What does this look like on the ground, and what are people doing about it now?
See the pedagogy document for what this lens does across all themes.
Prefiguration means you do not wait. This lens is about what people are building right now, without permission: mutual-aid networks, food distributions, cooperatives, tenant unions, disaster-response crews, and the everyday practice of taking care of each other. It is also, unusually, a lens with real how-to material, because the hardest part of prefigurative work is not the idea but the doing: making decisions without a boss, handling money and conflict, and keeping a project alive past the first burst of energy.
Anchor questions
- What mutual-aid or cooperative projects exist near you? How do they run?
- How do you actually make decisions in a group without a boss? What is consensus?
- What does it take to start a mutual-aid project and keep it alive?
- Why do so many collectives burn out or fall apart, and how do some last?
- What can people build right now, without permission?
Materials
Free unless marked otherwise.
Journalism and reporting
- It’s Going Down (2015 to present). An anarchist and anti-authoritarian news and analysis hub reporting on mutual aid, tenant organizing, and community defense across North America. Free: itsgoingdown.org
- CrimethInc. (1996 to present). A decentralized anarchist publishing collective offering analysis, organizing accounts, and free downloadable zines and posters. Free: crimethinc.com
- Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) (1991 to present). A grassroots-journalism collective covering worker cooperatives, housing co-ops, and the solidarity economy, with reports and organizing resources. Free: geo.coop
Practical handbooks and how-to material
- A Consensus Handbook (Seeds for Change, 2013). A thorough anti-copyright guide to cooperative decision making and facilitation for co-ops, communities, and activist groups. The single most directly usable how-to for running a horizontal meeting, and ideal to work through as a session. Free: seedsforchange.org.uk
- Mutual Aid 101 Toolkit (Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, 2020). A short, sharable toolkit on starting a neighborhood mutual-aid pod, community agreements, and disaster response, drawn from over thirty communities. Free: mutualaiddisasterrelief.org
- Hungry for Peace (Keith McHenry, 2012). The de facto how-to manual of Food Not Bombs, covering food collection, consensus decision making, logistics, and what to do when police arrive. Free: foodnotbombs.net
- Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) (Dean Spade, 2020). Part framework, part organizing manual, distinguishing mutual aid from charity and addressing decision making, conflict, burnout, and co-optation. Free full text: theanarchistlibrary.org
Films and documentaries
- No Gods No Masters: A History of Anarchism (Tancrède Ramonet, 2016, three parts). A multi-part narrated history tracing anarchism from Proudhon through the Spanish Revolution of 1936. Useful background on the tradition and its living experiments, free with English subtitles. Free: archive.org
- The Take (Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, 2004, 87 min). Follows laid-off Buenos Aires auto workers who occupy their shuttered plant and run it as a cooperative under the slogan “Occupy, Resist, Produce.” A living worker-recuperation experiment. Paywalled: cinemapolitica.org.
Podcasts and interviews with organizers
- The Response (Shareable, 2019 to present). A documentary and interview series on disaster collectivism and mutual aid, with organizers describing on-the-ground responses to hurricanes, wildfires, and political crises. Free: shareable.net
- Live Like the World is Dying (Margaret Killjoy, 2020 to present). Interviews on community preparedness and resilience from an explicitly anarchist standpoint, covering skills, mutual aid, and collective survival. Free: liveliketheworldisdying.com
- The Final Straw Radio (2010 to present). A weekly anarchist interview show out of Southern Appalachia, part of the Channel Zero network, featuring organizers in liberation struggles worldwide. Free: channelzeronetwork.com
Explainers on video
- “What is Mutual Aid?” (Andrewism, 2020). Roughly 20 minutes, about 51,000 views. Defines mutual aid and distinguishes it from charity, bridging the practical and theoretical lenses. youtube.com/watch?v=LlF-ZvRHa2o
- “How To Build Radical Community” (Andrewism, 2024). Roughly 27 minutes, about 88,000 views. A practical sketch of rebuilding community and mutual support against social isolation. youtube.com/watch?v=1-Xl6dhDV3Q
Further reading
For resources behind a paywall, see the note on access.
- Dean Spade, Big Door Brigade, Mutual Aid Syllabus (2019). Spade’s own syllabus and reading questions, given away free and explicitly offered as a first draft to be adapted rather than followed. The most usable free scaffold for running mutual aid as a course. Free: bigdoorbrigade.com
- AORTA (Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance), Facilitation Resource Sheet. Practical facilitation tools from a worker-owned co-op that trains movement groups: agenda design, handling conflict, and sharing airtime. The hard part of prefigurative work is the meeting, and this is about the meeting. Free: aorta.coop
- Schools for Chiapas, EZLN, Freedom According to the Zapatistas (escuelita textbooks). The Zapatistas’ own teaching materials from the escuelita, in which they taught outsiders how their autonomous government actually works. A living stateless tradition explaining itself in its own words rather than being explained. Free: schoolsforchiapas.org
Status
First pass, and it may be a while before there is a second. Contributions welcome, especially accounts from groups running mutual-aid projects, cooperatives, and community-defense work, and material on sustaining projects and avoiding burnout.