Dysophia 1: Anarchism & Polyamory now out.
Posted by dysophia on May 27, 2010
Exploring open relationships and non-monogamy from the perspective of green anarchism, Anarchism & Polyamory is a collection of essays and articles, many new (but a few oldies), designed to be accessible to those new to both anarchism and polyamory. It is examines personal and sexual relationships through the prism of anarchism, including considering some common pitfalls and how society’s hierarchies are reinforced in personal relationships.
The authors are wide ranging, mixing both past and present from Europe and the US, many talking from their own experience.
The collection will be available at UK bookfairs and other events in hard copy for £1.50, but can be downloaded as free pdf here. We are are looking at doing faciliating some discussions later in the year for groups wanting to explore some of the issues raised.
Given the amount of interest and reaction already received from preview copies, we are planning a follow-up publication. So, we are interested in responses, whether challenging some of the positions taken in the articles or covering topics that the authors have missed out. We are particularly interested in material which deals with the problems of being non-monogamous in modern society, of communication with in open relations, challenging hierarchies in relationships and how all this is informed by anarchism.
Dysophia is a relatively new imprint producing collections of writings covering topics of interest relating to theory and practice within the green anarchist movement. All material is available free on our website.
Dysophia - the many worlds of green anarchism 
Love Bites: Clarisse Thorn | Time Out Chicago » » Polyamory, anarchism and power differentials said
[…] 7th, 2010 @ 11:33 pm I recently read through one anarchist zine’s polyamory issue: Dysophia 1. There’s some interesting theory in there — a number of ideas that I both agreed and […]
Enkidu said
Thanks for your efforts in putting this together. I learned quite a lot from this compilation. It’s very readable, as opposed to a lot of academicized things I’ve read on the topic.
I have one bone of contention with a rather minor point in “A personal perspective.” It refers to the essay “The Tyranny of Structurelessness”. This essay has long been exposed as a piece on anti-anarchist propaganda, yet still enjoys some popularity in our movement. Two repudiations of Freeman clear up the matter: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Cathy_Levine__The_Tyranny_of_Tyranny.html & http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Jason_McQuinn__A_Review_of_The__Tyranny_of_Structurelessness___An_organizationalist_repudiation_of_anarchism.html
Thanks & keep up the good work
dysophia said
Thanks for your thoughts, but I must respectfully disagree.
Jo Freeman’s work enjoys popularity because it opened up discussion around some uncomfortable facts regarding privilege in nominally anarchist groupings. I would say that it is not anti-anarchist per se but points out that many so called anarchist groups in fact have unchallengeable hidden hierarchies – something those of us who have experienced this in action easily recognise within Freeman’s essay.
I would not say that Cathy Levine or Jason McQuinn are amount to a repudiation by the anarchist movement, or even of Freeman’s central idea. They fail to address the issues of hidden elites and privileges within groups. Nor do they acknowledge the subsequent development of consensus decision making as a technique to dismantle elites and privilege within groups without having to resort back to hierarchy.
While Freeman’s essay may not be perfect and it may have its own agenda, there remains a useful lessons to be learnt from it all the same, and as such it should be acknowledged. I actually find much more to be critical of in Levine’s & McQuinn’s critique which too often resort to ad hominem attacks and mischaracterisation of Freeman’s arguments.