Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Territories, the monthly newsletter from Inhabit. This time, we’ve got two original features for you. Check them out below.
I Believe That We Will Win
Two Perspectives on Defend the Atlanta Forest
They say Atlanta is a city in a forest. What happens when cops, developers, and Hollywood team up to decimate some of the very woods the city claims to treasure? In the last year, a widespread and diverse movement has sprung up to Defend the Atlanta Forest from a secretive proposal to build a police training facility, flanked by a movie soundstage, in a wooded parcel in southeast Atlanta. In this interview, we speak with two participants in the movement about its origins, tactics, and insurgent vision. Their story is of getting ahead of the media, outsmarting the cops, and coming to know the woods through the struggle.
We think that trying to build a state of the art police training compound in the wake of one of the biggest anti-police movements in US history is unconscionable. But that’s their answer to the economic crisis most people are faced with right now. This is also a response to the George Floyd Uprising and it’s an anticipation of what continued climate change will look like. The only answer that they can give to all the problems of the city is more police. For middle class and wealthy people, the only answer is more bad entertainment, more Netflix, more isolation at home to watch the things that Blackhall Studios produces to distract you from what's happening outside. And so, in response, our message has been: “go outside, go be in the forest, let's stop this thing.”
The Farmworker Caravan
Mutual Aid in California’s Migrant Worker Communities
We recently published an original interview between Nikola Garcia and Darlene Tenes about the Farmworker Caravan. The Caravan is a self-organized mutual aid initiative in California supporting migrant farmworkers, with volunteers drawn from neighboring communities and many families of farmworkers and former farmworkers. At scale, they’ve been delivering food, sanitary supplies, and other basic goods to workers whose labor and lives are often made invisible. Read on for a critical conversation about essential workers, migrant labor, the food system, and the challenges of the pandemic and climate change. Excerpts of their conversation can also be heard on the latest Partisan Gardens podcast.
People involved in the donation drives are from every age group, every faith base, every ethnicity. Many folks volunteer because their parents are or were farmworkers themselves. Volunteers have expressed that they got involved because the farmworkers are right next door. It was really beautiful to see everybody come together when we've gone through such turbulent times. This era that we’re currently living through is going to go down in history as “the Trump era,” “the BLM movement,” “the Pandemic.” There's so much going on and people are so stressed out, but coming together for the Farmworker Caravan was this moment of peace. They were coming together to do good to help another human being.
The Dawn of Everything reading group continues. Every week we read and discuss one chapter—we’re about halfway through the book now. Join us on Monday evenings for conversation with friends around the country.
“This mobilization must have a radical orientation and the moral force of the George Floyd rebellion, to not just reach but exceed its scale.” Kali Akuno on what the future holds for America.
“We don’t want the end of the world, and consequently we are beginning to think very hard about the end of capitalism.” Frédéric Lordon on the possibilities for revolution.
“Planetary politics should be connected to a politics of life, to a politics of the Earth.” Achille Mbembe on planetary consciousness.
“The Surrealist goal of permanent strike was not to pressure the boss, nor to instigate reforms, but to undermine the foundations of the capitalist nation-state altogether.” Abigail Susik on the Surrealist war on work.
“Apocalypse is a great way to flatten politics and power dynamics in the name of an overarching story of humanity.” Ingrid Burrington on Don’t Look Up.
“This is an essential part of our world and an essential part of our lives.” Listen to Darlene Tenes and Nikola Garcia on the Farmworker Caravan, via Partisan Gardens.
“The solutions for planetary health are the same ones that enrich the land.” Peter Bane on water management in a changing world.
“It's hard to convey to the average person what it feels like to be unhoused in the winter.” Ella Fassler on building tent-safe DIY heaters.
“Big data systems and their sensing and analyzing apparatuses produce their own reality to regulate and predict.” M. R. Sauter on images, algorithms, and privacy.
“This is a recipe for a world drowning in e-waste as devices are scrapped rather than being repaired.” Cory Doctorow on the right to repair.
We’ll see you next month.
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