| Andrej Grubačić | |
|---|---|
Andrej Grubacic speaking at the 2010 San Francisco Anarchist Bookfair. |
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| Nationality | Yugoslav |
| Occupation | Activist; lecturer (San Francisco Art Institute and the Z Media Institute); author; historian. |
| Known for | Anarchism; propagation of anarchist social theory. |
Andrej Grubačić is a US-based anarchist theorist, sociologist, activist and lecturer (San Francisco Art Institute and the Z Media Institute) with a Yugoslavian background who has written on anarchism and the history of the Balkans. An advocate of an anarchist approach to writing history, Grubačić is one of the protagonists of "new anarchism",[1] and a member of the anti-authoritarian, direct-action wing of the global justice movement.[2][3][4][5] A partner with Peoples' Global Action and other Zapatista-influenced direct action movements, Grubačić's primary political investment is in Balkan struggles.[6] He is a co-founder of Global Balkans network of Balkan anti-capitalists in diaspora. His writings and interests range from anarchist or 'participatory' education to the neo-marxist world-systems analysis, and from the hidden history of American democracy to the history of decentralized communities and mutual aid in the Balkans.[7] His affinity towards anarchism arose as a result of his experiences as a member of the Belgrade Libertarian Group that derives from the Yugoslav Praxis experiment.[8]
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Grubačić co-founded the Global Balkans network of the Balkan anti-capitalist diaspora,[9] the Research Institute for the Global Movement at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia,[10] the Yugoslav Initiative for Economic Democracy, Kontrapunkt magazine, and ZBalkans–a Balkan edition of Z Magazine,[11][12] where he sits on the editorial board.[13] He is or has been active as an organizer in networks such as Planetary Alternatives Network, the post-Yugoslav coalition of anti-authoritarian collectives DSM!, Peoples Global Action,[14] the World Social Forum, Freedom Fight[15] and as a program director[16] for the Global Commons, where he works with Immanuel Wallerstein, Katherine Wallerstein and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. He is responsible for spreading the idea of participatory economics in the Balkans.[17] He is a member of Retort collective, a collective of radical intellectuals based in the Bay Area.[18] He is a member of Bound Together Books in San Francisco, a collectively run anarchist bookstore. He is active with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies).[19] He is involved with the mutual aid project with five prisoners on death row from Lucasville Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. He is one of the historians of the 1993 Lucasville rebellion, when 450 Lucasville prisoners, including an unlikely alliance of the Aryan Brotherhood and Gangster Disciples, rioted and took over the facility for 11 days.[20]
Patrick Bond ranks Grubačić as a global justice proponent alongside Dennis Brutus, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader, John Pilger and Howard Zinn.[21]
Following the collapse of Yugoslavia, Grubačić was based in Belgrade, before leaving his position as a teaching assistant of History at the University of Belgrade.[22] Later the world-systems theorist and sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein invited him to SUNY Binghamton in New York, United States. Grubačić was a graduate student there and worked at the Fernand Braudel Center on anarchist implications of world-systems analysis.[23] Later, he moved to San Francisco to join Global Commons Foundation and sociology department at the University of San Francisco [24]
Together with anthropologist David Graeber he authored an important theoretical and programmatic piece on Anarchism for the 21st Century. Later, he teamed up with legendary activist and historian Staughton Lynd to write the book Wobblies and Zapatistas, which was internationally well-received.[25]
Grubacic and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz wrote an extensive Preface for the Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, & Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States, book edited by the Team Colors Collective and published by AK Press.
He went on to edit The Staughton Lynd Reader, and offer a new programmatic proposal for the "libertarian socialism for the 21st century," inspired by Lynd's work.
His most recent book is Don't Mourn, Balkanize! Essays After Yugoslavia, published in 2010 by PM Press.
His other works include books in Balkan languages, chapters and numerous articles related to the history and utopian present of the Balkans, anarchism, and radical sociology. As of 2009[update] Grubačić has started work on a book developing an anarchist version of world-systems analysis with David Graeber.[26]
Anarchist circles know him for his work as an anarchist educator, and he taught this topic to generations of students at Z Media Institute in Boston. As an anarchist propagandist and educator, Grubačić travels around North America giving talks, lectures and workshops on the history of anarchist education and on his idea of solidarity-centered anarchism
Grubacic works as a lecturer at the Z Media Institute, the San Francisco Art Institute, and until recently the University of San Francisco.[27][28][29] Grubačić also works as a guest host of the KPFA radio program Against the Grain.
Wobblies and Zapatistas recounts a radical history and connects activist political movements and generations. Global capitalism has suffered a major blow in the past year, the largest economic turmoil since the 1930s fuelling political discussions on possible alternatives to the current economic model. For those seeking alternatives to mainstream historical narratives, Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History is an important read. Spanning from the Cold War to the 1990s expansion of market-driven free-trade policies, this engaging book offers critical historical reflections on events that have shaped contemporary politics.[32]
The World Social Forum, in its near decade of existence, has popularized the slogan “Another World Is Possible.” Although many on the left may agree, and there is broad agreement about the nature of the world we live in and the shape of the one we wish to create, there is less agreement on how to create that new world. Wobblies and Zapatistas, a conversation of sorts between longtime anarchist activist Andrej Grubacic and Staughton Lynd, who for the last 40 years has been one of the iconic figures of the U.S. left, is a contribution to resolving that argument—or at least turning it into a productive discussion.[33]
More theoretical and frankly meandering is Wobblies and Zapatistas,... The conversation starts out with the Chiapas rebellion and the Industrial Workers of the World—“the Zapatistas of yesteryear,” in Lynd’s phrase—but makes brief stops with the community organizing efforts of former steelworkers in post-industrial Youngstown, the 1946 general strike in Oakland, the Vietnam-era antiwar movement, and the 1980s revolutionary upsurges of Central America. Lynd ties it all together with his concept of “accompaniment”—basically, throwing one’s lot in with oppressed, sharing the burdens and risks of their struggles.[34]
This volume brings together two radical intellectuals from alternative political traditions for an extended conversation about theory, activism, and the state of radical politics today. Throughout their conversation, Staughton Lynd, the civil rights organizer, antiwar activist, lawyer, and radical historian, responds to the probing questions of Andrej Grubacic, the radical sociologist and activist from the Balkans.[35]