Reportback from the 2017 ISE Annual Gathering

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of going up to beautiful Vermont to take part in the annual gathering of the Institute for Social Ecology. As I’ve mentioned before, I have been delving into the work of activist-scholar Murray Bookchin, and the Institute for Social Ecology is an institution that he helped to found over 40 years ago. The annual event is a chance for eco-anarchists, ecofeminists, Green Marxists, libertarian communalists, and every other persuasion of social ecologist (who can afford to) to make the trek and gather in the dual spirit of conflict and collaboration.

Despite my objection (that were clearly voiced over the weekend) to the glaring whiteness of the gathering and the lack of focus on female voices, the three days were still so packed full of useful information and brilliant quotables that my hand started to cramp up from how feverishly I was taking notes.

While I won’t attempt to summarize everything that occurred, I will share a few of my favorite quotes, as well as links to interesting groups/gatherings I want to research and potentially useful further reading.

My Favorite Quotes from ISE 2017

• “When someone accuses you of essentialism, reject the argument but then go on to refute the category.” – Ynestra King
• “We’ve all learned that if you take control of the state, the state eventually takes control of you.” – Lincoln Van Sluytman
• “The crisis of our time is that we haven’t really explored what it means to be political.” – Eleanor Finley
• “Don’t just share the ‘conscience experience’; share the capital.” – Cora Roelofs

Further Reading

• Book: The Dispossessed by Ursula Leguin (inspired by Bookchin’s work!)
• Book: Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization by Abdullah Öcalan
• Book: Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era by Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, and Giorgios Kalli
• Comic Book: Truth and Dare: A Comic Book Curriculum for the End and the Beginning of the World! by Quincy Saul and Arabelle Clitandre
• Magazine: ROAR, Issue No. 6 , “The City Rises”
• Article: Degrowth? How About Some “De-alienation”? Leigh Brownhill, Terisa E. Turner & Wahu Kaara*
• Article: “Learning from History: Resistance in the 1850s and Today” by Jay Moore
• Article: “Community, Democracy, and Mutual Aid: Toward Dual Power and Beyond” by the Symbiosis Research Collective
• Article: “Community Control, Workers’ Control, and the Cooperative Commonwealth” by Howard Hawkins
• Article “MILKED: A Report About Immigrant Dairy Workers in New York” by the Workers Center of Central New York
• Article: “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought” by Murray Bookchin

Groups/Events to Look Up

• Woodbine Collective (based in Queens, NY )
• Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (based in the Roxbury area of Boston)
• Cooperative Jackson (a radical solidarity economy initiative in Jackson, Mississippi)
• Transnational Institute of Social Ecology (this September in Thessaloniki, Greece)