Beyond Molotovs (Book presentation + discussion)

Beyond Molotovs: a visual handbook of anti-authoritarian strategies 🏴 🪩 (Book presentation + discussion)

📅 24. maj/May 📍 Mondscheingasse 11 (KSŠŠD) 🕕 Začetek/Start: 19:00 *The event will take place in English / Dogodek bo potekal v angleščini. “Beyond molotovs” brings together 50 first-hand stories of non-violent resistance from todays anti-authoritarian movements, activists, artists, and scholars from around the world, focusing on the sensuous dimension of their strategies. From the collective art of feminist movements in India, Iran, Mexico, and Poland, to sewing collectives, subversive internet aesthetics in Hong Kong, and anti-authoritarian board games, the contributions in this volume open up new perspectives on moments of resistance, subversion, and creation. At a time when authoritarian ideologies are on the rise, democratic rights are under attack, and emancipatory horizons seem foreclosed, this book argues for an anti-fascism that goes beyond the defence of status quo. It proposes pathways to radically reclaim the future and build real, lived utopias.

The editors behind the Beyond Molotvs are “International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies (IRGAC)” and “kollektiv orangotango” with the support of Rosa Luxumburg Foundation.

In Vienna, four contributors to the book—including one of its editors and three authors—will share their experiences of grassroots organizing, mutual aid, and resistance. Firoozeh Farvardin (IRGAC), Saša Hajzler (Slovenia), Börries Nehe (IRGAC), and Lölja Nordic ((Feminist Anti-war Resistance, Russia) will reflect on the intersections of struggles against far-right, conservative, and authoritarian forces in their respective contexts. The event will also feature an open discussion, inviting the audience to join in exchanging ideas and strategies.

The event will open with a brief introduction to the book as a collective project, highlighting how it was created through an alternative, anti-hierarchical process involving activists from around the world. This will be followed by a moderated discussion featuring insights from guest speakers and contributions from the audience. GUEST SPEAKERS:

• Firoozeh Farvardin feminist activist, organiser, writer and scholar from Iran currently based in Berlin and Vienna. She works as a University Assistant in Gender and Politics at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, where her research focuses on gender and sexual (counter)strategies under authoritarian neoliberalism, with a particular focus on the Global South. She is also the associate fellow at the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies (IRGAC).

• Saša Hajzler Writer, journalist, researcher/activist from Slovenia. Research interests: Post-Yugoslav space, political movements “from below”, activism and resistance practices of grassroots movements, global struggles for justice, alternative Political Imagination, political history of South-Eastern Europe after 1989.

• Börries Nehe Activist, researcher, and writer who coordinates the IRGAC reesearch group at University of Potsdam. He holds a PhD in Latin American Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His work focuses on authoritarianism, far-right ideologies and movements as well as violence, social movements and state space theory, mostly in Latin America.

• Lö​​​​​​​lja Nordic anarcho- ecofeminist, anti-war activist, human rights defender and artist from Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Co-founder of the Feminist Anti-war Resistance – a large grassroots activist network that was established in Russia after the full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine. In march 2022 Lolja had to flee Russia after series of politically motivated arrests. Currently living in Vienna in exile.