We live in an era in which nature is increasingly rebelling against the reckless capitalist policies and the statist management of land that have characterized Western civilization since the post-industrial period: the effects of climate extremes (severe floods, heatwaves, droughts, etc.) are now a regular occurrence in all parts of the planet, global temperatures have exceeded 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial period (and show no signs of decreasing). Despite that, any mention of “degrowth” is vilified as an obstacle to progress.
Our lives are based on the produce-consume-die cycle. The spaces and people who move through them are treated as commodities within this system, mere passive subjects no longer capable of generating change.
As anarchists and left-libertarians, we have developed two methods that have proven effective in opposing this dominant ideology: social ecology and mutual aid.
Social ecology affirms that the environmental issues are structurally linked to the state-capitalist system, because the exploitation of nature, and of human beings as well, stems from the same voracious rationale. That’s why, to eliminate the effects caused by exploitation of humans and nature, we must move beyond the predatory logic of capitalism.
Mutual aid is a practical example of how to act outside of state and capitalist frameworks and how to interact with the land while respecting the complex dynamics at play within it.
Drawing from the experiences of numerous grassroots solidarity initiatives that have emerged in response to recent emergencies we will discuss – together with Selva Varengo, Vittorio Sergi and Alberto (Abo) Di Monte - on what social ecology and mutual aid can teach us about the possibility of transforming the urban and natural spaces we live in, and how we can incorporate its principles into our everyday lives.
Presentations #
Vittorio Sergi #
Mutual aid in emergencies: a plural history, a necessary future
The climate crisis is evident and has brutally affected some Italian territories in recent years. In particular, central Italy has been shaken over the last 10 years by a series of “disasters” that closely interweave nature and society and call into question the framework within which we have conceived political action up to now: earthquakes, pandemic, floods. The experiences of mutual aid in the field of social and environmental emergencies in Italy are many and diverse, and recently coordination initiatives, training proposals and planning attempts are emerging that aim to improve intervention capacity and must address, along with the search for technical means and necessary economic resources, also new problems of a cultural and political nature. My intervention proposes a reflection on these themes from the perspective of a political militant who has lived through different seasons and who today has developed, due to the place and time in which he lives, an experience and some ideas to be compared in a debate oriented in a libertarian and revolutionary sense.
Selva Varengo #
In a global context marked by ecological crisis, wars and repression, it is easy to be overcome by despair and withdraw into one’s individual sphere. Yet, precisely in this scenario, imagining other ways of living together becomes a necessary political act. My intervention aims to highlight how, in order to do this, we can find inspiration and tools in Pëtr Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid, in Murray Bookchin’s social ecology, but also in transfeminist, antispeciesist and decolonial reflections and, more generally, in an anti-hierarchical and libertarian vision to face collective challenges, overturn the existing order and build concrete alternatives.
Alberto (Abo) Di Monte #
The story of the Associazione Proletaria Escursionisti (Proletarian Hikers Association) is not “just” a tale of popular sport; its archives speak to us of internationalism, accessibility to high lands, mountain pedagogy. The context in which it was born is that of the cooperative movement, conflictual mutualism, cameralism and popular universities. Different institutions from each other and preceding the great transmission belts of the subsequent twentieth century.
One hundred years after the experience of the historical APE, the Alpine arc and the Apennine ridge are affected by sometimes counterintuitive phenomena: extractivism and depopulation, reforestation and reduction of biodiversity, tourism monoculture and surge in protected areas, folklorization and migratory phenomena. In the framework of the climate crisis and the Olympic proposal, especially starting from the condition of citizens, is it still possible to persist in indicating and practicing a radical stance in the approach to mountain disciplines?