Introduction - The Oaxaca Commune
Section Notes¶
The Oaxaca Commune¶
Insurgent social reproduction: turning the work of household chores into a way to sustain protests and resistance movements
Insurgent: As part of a protest against the existing order
Social reproductive labor: AKA domestic labor; the (mostly unpaid) labor that goes into getting workers ready for work
Exploring insurgent social reproduction in the Oaxaca Commune, 2006
Instead of maintaining individual households, people lived collectively in barricades during rebellion
“What had been women’s work in the home became the daily practice of reproducing the insurrection.” (pp. 2)
Didn’t abandon care responsibilities (e.g. towards children), but brought them along
Still faced resentment from husbands
Reassertion of family contributed to decline of political movement
Family as Limit¶
Families present many kinds of limits to human freedom
Abusive parent-child relationships
Abusive partner relationships
Financial instability
AKA child protective services, child welfare system
Disproportionately targets Black, Indigenous, and poor families
Limits to political imagination
Hard to imagine life outside the family form when the family is all you’ve ever known
Family Abolition¶
A scary phrase!
Opposition from the right and the left
From the right
Destruction of gender, markets, civilization
From the left
Alienating voter base
History of repression of Black and Indigenous families
Extending neoliberal programs?
If so, would result in more people getting hurt
How can people possibly survive without the care and support of families?
Definition of family abolition
Taking the type of care and support that is normally limited to families and extending it to society at large
Changing the fact that some families are valued over others
Major arguments of the book
There is a current and ongoing crisis of the family
Mapping the shape of it
Need to understand family as private household and family as site of violence
There have been many pro-family and anti-family struggles throughout the history of capitalist development
Exploring the last two hundred years of family history
Family abolition offers many possibilities for the future
Offering speculative visions
Practicing expanding revolutionary imagination
Structure of the Book¶
Part 1 (Chapters 1-3)
Chapter 1: COVID-19 & the family as private household
Chapter 2: Family as a racial, normative, social ideal
Chapter 3: Positive aspects of family - love, hope, and salvation
Part 2 (Chapters 4-9)
Chapter 4: Family politics of capitalist industrialization in Europe
Chapter 5: Racial capitalism of 19th-century North America
Chapter 6: Oppressive family politics vs. proletarian subversion of the family during the 19th century
Chapter 7: Rise and consolidation of family-oriented workers’ movement
Chapter 8: Global insurgencies from mid-1960s through mid-1970s
Chapter 9: Working class family life since the mid-1970s - crisis and non-normative care
Part 3 (Chapters 10-13)
Chapter 10: Family abolition movement as link between multiple political groups/efforts
Chapter 11: Other writers’ visions of family abolition
Chapter 12: Existing protest movements & their extension of care beyond the market and state
Chapter 13: Speculative futures - commune structure
Quotes¶
Family abolition is a commitment to making the care necessary for human flourishing freely available throughout society. Rather than relying solely on one’s immediate personal relationships, access to care could be built into the social fabric of our collective lives. Family abolition is the vision that the basis of thriving should not depend on who your parents happen to be, who you love, or who you choose to live with. Family abolition is a horizon of sexual and gender freedom beyond the bigotry imposed by those on whom we depend. Family abolition is the expansion of care as a universal, unconditional social good. Family abolition is not just the positive assertion of care but also a refusal of the harmful relationships of domination that the family form enables. Family abolition is a belief that no child should be trapped by cruel parents; no woman should be afraid of poverty or isolation in leaving her violent husband; no aging, disabled, or sick person should be afraid of having to depend on an indifferent and uncaring family member. Family abolition is the recognition that no human being should ever own or entirely dominate another person, even children. No individual should have the means to coerce intimacy or labor from another, as current property relations enable. Family abolition is the destruction of private households as systems of accumulating power and property at the cost of others’ well-being. (pp. 6-7)