Alternative Communities of Care with Lynne Segal

Tuesday December 12th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

With climate breakdown set to increase the pressure on our already fragmented social networks, we need to learn how to care for one another outside the mechanisms of the state.

As we think about how to build radical, alternative communities of care, there are earlier experiments we can learn from. Long before wide-spread knowledge of global heating, or the surge in green politics, those involved in the feminist movement were already exploring ideas of mutual aid and anti-consumerism.

Lynne Segal, feminist thinker, activist and author most recently of Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care, will present some of the lessons from that time and how they might help us today. 

When Lynne moved to London in the early 1970s with her infant son, her Islington home became a shared living space for three single mothers, and an early feminist stronghold, where they attempted to establish new ways of living and caring for each other. As well as warding off the isolation and marginalisation of single motherhood, it also provided a focus for community activity and feminist politics. 

Drawing on that experience, Lynne will explore what a radically transformed approach to interdependence could look like in response to our everyday vulnerabilities of motherhood, disability and ageing. She will argue that education is key to creating a more caring, egalitarian world, and discuss the hope that comes from building caring collectives and radical friendships. Now more than ever, we need to learn to how to share our resources and whatever joys we find in the process.

Kairos, 84 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4TG

Doors open at 6.30pm for drinks. The talk will start at 7pm followed by a one-pot vegan supper and discussion.

£8 members, £15 non-members. Food and drink complimentary.