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A review by danprisk
Direct Action: An Ethnography by David Graeber
5.0
This was one of the books I was least excited about in my to read pile, but ended up being one of the most interesting books I have read in a long time.
It's a physically daunting book to pick up, perhaps more so than many similar length books I've read lately. Yet that is full dispelled within the first few pages. The first section is highly conversational, and easy to follow. Dropping the reader straight into an activist group, Graeber does a great job of immersing you in the world of the activist with large sections of straight quotation, interspersed with discussion and context. He follows an affinity group from initial discussions through to action on the streets of Quebec, showing the full gamut of anarchist organisation and action.
The second section of the book walks through further analysis of different sections of this story. This section gets a little more theoretical, but still in Graeber's easy conversational style. This touches on aspects from consensus based decision making, to the role of the police, the wider application of bureaucracy, and feminist theory via the notion of interpretive labour. If you've read other of Graeber's work a lot of this will be familiar, and explored from a different angle. It's worth revisiting even if you know it well.
The only aspect I was sad not to see addressed was the potential application of consensus decision making outside of activist circles. It's a fascinating process, and leaves me curious how such processes can be applied in an environment where the participants are not so united in purpose.
This book has opened a bunch of new avenues of reading I need to follow up on. But more than that it's made me want to seek out activist groups, organise, and take to the streets.
It's a physically daunting book to pick up, perhaps more so than many similar length books I've read lately. Yet that is full dispelled within the first few pages. The first section is highly conversational, and easy to follow. Dropping the reader straight into an activist group, Graeber does a great job of immersing you in the world of the activist with large sections of straight quotation, interspersed with discussion and context. He follows an affinity group from initial discussions through to action on the streets of Quebec, showing the full gamut of anarchist organisation and action.
The second section of the book walks through further analysis of different sections of this story. This section gets a little more theoretical, but still in Graeber's easy conversational style. This touches on aspects from consensus based decision making, to the role of the police, the wider application of bureaucracy, and feminist theory via the notion of interpretive labour. If you've read other of Graeber's work a lot of this will be familiar, and explored from a different angle. It's worth revisiting even if you know it well.
The only aspect I was sad not to see addressed was the potential application of consensus decision making outside of activist circles. It's a fascinating process, and leaves me curious how such processes can be applied in an environment where the participants are not so united in purpose.
This book has opened a bunch of new avenues of reading I need to follow up on. But more than that it's made me want to seek out activist groups, organise, and take to the streets.