Resources for Collective Liberation

ALL OUR STRUGGLES ARE CONNECTED.

These are people and projects that have been essential for my own decolonizing journey. If you’d like to see a specific topic here, or if you can volunteer a bit of time to help me clean up the formatting, leave a comment on any of my social media accounts, or email me.

You have my permission to share, repost, copy and re-use this list anywhere for any reason as long as it’s not placed behind a paywall. A link back to this original page would be helpful, to expose more people to my work with the goal of building up sustainable Patreon/PayPal income so I can devote more time to these efforts.

If you appreciate my work and want to send a thank-you tip for my public education work, here’s my PayPal and Amazon list. Or, even better, become a Patron and support my work long-term.

This list is in two parts:

1) PRAXIS: I’m in. What should we do?

2) THEORY: I want to learn more

Resources to learn more about anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, the War on Drugs, and alternatives to our current hell world.

PRAXIS: I’m in. What should we do?

Unionize

The number one most helpful thing you can do is UNIONIZE YOUR WORKPLACE. Here’s how!

  •  

Organize Your Community

    • This sounds obvious, but search on DuckDuckGo, FB etc. for communist, socialist and anarchist parties and groups in your area! You might be surprised to find that there are more than you think.

Protest & Direct Action

Electoral Politics (aka political harm reduction)

Voting should not be the primary focus, but it should also not be ignored.

Worker Owned Co-ops

Individual changes you can make whenever possible

    • Do trauma work. See this section below. To be able to work with other people and take feedback when necessary, you need to have a strong sense of self-compassion and self-love, or you will get defensive and deflect.

Revolutionary art & music to enjoy

    • Bourgeois media sucks ass. There are so many leftist artists making incredible art, music, videos, comics and stories, but it’s hard for them to be heard above the noise of corporate media. We need to support them if we want to see more of it! Here’s a list of my favourites to get you started.

    • Art

    • Comics/Zines

    • Fiction

    • (someone pls help me fill out this list until I have time to come back to it lol)

Help me out

Updating and maintaining this list takes a LOT of time, and it still needs work. If you have web design skills or just wouldn’t mind doing some work to collect more links to fill in the gaps, please reach out!

THEORY: I want to learn more

ANTI-CAPITALISM 101 CRASH COURSE:

Must-watch videos, long-form 
(Many are 30 minutes or more, but I promise they’re super entertaining, trust me, I have ADHD lol)

    • How To: Revolution (YouTube Series)

        • Everyone wants a revolution. This series explains how to have one

    • Men (ContraPoints) 

Must-watch videos, short form (5 minutes or less):

Essays, Zines & Pamphlets:

Podcast episodes I find highly useful/informative:

Resources for Specific Topics

For a more comprehensive reading list, scroll down to the Big Ol’ Booklist section.

Police abolition

Land Back, Indigenous Knowledge

    • BOOK: Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015). Braiding Sweetgrass

Drug Policy

Drug use, harm reduction, benefit enhancement, recovery

    • Addiction & recovery resources:

        • [to be added – I only want to include trauma-aware, non-coercive, non-abstinence-only resources]

Mental Health (general)

    • Polysecure (Goodreads link) (on attachment, trauma & relationships – this book is a must-read even if you’re monogamous)

Mental Health (for men)

Positive Masculinity

    • Incels (ContraPoints, 35 mins)

    • Men (ContraPoints, 30 mins) 

Understanding Trans Issues

    • @DeathPanel_ ep “Grey Lady v Trans Life” (NYTimes coverage + some good critiques of “just asking questions”)

    • Death Panel ep “DIY and/or Die” (DIY transition, capitalism)

Cancelling/Mobbing/Pile-Ons

Palestine

Vaccines

White Supremacy & Fascism

Disability Justice

    • Wong, Alice (ed). Disability Visibility: First-person stories from the twenty-first century

    • Srinivasan, Amia. The Right To Sex

Non-monogamy & the nuclear family

    • Polysecure (Goodreads link) (on attachment, trauma & relationships – this book is a must-read even if you’re monogamous)

    • Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá. Sex at Dawn (read with a grain of salt, they make some dubious claims)

Understanding Marxist terms

Labour History

    • Prisoners of the American Dream by Mike Davis

    • Fighting Times by Jonathan Melrod

Climate Action

    • Education and action resources:

Post-Capitalist Economies

People to learn from

Leftist news & analysis:

Podcasts

    • The Trillbillies (leftist comedy and American news/analysis, very chill vibes)

    • Big Shiny Takes

Accounts to follow on Twitter

My favourite leftist creators on YouTube

    • Check out this guide to find people who resonate with you: A Practical Guide to Leftist YouTube (Noah Samsen)

    • Shaun [Incredible data analysis. Easy to listen to instead of watching. Highly recommended for lulling you to sleep (in a good way).]

    • Thought Slime (very funny & entertaining analysis from an anarchist lens)

    • ContraPoints (kind of a lib, but still has very entertaining, thoughtful & informative analysis, especially about trans issues)

My favourite leftist creators on TikTok

The Big Ol’ Booklist

Liberation (anti-capitalism, leftism, socialism, communism)

    • Inventing Reality – Michael Parenti

    • Fisher, Mark. 2009. Capitalist Realism. Winchester, UK: Zero Books.

    • Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    • Davis, Angela. Women, Race, & Class

    • Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine

Anti-Imperialism

Race, racism, anti-Blackness, intersectionality

    • No Name on The Street by James Baldwin

    • Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson (Interesting account about the way that social stratification happened (even in pre-modern societies) due to relationships with property/capital which led to racialization/subjugation)

Decolonization, Land Back, Indigenous Voices

    • Vine Deloria Jr. – Custer Died For Your Sins

    • Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015). Braiding Sweetgrass

Capitalism & Affect

    • Adams, Tristam Vivian. The Psychopath Factory: How capitalism organizes empathy

History

Neoliberalism

    • Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves To Death

Strategy

Prison, police, prohibition

    • Alexander, Michelle. 2012. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.

    • Goffman, Alice. 2014. On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. New York: Picador.

    • Maynard, Robyn. 2017. Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. Black Point, NS: Fernwood Publishing.

    • Mullins, Garth, Sam Fenn, Ryan McNeil, Alexander Kim, and Lisa Hale. 2019. Crackdown (Podcast). British Columbia Centre on Substance Use.

    • Ralph, Laurence. 2017. “Becoming Aggrieved: An Alternative Framework of Care in Black Chicago.” Pp. 93–110 in Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming, edited by J. Biehl and P. Locke. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Anthropology

    • Behar, Ruth. 1996. The Vulnerable Observer. Boston: Beacon Press.

    • Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015). Braiding Sweetgrass

    • Massumi, Brian. 2010. “The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat.” Pp. 52–70 in The Affect Theory Reader, edited by M. Gregg and G. Seigworth. Durham: Duke University Press.

    • Pine, Jason. 2019. The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    • Raikhel, Eugene and William Garriott, eds. 2013. Addiction Trajectories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    • Ralph, Laurence. 2017. “Becoming Aggrieved: An Alternative Framework of Care in Black Chicago.” Pp. 93–110 in Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming, edited by J. Biehl and P. Locke. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    • Robertson, Leslie and Dara Culhane. 2005. In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside. Vancouver: Talonbooks.

    • Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    • Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham: Duke University Press.

    • Taussig, Michael. 1987. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    • Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    • Williams, Bianca C. 2018. The Pursuit of Happiness: Black Women, Diasporic Dreams, and the Politics of Emotional Transnationalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    • Zigon, Jarrett. 2018. A War on People: Drug User Politics and a New Ethics of Community. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Drugs (general audience)

    • Bourgois, Philippe. 1995. In Search Of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Bourgois, Philippe and Jeffrey Schonberg. 2008. Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    • Boyd, Susan. 2017. Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

    • Boyd, Susan C., Donald MacPherson, and Bud Osborn. 2009. Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

    • Hart, Carl L. 2021. Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty In The Land Of Fear. New York: Penguin Random House.

    • Lattin, Don. 2011. The Harvard Psychedelic Club. HarperOne.

    • Lupick, Travis. 2017. Fighting For Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

    • Gabor Mate (2008). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

    • Pine, Jason. 2019. The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    • Robertson, Leslie and Dara Culhane. 2005. In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside. Vancouver: Talonbooks.

    • Rolles, Steve. 2017. Legalizing Drugs: How to End the War. Oxford, UK: New Internationalist.

    • Quinones, Sam. 2015. Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic. New York: Bloomsbury Press.

    • Schultes, Richard Evans, Albert Hofmann, and Christian Rätsch. 1992. Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers. Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press.

    • Reider, Travis. In Pain

Drugs (academic audience)

    • Alexander, Bruce K. 2008. The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    • Bourgois, Philippe. 1995. In Search Of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Bourgois, Philippe and Jeffrey Schonberg. 2008. Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    • Boyd, Susan. 2017. Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

    • Boyd, Susan C., Donald MacPherson, and Bud Osborn. 2009. Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

    • Courtwright, David T. 2001. Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    • Dyck, Erika. 2009. Psychedelic Psychiatry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    • Lupick, Travis. 2017. Fighting For Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

    • Paley, Dawn. 2014. Drug War Capitalism. Oakland, CA: AK Press.

    • Pine, Jason. 2019. The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    • Robertson, Leslie and Dara Culhane. 2005. In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside. Vancouver: Talonbooks.

    • Rolles, Steve. 2017. Legalizing Drugs: How to End the War. Oxford, UK: New Internationalist.

    • Raikhel, Eugene and William Garriott, eds. 2013. Addiction Trajectories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    • Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. 1992. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants. New York: Pantheon Press.

    • Zigon, Jarrett. 2018. A War on People: Drug User Politics and a New Ethics of Community. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Places you can find Hilary Agro’s work on the internet

Articles:

Podcast Appearances:

Talks and conference presentations:

French write-up of some of my work and lit review: https://blog.alexgirard.com/liste-darticles-evalues-par-des-pairs-sur-lutilisation-recreative-de-la-mdma-par-hilary-agro/

Support my work:

Articles I’m mentioned in:

Bio:

Hilary Agro is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Her ethnographic research focuses on how people whose drug use is criminalized build solidarity and connection while resisting prohibition and its entanglements in structures of racial capitalism. Her work on consciousness alteration in urban North American settings also focuses on the subjective and contextual benefits and pleasures of self-administered drug use in non-medical social settings, which are widely recognized and experienced by users themselves, but seldom included in academic or mainstream discussions of drugs. Hilary has run workshops on psychedelics, harm reduction, destigmatization, and consent culture, and she is passionate about public outreach and abolitionist activism, with a large audience on Twitter and TikTok (@hilaryagro). She received her Master’s in Anthropology from the University of Western Ontario.

Table of Contents For Navigation:

  1. ALL OUR STRUGGLES ARE CONNECTED.
  2. PRAXIS: I’m in. What should we do?
    1. Unionize
    2. Organize Your Community
    3. Protest & Direct Action
    4. Electoral Politics (aka political harm reduction)
    5. Worker Owned Co-ops
    6. Individual changes you can make whenever possible
    7. Revolutionary art & music to enjoy
    8. Help me out
  3. THEORY: I want to learn more
    1. ANTI-CAPITALISM 101 CRASH COURSE:
  4. Resources for Specific Topics
    1. Police abolition
    2. Land Back, Indigenous Knowledge
    3. Drug Policy
    4. Drug use, harm reduction, benefit enhancement, recovery
    5. Mental Health (general)
    6. Mental Health (for men)
    7. Positive Masculinity
    8. Understanding Trans Issues
    9. Cancelling/Mobbing/Pile-Ons
    10. Palestine
    11. Vaccines
    12. White Supremacy & Fascism
    13. Disability Justice
    14. Non-monogamy & the nuclear family
    15. Understanding Marxist terms
    16. Labour History
    17. Climate Action
    18. Post-Capitalist Economies
  5. People to learn from
    1. Leftist news & analysis:
    2. Podcasts
    3. Accounts to follow on Twitter
    4. My favourite leftist creators on YouTube
    5. My favourite leftist creators on TikTok
  6. The Big Ol’ Booklist
    1. Liberation (anti-capitalism, leftism, socialism, communism)
    2. Anti-Imperialism
    3. Race, racism, anti-Blackness, intersectionality
    4. Decolonization, Land Back, Indigenous Voices
    5. Capitalism & Affect
    6. History
    7. Neoliberalism
    8. Strategy
    9. Prison, police, prohibition
    10. Anthropology
    11. Drugs (general audience)
    12. Drugs (academic audience)
  7. Places you can find Hilary Agro’s work on the internet

We deserve good revolutionary art! Check out my new favourite album that came out recently, King Of The Moon by Pusher. It’s incredible. Also, if you listen carefully, you might hear a cameo from someone you recognize 😉 🚀🌝

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