All tagged Commons

Taproots: Walking As Presence + The Infrastructure Of Human Movement / Antonia Malchik

Taproots: Walking As Presence + The Infrastructure Of Human Movement / Antonia Malchik

Patrick Farnsworth
Antonia Malchik, 369

Essayist and author Antonia Malchik joins me in this wandering, expansive discussion, touching on subjects at the heart of her writings and 2019 book, A Walking Life, and her upcoming book, No Trespassing. We discuss how the infrastructure of an automobile dependent society shapes our perception of nature and built environments, and in turn how we relate and move through it. I asked her about her more expansive view of walking and walkability, and how getting lost is good for our brains and souls. And near the later half of our time together, Antonia talks about her decision to ditch smartphones and social media, and how the creeping demands of our digital lives relate to her broader focus on enclosure, property, and reclaiming the commons.

Negative Commons: Radiation, Revolution, & Enclaves Of Counter-power / Sabu Kohso

Negative Commons: Radiation, Revolution, & Enclaves Of Counter-power / Sabu Kohso

Patrick Farnsworth
Sabu Kohso, 318

Political theorist, anti-capitalist activist, and translator Sabu Kohso joins me to discuss his book Radiation and Revolution, a text that "uses the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster to illuminate the relationship between nuclear power, capitalism, and the nation-state." This interview was recorded in the Gray Coast Guildhall in Quilcene, WA, for the Communal Life & Planetary Relations at the End of This World event, held on March 12, 2022.

In Radiation and Revolution, Sabu Kohso argues that “nuclear power is not a mere source of energy—it has become the organizing principle of the global order and the most effective way to simultaneously accumulate profit and govern the populace.” The 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster and its effects live with us today. “The year 2011 was,” as he writes in his article Radiation, Pandemic, Insurrection published in The New Inquiry, “the beginning of the present: an age of endless disasters and struggles against ruling powers under the catastrophic conditions thereby imposed. The epoch has witnessed the intensification of two global impetuses – disaster and uprising – whose interaction, since then, has increasingly involved us.”