We started the discussion with three rounds of questions:
- What do you fight for and what does it mean for you to fight for something?
- What do you work for and what does it mean to work for something?
- What does it mean for you to heal, what do you want to heal (from)?
Answers in the first round included goals like squatting, anarchy, equality, inclusivity, the weak, the disabled, culture, autonomy, and space. Fighting meant embodiment, creation of spaces, and help to some. Others noted that fighting for something gives meaning to their life. However, it was also brought up that fights can seem like big, passionate, but almost never-ending processes which can be overwhelming.
In the second round, changing minds, getting people to draw their own conclusion, community, maintaining relationships, and a job at an insurance company were mentioned, among others. In contrast to fighting, working was described as a series of smaller actions, as a longer and more active process.
Finally, in the third round, people mentioned healing from trauma and toxic masculinity, among others. Healing was described as a never ending, personal, and active process, that requires grieving, anger, talking, and a lot of other emotions, as well as learning. We already discussed that even though there are differences between fighting, working, and healing, they are often simply different sides of the same (three-sided) coin.
At this point, I introduced the observation that among many other contexts, we also often talk about fighting regarding our own health: we are not just healing from an illness, but we are also fighting it. This phenomenon is criticised by the health sciences, because it impacts the way we look at different healing processes, which can impact the process itself. If we want to “fight” an illness, we want to (1) create a clear and complete strategy and (2) implement it as quickly as possible. In this plan, the expertise of health professionals becomes unquestionable, questions and concerns from the patient can be seen even as unnecessary obstacles. Throughout the implementation of the “strategy” there is little room for reflection, as that is seen as something that only slows down the process that needs to end as soon as possible. In contrast, viewing healing as indeed healing, allows and even encourages patients and professionals to have these moments of reflection.
In response, it was mentioned that the narrative of “fighting” can also have associations to toxic masculinity, so that simply being ill can be interpreted as a weakness from this perspective, which is not helpful at all. Seemingly in contradiction, someone else mentioned that it also felt like the narrative of “fighting” allowed less expression of anger (as well as other emotions), simply because there is no time for them during a fight. It was also mentioned that making mistakes only brings guilt in this narrative, they are not interpreted as possible learning opportunities.
The applicability of these critiques to activism was also brought up: many of us expressed how building movements often feel like jumping from action to action as quickly as possible, without sufficient space for reflection, which can even delay a lot of important healing processes. Someone expressed the idea that “fighting” is the meaningful term for dealing with external damaging factors while “healing” feels like the appropriate term for internal ones. However, it was not obvious to us, which kind of damaging factors are we dealing with, on a societal level. For example, if we look at capitalism, is the existence of private capital an external damaging factor or is capitalism itself an internal damage, a system that is inseparable from us? So, do we need to fight capitalism or heal it, heal ourselves from it?
In the second part, a new question was introduced: how could these different narratives about activism and in general, work, affect the way we view and appreciate different kinds of labour?
First, we discussed an important categorisation of labour: reproductive and productive. Broadly speaking, productive labour is defined as labour that results in a given – physical, intellectual or other – product: a car, a book, or a dress. On the other hand, reproductive labour is defined as labour that basically reproduces people, their bodies, their health: a mother feeding her kids, a doctor treating a patient, or a hairdresser cutting hair. Raising, teaching children is also considered reproductive labour, even though this type of work “enhances” its subjects as the children acquire new things. Yet, this is understood as the reproduction of not just individual human beings, but more broadly, the population, society. It is important to note that, to a large extent, reproductive labour is unequally distributed along gender and racial lines.
In theory, every type of labour should be either productive or reproductive as the completion of certain reproductive tasks is viewed as the prerequisite for productive labour: as a society, we produce things, and in order to be able to do that, we, as human beings, need to be produced and reproduced, too. This is why reproductive labour is also sometimes referred to as invisible labour: it doesn’t have a direct product, but it is needed for production, “its product has a product”. However, if we think about it a bit, the lines very quickly become blurred: if we view a mother cooking for her children as performing reproductive labour, do we view a professional chef cooking in a restaurant the same way, too? Cooking has a product: food. But, this product reproduces human beings. So, what counts as reproductive or productive labour is not completely obvious, it is also up to us.
But why are the categories of reproductive and productive labour relevant in activism? As an example, I brought up the organisation of RSS’ first birthday party. We knew we wanted to deliver a nice event for our community, so we divided the tasks that were necessary for that: cooking, organising the programs, promotion. However, we did not think about the task that was not necessary to create the event, but still needed to be done: cleaning up. In the end, we did clean up, but, for example, gender-wise, it was not equally distributed. As the product – the event – was the goal floating in front of our eyes, we divided tasks in relation to that. For example, when we have a regular session, we also view it as an occasion on which we use a community space, Joe’s garage, that we have to be mindful of. In this case, RSS’ work is viewed more as a process which aims to be in symbiosis with other organisations and spaces in the long term, for the benefit of all of us. In contrast, we viewed our birthday party as a product that needed to be delivered as efficiently as possible.
If we view a specific “product” of activism as a main goal, a war that needs to be won, the priority of many tasks will be defined in relation to that. If a political organisation is having a several month long campaign, is it really important to keep its office tidy or would the cleaning work take valuable human resources away from on the ground activist work? But what if activists have a harder and harder time finding fliers, stickers, and other things, in a more and more chaotic office? If we view activism as a long-term process, where campaigning and cleaning the office are all building blocks of this process, we might arrive to different conclusions, than with the previous narrative.
However, we cannot always fully control these narratives. For example, squatting a house with police presence is, by nature, a much more visible and “exciting”, “cool” event than the everyday maintenance of a squatted building. Yet, we usually do have some control. During the pro-Palestine student protests over the spring, a house was squatted by the protesters. When planning what to do in the new building, someone suggested to hold regular Arabic lessons to which someone else replied: How can you think about language classes now, when we all have to be out on the streets? If you view protesting as the ultimate goal of your movement, this could indeed be a valid point. However, for example, if you do not yet have enough people in your movement to exert enough pressure to create change only by protesting, it is reasonable to argue that events like language classes can get more people involved, so, by the next protest, there will be more people on the streets.
We also discussed that the product-oriented, war-like narratives of activism can create other toxic, toxically masculine, and even counter-productive, destructive mechanisms in activist communities. Constant fighting and toughness without reflection and rest can be praised, while in the long-term, this can increase the risk of mistakes both during actions and decision-making. Those who spend more time on activism can be viewed as more valuable members, while the fact that, for example, class is a strong determinant of how much free time someone has. If more engaged activists are praised, they might also have more say in decisions, while those who have less time to participate might be made to feel guilty about this, and if they complain about their voices not being heard, they might be told to work more for their opinions to be more valued.
Not only the quantity, but the quality of the performed activist work can also impact the influence of each person in a movement. Those who complete the tasks that are considered “productive”, like organising and working in a campaign, or that are riskier, require more sacrifices, like becoming a public face of the organisation or participating in a clash with the police, might be able to claim that they “gave” more to the movement, so they deserve more power in it, too. We discussed that, while these dynamics should be recognised and addressed, on many occasions, the nature of the different kinds of work that need to be done also poses a limit to improving these issues.
For example, someone who works and organises well in a campaign, could become a campaign manager later, a position that comes with more power, and maybe even money, while someone who excellently keeps the movement’s office tidy doesn’t necessarily have such a career path, cleaning is not an obvious stepping stone for more influential and valued work. Similarly, performing risky tasks can become self-serving, too, people might perform them just to signal that they are more committed than others, and not because they actually find those tasks necessary or they might cross their own boundaries while trying to be a “hero”. Again, we reminded ourselves that these issues also have class- and gender-aspects.
Finally, we pondered about balancing professionalisation in and rotation of different tasks in organisations. What are the tasks that everyone should be able to do? What are the tasks that everyone should do once in a while? What are the tasks that are so complex that teaching them to everyone would cost too much time for that to be worth it? How should we appreciate and value each other’s work while not downplaying others’ efforts? What kind of “career paths” should we have in our movements, what kind of expertise and experience should we value and how?