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Title: Paths Towards Radical Becoming Author: Mary McKelvie Language: en Topics: mothering, feminism, anarcha-feminism
My mother and I sit opposite each other at the dining room table that
has traveled across space and time to meet us here. The wood creaks when
I lean across the table to turn on my iPhone’s microphone. Antique
furniture surround me in my parents’ home and I sit in men’s clothing
with a binded chest, holding an amazingly intricate piece of technology
that is meant to connect — but often separates. I realize suddenly that
I am caught between the past and the future, lodged between seemingly
oppositional states of being. I look at my mom across from me as if I’m
looking into a mirror. We have always butted heads, symbolic of our
stubborn star signs, but we also have always understood each other. Our
relationship in and of itself is in transition, a constant merging of
minds and experiences. This notion of transition is a reoccurring theme
in my research. If we are constantly changing, then we are constantly
vulnerable, constantly existing intimately between various states of
being. It is precisely this vulnerability that could serve as a catalyst
to building intimate and radical relationships.
This paper is meant to do three things. First, it is a comparison. I
link mothering techniques with anarchism as a belief system, defining
both as different yet strikingly similar paths to creating intimate
relationships and thus radical becomings. Second, it is an analysis. I
dissect data collected from a conversation I had with my own mother,
analyzing her language, view-points on personhood, intimate
relationships, and the journey that mothering turned into for her. It is
with these two ideas that I come to my third objective and overall
argument that mothering and anarchism are states of being that are
defined individually and through actions rather than specific words. We
must harness our individual ability to build community while
simultaneously honoring individuality. And it is through these
individual actions that we can collectively move towards a more radical
and intimate state of being.
To get to these three points, I first critique historic anarchist
literature and discuss the importance of an intersectional analysis of
anarchism. I then pull from different texts published by mothers and
anarchists alike and use their profound words, theories, and analyses to
link the two ideologies. In the methodologies section I discuss my
choice for oral history and how that method was informed by anarchism
and mothering. In my analysis I combine the data collected from the
conversation with my mother and recognize the importance community
building, working together towards a more inclusive relational state of
being, and the complexities of individual epistemologies. I use my
conclusion to argue that mothering, like anarchism, is a technique and
tool that can be used to radicalize relationships, the self, and, over
time, the state.
A main concern with feminist research is the question of knowledge
production. Who is the producer of knowledge? For whom is it produced?
This section will briefly discuss the definition of anarchism, the
history of anarchist theory and the changes occurring in activist and
academic anarchism today.
To start, I want to define anarchism. In addition to the American
Heritage Dictionary’s definition of anarchism as a “rejection of all
forms of coercive control and authority,” I look to CrimethInc.
Ex-Worker’s Collective’s assertion that anarchism is “the belief that
everyone is entitled to complete self-determination.” Anarchism is based
upon the idea that we must destroy and dismantle the hierarchical
borders or boundaries that force us into spaces of segregation and
oppression. We must instead use loving and positive communication
techniques to encourage voluntary association, and inspire direct action
and mutual aide to better ourselves and our communities. Further, these
everyday micro-rebellions and techniques can help us understand
anarchism as “the production of conditions that support and nurture the
development of human potential for sustaining relationships with
themselves, each other and our living planet” (Heckert 2005; 2010).
Anarchy then is whatever happens when order or power is not imposed or
demanded. Anarchy lies within the quiet nods and grins from across a
classroom, a picnic underneath an oak tree with a lover, the freedom and
community understood and created by Appalachian Trail thru hikers.
Anarchy is not and cannot be defined and understood simply as chaos or
terror. Anarchy, like being a mother, could be understood as a
performance that differs greatly from person to person, community to
community.
The anarchist movement is a historically European, white, male
revolutionary ideal that focuses on personal/individual liberation and
denounces any kind of political or governmental control and authority.
Scholars, activists, and writers who have historically engaged in
anarchist thought tend to focus on textual analysis and ethnographies.
Only when discussing feminism do scholars cite Voltairine de Cleyre or
Emma Goldman focusing on their publications, public speaking, and
relationships with other anarchists. Otherwise the voices of women,
queer people, and people of color have frequently gone unnoticed. Inside
and outside of academe, talk of anarchism is often surrounded by
libertarian ideals within white, male dominated spaces. It is essential
to say here that there does exist a steady-hum, a growing indication of
hope and possibility within academia and activist circles regarding
mothering, experiences of queer women, women of color, and trans*
identified individuals, and polyamorous queer relationship ideologies.
These voices are bashing back against the white patriarchy and
challenging preconceived notions of gender, identity, personhood, and
community involvement. So when I argue that there needs to be a radical
re-centering of voices within the anarchist movement I, by no means, am
trying to silence or negate preexisting struggles against oppression
that challenge straight, white, male centered ideology. I instead mean
to focus on the growing intersectional narrative of anarchism and why
mothering and feminist research is essential to critiquing and finding
similarities within techniques and ideologies in order to build paths
towards radical becoming. I want to move forward towards motherhood
research and specific anarchist and feminist texts.
Currently, the growing body of work from anarchists around the world
centers queer voices and radicalizes social relationships. Deric
Shannon, J. Rogue, Laura Portwood-Stacer, and Jamie Heckert are some of
the current activist voices engaging in scholarly anarchism that centers
on the queer experience. There is also a small body of work centering
the Black experience or QWOC organizing within the anarchist movement.
For example in Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin’s article “Anarchism and the Black
Revolution,” he successfully critiques the white-washing of the
anarchist movement and challenges anarchists to refocus marginalized
groups so that we can form radical relationships and begin to dismantle
the white supremacy. So then scholars, activists, and especially
anarchists and feminists need to be concerned about the production of
knowledge within their critiques and movements towards liberation. Who
is producing knowledge, and for whom? Like Ervin suggests, we must
decentralize whiteness and focus our revolution on re-centering
marginalized groups. In relation to mothering and feminism, there is
virtually no scholarly conversation that exists between motherhood
research, mothering techniques, and anarchism. This is a relationship I
am deeply interested in exploring.
Anarchist academic and spiritual activist Jamie Heckert identifies “two
crucial tools for dismantling borders” as “systematic analyses and
compassionate strategies” (2002). This is to say, we must not only
theorize methodologically, but we must also act intentionally. “Another
crucial aspect of the anarchist tradition” he goes on to say “is the
importance of people joining together freely into relationships for
particular purposes” (2010). Here Heckert displays how voluntary
association, in regards to personal relationships as well as political
rebellion is essential in anarchist thought and methodology.
From the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community
Involvement I draw from theories, methods and experiences introduced by
Amber E. Kinser, Adwoa Ntozake Onuora and Angela Wignall. My outline for
actively forgiving, actively educating and actively becoming stems
directly from the work and experiences of these activist-scholars. I
believe that simple and intimate interactions like loving, nurturing,
listening and giving are essential tools to human connection and radical
rebellion. Tools that could be used to facilitate social or political
change. Rather than using “the Master’s tools,” we could instead create
an entirely new tool-box to dismantle pre-existing systems of oppression
(Lorde, 110).
Kinser writes about her emotional and physical experiences with
mothering, and the “utterly human parts of maternal emotional life”
(11). Her article outlines her experiences and her need to forgive
herself, her children, and ultimately her own mother. She suggests that
in order to inspire some kind of change in our “social structure, or
resources, or institutions” we must first invest in personal
relationships (16). She goes further to say that in forgiving, we can
also reckon “with the expansiveness of the mother’s response to her life
and the people in it,” thus honoring and recognizing the individual
experiences had by different people in different times. She argues that
it is this specific recognition of difference that could ultimately
create “difference in maternal empowerment” (16).
Adwoa Ntozake Onuora understands her motherhood as a way to
compassionately educate. She writes about her emotional experiences and
challenges with motherhood, but ends her article by refocusing on her
main point: her daughter understands (211). In valuing and focusing on
her Blackness and her individual identity and the struggle of her
community, Onuora references the use of music and dance. Community
connectivity is essential in her mothering technique. Similarly, Angela
Wignall writes about a revolutionary becoming through mothering. She
centers herself and her experiences she says “because [she] cannot start
without [herself]” (221). She acknowledges that we exist within the
patriarchy, but that by deconstructing and recreating the mother subject
“from passive conduit into active creator” we can resist (221).This
emancipatory theory of mothering/motherhood is a way for us to further
understand the importance of feminist research and the fight towards
creating radical relationships.
From these three women’s perspectives of mothering, motherhood, and the
maternal subject, we can understand the importance of individual agency
within a collective rebuilding of community. To go further, I want to
reference specific techniques and tools we can use to move towards a
radical becoming. In Layli Maparyan’s The Womanist Idea eight techniques
are mentioned as a means to methodologically transform social and
ecological inequalities. Maparyan outlines these methods as “harmonizing
and coordinating, dialogue, arbitration and mediation, spiritual
activities, hospitality, mutual aid and self-help, motherhood, and
physical healing” (52). Of these eight, I want to specifically engage in
harmonizing and coordinating, dialogue, and mothering as techniques to
describe and inform anarchism and radical becoming. Relationships must
always be consensual – power dynamics must always be consensual and
negotiated. “The only legitimate authority is that which is freely
accepted, in the complete absence of coercion – e.g., free association,”
Dave Neal suggests in his essay on ideology and methodology (7).
Leadership then must be attained though direct conversations (dialogue)
and without coerced or forced power (harmonizing and coordinating).
Through anarchism as belief and theory we are given the idea of
free-will, autonomy and personal choice. Anarchy, “any freely occurring
process or phenomenon,” is an intentional response to creating change
and encouraging transformation (CrimethInc). Mothering can also be seen
as an intentional response. It is a technique used to respectfully and
lovingly lead “each other along the paths of individual and collective
liberation and evolution” (Maparyan, 62). Mothering allows us to
radically connect to each other. In womanist terms, maternal energy and
radical mothering is done by facilitating “the well-being and optimal
development” of other people through intentional care-taking;
care-taking that can “be done by people of any sex, gender or sexual
orientation” (62). In the vain of anarchism then, perhaps mothers are
our most legitimate authority figures. By enacting free-will and
voluntary association, mothers not only have the ability to transform
their lives, but the lives of others.
In the beginning of this research project, I started with a few
different ideas. I wanted to talk to multiple mothers: mothers with
different experiences, women who co-mothered, women who identified as
radical, mothers who identified as queer. I wanted, initially, to create
a diverse, yet relatively simple, research project that made clear the
voices of my informants’ experiences with motherhood as an identity and
mothering as a technique and action. I planned to record two diverse and
unrelated oral histories to further express the importance of the
individual experience of mothering and simultaneously link those
experiences to each other and anarchism.
I started my research with the basic question – what are the experiences
of mothers? This general inquiry quickly evolved into more complex
questions about being, becoming, activism and radicalism. Bagele Chilisa
suggests that “without relationship with the other, and without
reference to the other, the individual cannot be” (279). My research and
methodology is intimately informed by this epistemology. Because my
identity is deeply rooted in my relationships, specifically with my
family, my research interests broadened to include not only my ideas but
also my story and my family’s story. My research question turned from a
predominately socio-political and theoretical examination of personhood,
to a much more personal and relational inquiry into becoming/being a
radically loving individual. My question then became what are the
experiences of my mother? What have we experienced together that has
shaped our state(s) of being? What is it about this relationship in
particular that has shaped me into a persistently curious anarchist?
Alternatively, I asked myself and my data, how does mothering connect to
anarchism? How can I compare mothering techniques with anarchism as both
a theory and a practice, especially when the data collected does not
come from someone who identifies as neither a radical nor an anarchist?
I decided that the best way to begin this project was to give my mother
the space and time to discuss her own experiences as a mother and what
that has meant to her.
Although the research questions evolved and the original project outline
changed, the method of choice stayed the same. Oral history was and
still is essential to this research project. In using oral history as my
main method, my intent was to create a more collective knowledge base.
As stated earlier, the question of who produces knowledge is essential
to feminist research. To go further, who is that knowledge produced for,
and for whom is that knowledge accessible? My focus on oral history was
to build a bridge together towards a collective understanding of a
specific lived experience, for I believe it is through communication,
relationship building, and collective understanding that we can move
towards radical personal and political becoming.
During the research process, I brought my own lived experience as a
student, as a researcher-in-training and as a person who likes to ask
questions and seek answers while my mother brought her own curiosity and
her own desire to understand and analyze the world around her. On top of
that, she brought to the table her experiences as a mother, what it has
meant to her to parent multiple children, how her experience transformed
her original perception of what parenting was going to be, and
recognizing the individual differences between children and parents.
That ideology can be directly tied to anarchism – the idea that every
individual person has their own identity and their own belief system.
However, that doesn’t mean that we cannot work together to create a
collective, cohesive unit. And that, according to Maparyn, is what
mothering is all about. She specifically states that “motherly power
evinces from a combination of love, caretaking, and authority; perhaps
most importantly, it is tethered to a sense of unbreakable ties that
bind a group of people, however different they each may seem” (62). It
is about recognizing the individual and still building a community of
different individuals.
Prior to engaging in data collection, it was important for me to
prioritize equal knowledge production with my participants. Before our
conversation, I typed up a general outline of my paper proposal and what
I was trying to learn and why. I defined my terms (mothering vs.
motherhood, anarchism, anarchy, everyday activism, radical, etc.) and I
offered my mother some questions to think about. (Is motherhood a key
aspect of your identity? Do you feel you have an identity outside of
motherhood? How did you come to mothering/motherhood? Is mothering a
natural way of being for you? What actions have come naturally? What did
you have to work on to perfect/better your mothering techniques? What is
important about being a mother?)
Unfortunately because of conflicting schedules, I was unable to fully
disclose and discuss the entire research process with my mother. But
before we sat down at the dinner table, while we cooked together, I read
over the questions I mentioned previously, my ideas for my research, and
how important her opinions and experiences were to me and my research. I
told her some of my expectations and asked her if she had any questions
or concerns. She admitted that she wasn’t sure what she could offer the
research, and after our conversation she still wasn’t sure how her story
would help me in my research. I assured her that her words and lived
experience were of extreme importance, and I hope to employ that in the
following section.
In choosing oral history as a method, I hoped that my
informants/participants/co-researchers would be actively involved in the
creation and facilitation of their story-telling. With a lack of
structure I was able to give complete power to my mother, my expert
informant, in how honest and open she chose to be. The results were
intimate, heartfelt and powerful.
After completing the oral history, initially I was both surprised by
what data I was able to gather and also mildly put off by the lack of
depth my data seemed to have. However, after transcribing and annotating
our conversation I began to notice complex ideas of community, identity,
protection, and care-taking. During the analysis of my mother’s use of
language and her background, I found that the data was actually quite
rich and the experience was rewarding for both of us.
Let us go back to the dining room table – a reoccurring symbolic marker
of my mother’s identity and placement in our family as well as an
important and spiritual womanist metaphor. “The kitchen table,” Maparyan
explains, “is an informal, woman-centered space where all are welcome
and all can participate…At the kitchen table people share truths about
their lives on equal footing and learn through face-to-face
conversation” (59).
We look at each other and start to laugh slightly. My mom shrugs and
says, “well I guess we’ll just start with…I just wanted to be a good
mommy” (McKelvie). She went on a little bit to suggest that “good
parents want to protect their children.” The notions of good, moral,
safe, and happy were reoccurring topics in her dialogue. I reach for my
phone again, and suddenly realize that there is so much more than
capturing every word. In this moment, and in many moments after, I
recognized the way that technology and data gathering hinder us in our
research methods. I will talk more about this in my conclusion.
Once I turned on the microphone and began recording our conversation,
the first thing my mother talked about was her ever-present interest in
one day becoming a mother. “At a young age, I always wanted to be a
mom,” she told me as she recalled her experiences growing up with five
other siblings. In the same breath, she told me that although her
interest in mothering was important, there were other key factors that
lead to her decision to start a family. “As my parents divorced,” she
told me, “I also knew that I wanted to be in a relationship that was
gonna last so that there were two parents.” The importance of
partnership, teamwork, and community building through love, forgiveness,
and protection are essential to my mother’s experience with parenting. I
quickly realized that my mother’s perceptions of her experiences as a
mother were more so focused on parenting as a team or partnership rather
than an individual identity. Soon after her discussion on her
relationship with my father and the decision to have children together,
she references the importance in recognizing individual “personalities
and temperaments.” She realized after all three of her children were
born that negotiations and compromises had to be made with her parenting
techniques. “I was under the impression that there’s a certain way to
raise a child I just thought you could kind of set the same rules for
all of them…but you can’t really.” By allowing for personal agency and
development of the individual while simultaneously creating a close-knit
family group, my mother demonstrated to me Maparyan’s definition of
motherly power (62). My mother continued later in our conversation to
talk about the importance of allowing for this individuality. “Not all
children turn out to be what their parents expect them to be. And we
learned – all of us will learn- that’s okay! Because they are
individuals too. But to have that foundation of kindness and
goodness…that was important to us” (McKelvie). Similarly, the desire for
individual agency, free will, and the notion of voluntary association
are intimately reflective of an anarchist gathering. “And that’s child
rearing,” my mom tells me matter-of-factly. “There’s no set rules,” only
guidelines that she and my father followed in hopes to create a safe and
welcoming environment. “Love. Be kind. Be compassionate. Be fair”
(McKelvie).
Amber Kinser writes that we should move “away from simple claims about
nature and instinct and toward more complex claims about maternal labor
and resources” (9). This recognition of mothering as emotional and
physical labor rather than an instinctual knowledge is directly
reflective of my mother’s experience with motherhood. Understanding
that, although there was a passion and interest in becoming a mother,
there were specific sacrifices and compromises made to create a physical
home and emotional safe space for her family. Towards the end of our
conversation, my mother went back to what it meant to raise children and
to create a safe and protected space for her family.
“So you just go with it. And try. Just try your hardest at whatever you
do. That’s what we’ve always done. Whether it’s raising kids, building a
house, training a dog, riding a horse….going to college. You know. Just
try your best. That’s all we want you to do” (McKelvie).
My mother’s definition and understanding of herself is deeply rooted in
how she was raised and what life experiences she had had up until this
point in her life. It is also intimately connected with her current
relationships with my father and her three grown children. Although my
mother does not explicitly identify as a radical or overtly political
person, through her use of language and her open and loving demeanor, I
have always read her as radical. “…it doesn’t matter you know, it
doesn’t matter who you love. Its important that you love. That’s the
biggest thing. Love. And we always try to keep that in mind you know.
How important it is to care for others..”
I believe that human beings exist radically and intellectually outside
of constructed ideologies, identities and borders. Our ideas are more
complex than our words often are. Our radical intellectualism expands
beyond what we can verbalize. Because of this inability to fully express
ones inner dialogue, I want to fully and purposefully state some of my
struggles with this research project. In the beginning, I had an idea of
what I wanted to study, and how I wanted to study it. I would connect
mothering and anarchism, argue towards radical becoming and everyday
actions as a kind of lifestyle politics. Everything, I believe, is
connected. That being said, I also feel like there is a possible
disconnect with my written words and with my lived actions. My argument
states that collective individual actions are ways that we can move
towards a radical political becoming. But where does my research lie in
such an argument? Have I successfully and appropriately interpreted my
mother’s stories? Have I included enough of her voice?
Through a quick overview of the history of the anarchism movement and
reference to current scholars engaging in anarchist thought, I hoped to
exemplify the anarchist movement and epistemology. I went into mothering
techniques, employed by individual mothers as well as a more community
based mothering in reference to Maparyan. I tied anarchism as a movement
and mothering as a technique together by centering the importance of
individual agency and voluntary association/community building. I argue
that these are both paths towards a radical becoming. When I say
radical, I am referring to any moment, movement, idea, or theory that
works towards deconstruction and reconstruction – of the state, of our
personal relationships, of our selves. To me, every person is in a
constant state of liminality and transition, which renders us all
vulnerable. Because of this, we are constantly becoming, unraveling, and
redirecting ourselves and our realities. Within this constant state of
movement we are able to position ourselves within a world of endless
possibilities. What does it mean to be? What does it mean to become?
What does it mean to mother? The very movement from one state of being
to another is how I am choosing to define “becoming.” So mothering,
motherhood as well, are general states of becoming. A transitional
period within a physical and emotional space that sufficiently
transforms the reality of one or more person(s). The techniques of
mothering as well as the action and identity of motherhood itself is a
path towards radical becoming. It is a transformation of the self as
well as an effort to make change in a life, or lives, of others,
regardless of the vast possibilities, either negative or positive.
Similar to mothering techniques, I argue that anarchism, theoretically
and methodologically, is a way, a path, towards radical becoming.
Anarchism is a political philosophy that honors voluntary association
and strives towards the elimination of social, political and personal
hierarchies by encouraging direct action. Anarchism is an ideological
refusal to be silent and a physical refusal to continue to allow the
authority of the state to control our bodies and minds.
My main interest in doing this research has roots in my desire to
dissect our relationships and our intimacies. How can we make any kind
of political change without making changes to our relationships, how we
relate and understand others? Is it possible to change an already
complex and cloudy world? Is it possible to change the self? What does
it mean to change? In reference to change and movements and knowledge
production — who has voice? Who is free to speak? Alternatively who is
free to listen? These are questions that are essential in shaping our
understanding of community relationships and all intimate relationships
in general. We cannot understand ourselves without understanding the
inequality laced within our histories. It is only through collective
knowledge production that we can gain, or lose, power. When we learn
from each other we are given the opportunities to understand, and thus,
create. Mothering and anarchism are both states of liminality, both
ideologies are personal and political, and both accept present
limitations and simultaneously work towards radical paths to becoming.
These movements of transition are both individualistic, in that they
differ from person to person, but are simultaneously social, political
and even spiritual, linking the self to the greater community – however
that community may be defined.
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