On-Ramps to a New Civil Society: Mutual Aid at the Edges of the Anthropocene

Climate change has long degraded the materiality of human communities and the natural world but is increasingly articulated on a more profound scale. In this historical moment of institutional decline, a political void has emerged in addressing our biopolitical or life-giving needs which demand equal attention to both the human and non-human worlds. Mutual aid continues to develop as a long-term social practice operating to heal and regenerate these two worlds. As it matures and seeks to acquire dual power, mutual aid is advancing a three-part strategy realized by new labor, political, and ontological forms that are collectively contributing to a new, radical civil society.