Inspiring stories of real life and often risky activism resisting the global criminalisation of care
In many places around the world, the freedom to simply care for one another is under attack by the powerful, and acts of solidarity are being made illegal. In a moment of struggle defined by the rollback of social welfare programs, the criminalisation of migration, and the right-wing clampdown on bodily autonomy, radical networks of care are fighting back.
From volunteer rescue boats in the Mediterranean to underground labs for preparing gender-affirming hormones, from the sharing of copyrighted health knowledge to the provision of abortion and contraception, people are reclaiming the means to care for one another in defiance of a system that devalues and exploits the labour of care.
Against atomised despair, Pirate Care shows that fighting back isn't only about legal and legislative changes but also about organizing, direct action, and disobedient care.
Valeria Graziano is a cultural theorist and organizer. Along with Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak she is the convenor of the Pirate Care Syllabus project. She has contributed to a number of collectives, including Precarious Workers Brigade, the Radical Education Forum, Boycott Workfare and the Women Strike UK. She is the co-author of Rebelling with Care: Exploring Open Technologies for Commoning Healthcare and she lives in Rijeka, Croatia.
Marcell Mars is an advanced internet user. With Tomislav Medak he founded a shadow library Memory of the World, He develops and maintains software infrastructure to support custodians of (universal access to) knowledge. His research Ruling Class Studies, started at the Jan van Eyck Academy, examines state-of-the-art digital innovation, adaptation, and intelligence created by corporations such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and eBay. Marcell lives in Rijeka, Croatia.
Tomislav Medak is a commons and disability activist and an independent researcher with a focus on technology, environmental crisis and degrowth transition. He’s a member of the green-left party Možemo! (HR). With Marcell Mars and a community of friends in Zagreb he founded Multimedia Institute/MAMA, since 2000 a hub for cultural and political organizing. Together they have co-edited Public Library and Guerrilla Open Access. He lives in Zagreb. Croatia.
'Putting the words pirate and care together already produces a spark of excitement, asking us to imagine how we are going to make the world together. A world in which what are often separate practices, and languages about practices, can come together. Where abolition, hacking, the commons, queerness and repair are connected. Where as good feminists we concern ourselves with the work and play that sustains us, in and against the empires of extraction. A most nourishing and encouraging little book'
- McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto and Capital is Dead'In times of rampant institutionalized cruelty and neglect, and as we witness the increasing commodification, weaponization and criminalization of care, this inspiring and stimulating collection celebrates care’s uncompromising radicality – from anonymous everyday solidarity to bold acts of resistance in the face of ruthless repression. Pirate Care is a breath of fiery courage against the suffocation of hope'
- María Puig de la Bellacasa, author of Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human WorldsOverture: For a global mutiny against an uncaring empire
1. Breaking their laws to repair our worlds
2. Care-hacking against the techno-health armada
3. Pirating imperial property
4. Learning together under fire
5. Organizing mutiny to mutualize care
Swearing an oath
Acknowledgments
eBook ISBN: 9780745349817
110mm x 215mm