In radical writing, form often trumps content. We write about topics like justice, anti-capitalism and collective power, but often the form imposed by publishing is steeped in the very ideologies our content opposes. A single author is the name on the jacket, and there is a uniform approach to chapters and word counts. Not so in Constellations of Care, a new collection from Pluto Press of “anarcha-feminism in practice”. From street medic collectives to Black feminist groups, herbalists for prisoners, community librarians and cooks, abortion clinic staff, housing movements, artists and more, these people share their projects – and they share them in whatever manner best befits them. There are interviews, multi-authored essays, personal stories and illustrations. A polymorphous authorship style emerges, working well in some cases, less so in others, but creating a welcome cacophony of inspiration for those of us who wish to do things differently. It’s the kind of book that would never get published by one of the big houses, and an excellent example of why radical indie presses like Pluto are so vital.
The featured projects share a twin commitment: to resist against state domination, and to care. In ‘Tarps and Gossip: Existing as Resisting’, Raani Begum describes the weekly practice of “opening up space” for sex workers by placing a tarp in a park in Philadelphia. Sex work is illegal in Philadelphia (and most of the US), but providing condoms, first aid kits and information about bad clients is a form of harm reduction – a political protest as much as a survival strategy. But the broader forms of care Begum and their peers provide are just as crucial: the hot drinks, the nap times, the colouring books and catch-ups.
Similarly, Claire Barrera of Brown Girl Rise explains how, by resisting “typical non-profit models of youth service provision”, they have been able to cultivate kinship through play, rather than instructing obedience to authority figures. Mags Beall and Cory Maria Dack write about their compelling work in North Star, a collective of street medics in Minneapolis. Like state-trained and -sanctioned medics, they tend to the needs of the wounded, but unlike their counterparts, they foreground patients’ autonomy, provide preventative care, and also explicitly care for themselves during the process. They “don’t have set rules, just living questions” that they ask themselves, allowing them to evolve over time as needed.
While North Star has been running for nearly 20 years, many of the projects featured have ended, sometimes only a handful of years after their inception. The authors are refreshingly honest about obstacles and failures, including interpersonal strife, premises losses, and burnout. Just as the form provokes questions about authorship and ownership, this openness provokes questions about what counts as success. Under a capitalist rubric, successful projects should not end and should not be marred by constant difficulty. Instead, this realm of anarcha-feminism recasts success as the courage to experiment, to iterate, to learn.
In one of the stand-out essays, the book’s editor, Cindy Barukh Milstein, describes conducting a “celebratory, musical ‘funeral’ march” to mark the end of a project. This enabled the people involved closure “while we still appreciated each other”, and with money left too, which they used to seed several new projects. They use their contribution, placed centrally in the book, to make a case for rituals like this as a crucial part of healthy human life. For them, they are “essential as the reparative and restorative glue of fully living”. What they hope to achieve with rituals is also what they offer with this collection – reading it is a bit like sharing tea with new friends, friends who are seeking to repair the world and who inspire us in the process.
Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice by Cindy Barukh Milstein (editor). Pluto Press, 2024. ISBN: 9780745349954
