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I’ve been meaning to read this book since it came out. I’ve always admired Dean Spade and his work, and so many activists and thinkers I respect speak highly of this short introduction to mutual aid. Now that I’ve finally read it, I can only wonder why it took me so long. If you, like me, sometimes find yourself wondering, “But what can I do?” and “Do my actions even matter?” then I implore you to stop whatever you’re doing and head down to your local bookshop or library. Don’t wait as long as I did to read this! I promise you won’t regret it.
Mutual Aid by Dean Spade
This is a practical, accessible, incredibly helpful guide to mutual aid: what it is, why it’s important, and how to do it. Spade writes with clarity, urgency, and generosity—in addition to being informative, this book is a delight to read. It’s short, so you can read it quickly if you want, but it’s also packed with discussion questions, worksheets, charts, and exercises. It’s designed to help you actually start or get involved with a mutual aid initiative, or to work through the many challenges that often arise in mutual aid groups. Essentially, it serves as a fantastic introduction to the theory of mutual aid and a tool you can use immediately. Win-win.
Spade defines mutual aid as “collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them.” He then lays out some of the key components of mutual aid, including the important point that mutual aid projects aim to fill people’s immediate survival needs (like distributing food after a disaster or providing free health services in community clinics) while also naming why those needs aren’t being met through the current system.
While there’s a ton of practical information in this book about starting mutual aid initiatives, navigating conflict, consensus-based decision making, and more, it’s Dean’s insistence on the both/and of mutual aid that I found most compelling. One of his main points is that mutual aid is not just about fulfilling a need. It is also about understanding the structural oppressions that have created a world in which so many people do not have access to these basic things, and working to change those systems.
Sometimes it feels to me like these two things—meeting material needs and working toward a radically different world—are in opposition. This book is a reminder that they aren’t. We don’t have to choose. We can do both things at the same time, and if that sounds or feels daunting, well, Spade has written a concise, practical, accessible manual on how to go about it. This book has led me to reflect on the volunteer and collective work I’m a part of, and to think more deeply about how I can make the both/and of mutual aid a guiding principle of my life in the future.
Read This Book
One book recommendation to help you cut through the noise