Our first discussion group on accountability and abolition was a success. We discussed the various public examples of “cancellation”, our own personal experiences with various forms of abuse, processes, why abusive behavior is so widespread within our society, and how individuals, radical spaces, organisations and individuals have struggled with holding people to account without either drifting into abuse apologetics on the one hand or recreating authoritarian structures of judgement and punishment on the other hand.
However, the session wrapped up with a lot more left to be said. What are the alternatives to what we do now? What are the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches? How can we reconcile the very different and sometimes contradictory experiences we have all had into a cohesive understanding of the problems? So we are holding a second discussion meeting on the topic.
Join us on the 5th of January at 7pm on the top floor space of the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 62 Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel, E1 1ES. Please bring a donation for the space if you can, as LARC is run entirely off of the the donations of its users.