Library

The library is a place to consult and disseminate documents on anything related to collective autonomy. Our goal is to bring together a wide range of materials – collective manifestoes, research papers and written, audio and visual documents – that can help us better understand the hows and whys of this kind of activism.

If you know of texts which could enrich our library, please send them to us via this form.

CRACK publications

Monographs

Les Panthères roses de Montréal: une monographie (in French)

A case-study of the Pink Panther - Montreal (in French).

Queer signifie littéralement, en anglais, « travers », mais aussi tordu, bizarre, loufoque,
étrange, excentrique... Ou encore non straight, c’est-à-dire non-hétéro. Insulte visant à l’origine
des gais, des lesbiennes et des transsexuelLEs dont le style ou la manière d’être dérogent de la « normalité ». Elle est aujourd’hui réappropriée et re-signifiée par les transgenres, transsexuelles,
gais et lesbiennes handicapéEs, folles, putes4 politiques et une multitude de sujets aux marges
des modèles promus par les médias, les groupes communautaires ou par les organisations
capitalistes. L’expression ouvre à des modes d’être et de résistance aux normes identitaires, à
l’encontre de l’obligation pour les dissidentEs du genre et de la sexualité de se fondre dans la
masse.

Cette monographie révèle les Panthères roses petit à petit… ne soyez pas impatientEs.
Elle commence par une brève présentation du groupe, ses origines et les expériences des ses
membres. C’est l’occasion de présenter la mouvance queer dans ses grandes lignes et les luttes dont elle hérite. Puis on enchaîne avec la présentation des proies favorites des Panthères… ce qui est l’occasion de rapporter ses actions, parfois des indices des modes d’organisation de celles-ci, le lien des Panthères aux médias, quelques réflexions et plusieurs communiqués qu’on retrouve sur leur site. Ce n’est qu’ensuite qu’on revient sur ces actions et le mode d’organisation du groupe pour en faire l’analyse.
Le Collectif Liberterre: a case study (in French)

This monograph written by CRAC is the first of what will be a long series on anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist groups that have been part of the Québec landscape since 1995. Members of the eco-radical collective Liberterre were active participants in the action-research process, lasting two years, that produced the study. The document includes a first part describing the group (context in which it appeared, principles, sources of inspiration, motivations, ways of functioning, evolution). The second part provides an account of political analyses produced by members of the collective and their thoughts on the challenges of self-management in a stratified context. For a print copy of the monograph, please contact us at info@crac.kebec.org.

Articles and communications

We-women and non-mixed organizing: intersections and divergences among Queer and feminist anti-authoritarian activists in Quebec

by Ashley Fortier, Anna Kruzynski, Jacinthe Leblanc, Leah Newbold, Magaly Pirotte and Coco Riot

This essay is the result of a collective editing process following three focus groups discussing the theme of the colloquium, whether being feminist in the 21st century means rejecting we-women. Specifically, we looked at we-women and the question of non-mixed organizing starting from four data sources: an analysis done by CRAC last year of discourses propogated since 2000 by anti-authoritarians fighting primarily against patriarchy and heteronormativity; a preliminary analysis of interviews carried out in the process of producing monographs with queer and radical feminist groups; a case study of contemporary radical feminists of Quebec by Geneviève Pagé (2006); and our own activist experiences.

In this text, we will focus on two of them: radical feminism and radical queer. The third, which we provisionally call women-of-colour feminism, is not strongly represented in our sample and, since we have not yet had the opportunity to deepen this aspect of our research, we will not touch on it here. We will sketch a (very exploratory) portrait of the  convergence and divergence of radical queer and feminist micro-cohorts on we-womenandnon-mixed organizing. A caution is necessary here. These micro-cohorts are not mutually exclusive. Activists can identify with one while organizing with groups associated with the other.

Worshops and presentations

Workshop: 'intersectionality' and anti-oppression practices

In some of his work, CRAC have discussed the idea that contemporary anarchism is defined by its political culture. One of the key elements of this culture is our stance against all forms of oppression, exploitation and domination; that is, the understanding that these systems are interlocking and thus work together to create stratified living conditions and life chances. However…

  • How can we apply these principles to our organising practices? How can we go beyond the « grocery-list » phenomenon (simple enumeration of all systems of oppression)?
  • How can we articulate the social realities that are lived at the intersections or points of junction of specific oppressions?

The following are some ideas of how we might work together on these issues.

Other publications

Articles, communications and research papers

The time for action is now! Anarchist theory, critical pedagogy, and radical possibilities

Rudolf Rocker (1989), a 19th century anarchist, proclaimed that anarchist theory was separate from a state driven, hierarchical socialism in that, "…when a revolutionary situation arises they [the people] will be capable of taking the socio-economic organism into their own hands and remaking it according to Socialist principles" (p. 86). Arising from the idea that small cooperatives of people could form without the need of a coercive and hierarchical state, Rocker envisioned a society that was based on cooperation, community participation, and mutual aid. Rocker’s vision of society, and other anarchist-communist (or anarcho-syndicalist) theorists, is especially relevant in a time that has seen a "war on terror" that was not supported by the global community, the roll back of civil liberties with legislation such as The Patriot Act, and educational laws such as No Child Left Behind that are focusing on narrowly-defined "standards" for public schooling. Cliquez ici pour télécharger l'article

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