Jeff Shantz

Now available from ALGORA Publishing....
(also $19.95 from Amazon.com)
Despite claims about globalization, we see increasing surveillance, tightened restrictions and growing punitive regimes at international borders.

This critical collection examines processes of racialization in relation to border regulations and restrictions. It analyses border controls, racism, and representations of race, within multinational contexts as aspects of neo-liberal governance. It also looks at means by which people resist or challenge racialization.

This collection uses the lenses of sociology, criminology, art, literary criticism and political science to critically examine varied processes of racialization, criminalization and resistance in relation to borders with reference to multi-national contexts in the current period.

In events like the G20 protests and clampdown there emerge real opportunities for recognition and understanding that are not always so readily available behind the screen of “business as usual.” The learning curve shifts and some things become much more clear.

One of the interesting revelations of the G20 fallout is the extent to which many in the social movements or “the Left” are ruled by the morals, values and prejudices of the dominant classes.

In the days following the mass police assaults on organizers, demonstrators, and bystanders during the G8/G20 events, even as comrades linger in squalid detention centres and jails, a troubling notion is taking shape, seemingly gaining traction, among activist circles as well as some sectors of the general public more broadly. This notion suggests that the police in Toronto acted in a way that was somehow atypical or out of the ordinary.

As the state capitalist carnivals of the G8/G20 got underway in cottage country and Toronto widespread public outrage focused on the $1.3 billion security extravagance—the fences, security cameras, weapons, vehicles and mass policing that have become regular features of such elite get-togethers. While governments of the G8 claim the need for austerity, social spending cuts and belt tightening for the working classes, they have no shortage of public money to spend on their own comfort.

Published by Linchpin, ~ February/March 2010
By Jeff Shantz
State Repression Columnist

Only a few days into the Olympic spectacle and much talk had turned to black blocs and a few broken insured Hudson Bay Company windows. Yet much of the discussion has been framed within a strange liberal duality of choices between militant demonstrations (said to be offensive to working class observers) and supposedly “peaceful” symbolic protests, like the march the night of the opening ceremonies (which is presented as more palatable to working class audiences). As if the actions of the demonstrators are the real question and determine the structure of events. Anyone who has ever been on a picket line might find this a bit strange —working class folks have never been involved in dust ups with the cops?— and it has me reflecting not so much on the specific actions in Vancouver as on the broader context for policing and protests.

New in 2009 from Academica Press...

Anarchism stands as one of the the most vital social movements of the twenty-first century. Yet this large (and growing) contemporary movement remain obscured by public and scholarly misconceptions as to its aim and purpose. Lost in recent accounts are the creative and constructive practices undertaken daily by anarchist organizers seeking a world free from violence, oppression and exploitation. An examination of some of these constructive anarchist projects, which provide examples of politics grounded in everyday resistance, offers insights into real world attempts to radically transform social relations in the here and now of everyday life.

Published in: Feminist review ISSN 0141-7789
2002, no70, pp. 105-122 [18 page(s) (article)]

This paper addresses feminist materialism as political practice through a case study of IWW-Earth First! Local 1, the late Judi Bari's organization of a radical ecology/ timber workers' union in the ancient redwood forests of Northern California. Rejecting the Earth First! mythology of timber workers as enemies' of nature, Bari sought to unite workers and environmentalists in pursuit of sustainable forestry practices against the devastating approaches favoured by multinational logging corporations. In so doing, she brought a working-class feminist perspective to the radical ecology of Earth First!

by PJ Lilley & Jeff Shantz

One of the all time great swindles of history is the massive free labor subsidy that capital has scored in working class homes. So much of our time, energy, interests, resources and money goes into the home-based work to re-produce our class....

"Rape, racism, sexism, and capitalism have been consistent elements in a long history of documented assaults against the reproductive sovereignty of Black women." [1] -Theryn Kigvamasud’ Vashti, Communities Against Rape and Abuse

Originally published in the Northeastern Anarchist: Repro Series, Spring 2005

For working women, control of one's own body is constantly another turf battle in the class war. In this second article in our series on reproduction, we look at birth control and sterilization in the context of other attacks on the poor.

This collection brings together a variety of writings (~1998-2003) from a longtime anarchist. Topics covered include perspective on anarchist theory, participant accounts of direct actions and anarchist projects as well as writings on literature, marriage, state repression and borders.

[Note from Jeff... This is a collection prepared for the FREE PRESS art exhibit and, although it shares a similar title as my 2009 book "Living Anarchy: Theory and Practice in Anarchist Movements", only a couple of the chapters are similar.]

View the Free Press book in Adobe PDF.

Table of Contents...