Power Relations in Grassroots Organising: An Anarchist Dialectics

Abstract

This paper conceptualises power as a radical open-ended dialectic of political and anti-political moments. Drawing on anarchist, intersectional feminist, Black radical, critical, and Christian personalist theory, I explore an anarchist dialectics that accounts for both the dichotomy and the mutually constitutive relationship between politics and anti-politics, sustaining creative tensions between the two. Based on this framework, I argue that tensions between different traditions, groups and tactics in grassroots movements are rooted in differences of power. These tensions can only be reconciled through reciprocal collaboration between groups and people across differences of power. I explore coalitions and diversity of tactics as ways of organising that can reconcile and radically transform power relations.