CN - interpersonal conflicts, abuse of power
web - www.transform-social.orgPerspective - white queer cis woman in a Berlin housing project.
Community is when you remember there's no more toilet paper in the bathroom and quickly run over, laughing, to hand a new roll to the next person just in time.
What are the motivations for seeking community? Not feeling comfortable in a society where people are marginalized. No longer being able to endure isolation. Not being able or willing to keep up with capitalist competition. Wanting to contribute to climate-friendly slowness. Wanting to share resources to reduce the ecological footprint. Struggling with mental health issues. Wanting to develop further. Needing support. Wanting to play together.
Different biographies, different utopias. Together in a community? At first, it works; at first, the group euphoria and the shared goal are paramount. Then it becomes more difficult. Then come those who think they know how "the right," "the true" community works, who push themselves to the forefront, offering input to others. Potential for conflict, at least from an anarchist perspective.
What exactly is community? (No, there isn't one "right" interpretation, lol.) Community is characterized not only by social cohesion but also by shared resources. These don't necessarily have to be material goods like houses in the case of housing projects. They can also be shared goals and values, shared experiences, shared time, or a joint project. All of these are resources that need to be shared, nurtured, and preserved. What's special about anarchist communities is that decisions about the distribution, maintenance, and further development of resources are made according to needs and by consensus. The community evolves with the dynamic goal of anarchist societies.
An anarchist community is a prefigurative structure that embodies an anarchist society as best as possible "in the wrong system," making an anarchist utopia a reality. A countercultural movement that aims to tip the system.
Community is when I cook huge amounts of lasagna and it's all eaten in the end.
In an anarchist community, the focus on needs is liberating for those whose needs are largely ignored under capitalism. Expressing needs becomes a discovery of the self, a liberating act, a countercultural action.
At the same time, there's a risk that the focus on needs could tip in an unfavorable direction: desires presented as needs, needs strategically deployed, needs that are neither understood nor accepted. People who express their needs as emotionally, dramatically, and eloquently as possible, with great vehemence and urgency, are more likely to be heard. Less articulate, shy, less self-absorbed people, people on the spectrum, people with little time for these discussions, tend to get left behind. People with needs that stand in the way are pressured by repeated inquiries into what lies behind those needs, as if they still haven't been understood. Conflicts over scarce resources become a competition for the strongest and most important needs, turning needs into weapons.
Why do these battles occur? It's simply not always possible to meet all needs within a community. For example, when it comes to scarce resources, such as space in a housing project. How do we deal with the fact that there are many more unmet needs outside the community? Are we stuck in patterns of unreflective consumption and competition? Things become particularly problematic in long-term communities when past conflicts remain unresolved, when people feel their needs are constantly being neglected, and when the competition for needs escalates.
Then trust is lost. Trust that needs will be communicated honestly, trust that people aren't only concerned with themselves, that agreements will be honored, trust in the future, trust in anarchist communities.
"You only get as much done as you initiate," someone told me during my first visit to a housing project. Is that true?
I wish, especially for long-term communities, that we can trust one another. A safe space and security. This includes letting go of the pattern of shirking responsibility that we learned through socialization in authoritarian structures. It's not about blame, it's about responsibility. Respecting everyone's needs, respecting agreements that were important to others. If others only grudgingly agreed to an arrangement, checking in after a while to see how they're doing. Intervening when others attack each other. Passive observation normalizes this behavior and further humiliates the person being attacked, a loss of perspective, a loss of understanding of what constitutes appropriate behavior. A loss of security and community.
An anarchist community cultivates critical thinking and the courage to resolve conflicts. As an anarchist, can you handle criticism, even when it concerns your authoritarian behavior? In long-term communities, running away from conflicts is difficult. In housing projects, conflicts are your neighbors. And when they get out of hand, ignorance, cynicism, and social coldness follow.
Community is when, in rural areas, the entire queer movement comes together for Pride without splintering.
Should we shift our focus more towards available resources? What structures can we use to recognize patterns of manipulation and domination early on, before vile behavior becomes normalized and conflicts build up? What agreements do we make for addressing conflicts at different levels of escalation, and do we actually stick to them?
Social structures in communities, interpersonal interactions, and needs are complex. Perhaps the complexity within the group is too high. Perhaps our ideas of community don't align. Separation is just one option among many. Especially when it comes to coveted resources like affordable housing, separation is difficult. People stay because they cling to the resource without truly wanting to be part of the community anymore, which in turn reinforces the frustration of those who want to strengthen community structures.
Separation is not failure or defeat, but rather the prefiguration of diverse communities, a key anarchist idea: Diverse communities form around shared interests or needs; communities emerge and dissolve; communities separate and coexist. Can we create structures that facilitate separation? For communities about which stories can be told, stories that shift the narrative, that make anarchist societies conceivable.
Community is what, despite all the anger at violence, brings tears of emotion to the eyes when reading "Stone Butch Blues."
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This text was first published in the zine "The Apple and the Trunk" on the topic of community. The zine was lovingly organized, compiled, laid out, and printed by the Anarchist Group Dortmund. Many thanks for that! The print edition is available from Black Mosquito, and you can find it online as a PDF here. https://archive.org/details/DerApfelUndDerStamm/FINAL/
From the perspective of a white queer cis-female person in a Berlin housing project.
https://archive.org/details/DerApfelUndDerStamm/Web_2026-03-13-Zine_Gemeinschaft_barrierearm/page/n1/mode/1up
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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