those who do not have the means to prove their innocence, those who do not match cultural tropes of innocence and deservingness. This narrow focus actually strengthens the system’s legitimacy by advocating that the targeting of those more stigmatized people is okay.”

Why I chose it:
I’ve had a very capitalistic view of community engagement and improvement in the past, and was looking for a book to help me better understand a different model for community support.

What it left me feeling:
Motivated

Review:
I live in the UK, and during the lock down phases of the pandemic (which were many in the UK) I joined a mutual aid WhatsApp group. It was pretty straightforward, and I don’t want to overstate my involvement as others actually organized the work - I just responded when I could. This usually meant printing and delivering grocery vouchers to individuals. The money came from (I believe) the local council in the beginning; eventually there were calls for funds from the community, and then the whole operation was shut down. There was something so lovely about it from the standpoint of there wasn’t, as far as I knew, any real gate keeping. Someone would say what they needed, and people would provide if they could.

Prior to this experience, my involvement in supporting and building community was usually limited to donating to charities and assuming that non-profits knew what was best to address social challenges overlooked by the government. Heck, I was even on a junior board for a health non-profit. I often applied for jobs at non-profits, and went to school for public and non-profit management and policy. But much of what I learned in grad school is challenged by this book.

The book talks a lot about collaboration vs majority rule, and challenges the hierarchical nature and set-up of so many non-profits and charities. I found those parts super interesting, as someone who has only worked in hierarchical spaces. The book doesn’t shy away from warning about the potential pitfalls of mutual aid work either - there’s a whole chapter in there on what to look out for.

My only real gripe with the book is that there isn’t much evidence provided to support Spade’s claims - there’s a great resource list in the back, but when the author makes claims that one would consider declarative, he doesn’t provide anything to back that up. Granted, most of the statements feel true, but it’s easier to dismiss statements when they are presented as fact without evidence. An example of this is this statement: ‘When groups are volunteer-based, people are more likely to admit their limitations and scrap bad ideas, because they are motivated by purpose, not elite approval.’ Like, I mean, probably? But that’s a statement that I’d like some support for if we’re going to then base other actions off of it.

That seems like a huge caveat, but in reality I don’t think it takes too much away from the message of the book and the very real tips Spade offers. So many books about world-changing are very theoretical; this one feels super practical to me, and I very much appreciate that.

This is a small book (only about 150 pages, and the size of a trade paperback). It took be a long time to read only because I just didn’t read a lot this month. Once I finally sat down and decided to finish it, it was a quick read.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend and Keep