Via Umi of No Nukes Action: super eye-opening (for me) interview with Mari Matsumoto: Nuclear Energy and Reproductive Labor – The Task of Feminism. How events like the Fukushima disaster put pressure on the reproductive labor sector, in terms of securing radiation-free homes, food — even breastmilk — and protecting children, who are highly vulnerable to radiation. Also points to ACT-UP as inspiration: “AIDS activism has a very thorough resistance against healthcare authorities and pharmaceutical companies, which is exemplary for us.”
Matsumoto’s reflections make me wonder: if neoliberalism can use “disaster capitalism” to manipulate crises into opportunities for privatization and neocolonization, perhaps the Left can begin to see crises as opportunities for deliberate communization: amplifying people’s boldness, sense of collective working-class entitlement, and attempts to seize means of production and reproduction.
Disaster communism? Well, we might want to work on the phrasing, haha.
Kloncke 