Free universities and radical reading groups: learning to care in the here and now

ABSTRACT

This article is an autoethnography of two free education projects, Brisbane Free University and Queering Health Hobart. We suggest that in theorizing our experiences of these sites through feminist theories of care, we see how counter-capitalist and anti-oppressive cultures might be fostered within and against neoliberal capitalism. In particular, we suggest that these spaces foster forms of relationality, locatedness and attentiveness which disrupt the (re)production of neoliberal logics. By attending to one another in the specific conditions of the ‘here and now’, we begin to prefigure counter-capitalist cultures of care.

KEYWORDS:

• Free Universities
• Prefigurative politics
• Feminist ethics of care
• Queer health
• counter-capitalist organising

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. We use this term as shorthand for ‘neoliberal capitalism’. Following Brown (2015, 9–10), we use the term to describe a ‘normative order of reason developed over three decades into a widely and deeply disseminated governing rationality…(in which) all conduct is economic conduct; all spheres of existence are framed and measured by economic terms and metrics, even when those spheres are not directly monetised’.

2. Ghassan Hage’s (2017) work on the intimate entanglement of environmental destruction and colonialism makes visible that the idealized ‘capitalist futures’ grieved by many in the global North were always premised and conditional on racism and colonial expansion.

3. We use this phrase to denote place and time as agents of knowledge-production. When we meet in the ‘here and now’ it means engaging with the specific (violent, colonial, racialized) histories of place and its more-than-human multiplicity. It also requires that we engage with the ‘present’ as a meaningful political moment (Fisher 2009; 80; see also Berlant 2011, 6).

4. We note in particular that the ideas and themes explored in this article are co-constituted with the conversations we have each week in our reading groups. These thoughts would not have come to fruition without the multiple kinds of care that we have felt in these spaces. Moreover, our dear friends and collaborators Fern Thompsett (BFU co-founder), Archie Sargent (QHH co-founder) Dr. Natalie Osborne (BFU organizer) and Jonathan Sri (BFU organizer) are the ‘conditions of possibility’ for this thinking. As Haraway (2016, 8) puts it: we are ‘cultivating ways to render each other capable’.

5. In particular, we acknowledge the regular participants of the BFU reading group (especially Ollie, Rob, Meg, Geoff, Hannah, Shelley, Jasmine, Declan, Elan, Raina, Taylor (and numerous others)). We also acknowledge the regular participants of the Queering Health Hobart reading group.

6. Cultural Studies Association of Australasia. See conference website: http://csaa.asn.au/.

7. We use the term ‘prefigurative’ here to describe a particular approach to political organizing that locates possibilities for change in the present, refusing to separate the ends from the means. There is a well-documented resurgence in this kind of organizing. See: Avrich and Pateman 1995; Bey 2003. For a robust critique of prefigurative politics, see Srnicek & Williams 2016.

8. For more detail, see the Brisbane Free University website at https://brisbanefreeuniversity.org/.

9. ‘Iatrogrenic’ describes illnesses that are actually caused by medical examination or treatment, that is, in which the diagnosis, manner or treatment prescribed actually creates the harm.

10. See submissions from the BFU zine for examples. This was a collectively produced zine, published and printed in November 2013. Copies are available at: https://brisbanefreeuniversity.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/skmbt_42313121015000.pdf.

11. We have a repertoire of more-than-human interactions as free university organizers, including ant bites and bat swoops, as well as dozens of non-human participants: rats, cockroaches, possums, ibis…even the occasional carpet python.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Carlson

Anna Carlson is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, Australia. She is interested in the politics of urban space, and how colonial practices of surveillance, enclosure and erasure are refused, disrupted and resisted. Anna is a cofounder of the Brisbane Free University, producer with feminist radio collective Radio Reversal and an organiser with Right to the City Brisbane. She moonlights as an illustrator and zine-maker, and lives with her partner on a houseboat.

Briohny Walker

Briohny Walker is a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, Australia in Philosophy and Gender Studies, with interests in feminist philosophy, queer theory, anti-capitalist politics, the Anthropocene and the transformative potential of education. Briohny is a cofounder of Brisbane Free University and Queering Health Hobart. She lives with her partner (and QHH co-conspirator) Archie in the mountains near Hobart, and does her best thinking in conversation.