WHAT | WHY | HOW
WHY - SYSTEMIC CRISES
Multiple systemic crises are destroying the world. The communal bond has been broken. Affective ties between women and men are damaged. Racism and transphobism are ruining lives everywhere. The sacredness of life and work has been gutted by unhinged techno-capitalism and with it the meaning and possibility of life. Life on earth cannot continue with the systems that rule us. We need systemic changes.
Now.
WHAT - ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE
The new Institute of Feminist Studies and Social Action-IFSSA contributes to a new world by promoting new visions of social life:
- The reconstitution of the social bond or vincularity: The principles that should guide our societies are relationality, reciprocity, affection, collective production of the means for care and life in community and harmony with other people, other species, and nature. All political and economic action must be oriented towards the reconstitution of affective bonds within and between all communities.
- Depatriarchalizing: Depatriarchalizing implies, first and foremost, the pacification of men. Patriarchalism obeys a paradigm of war against women that serves as an obstacle to rebuild the bonding that becomes necessary to reconstitute the community and preserve life on the planet. There can be neither peace nor bonding if the women of the world are disempowered, lead an existence in which they must fear for their lives, if their work is neglected and their contributions devalued. Men must enter a process of redefinition of their ontological argument that allows them to recreate their own humanity.
- De-racialization: The idea of race and racism is an invention of Western Christian colonialism. Apart from the invention of gender it has been the most pernicious power structure of the modern/colonial world. Humanity will not be able to survive with these stagnant structures of race and gender that have survived colonialism and continue to determine our social relations. Gender and race must be left behind as archaic structures of a dark age of humanity.
- The re-sacralization of work: Colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberalism are processes of dehumanization that rupture the communal bond. Under these systems, the value of human labor is reduced to surplus value for big capital. Everything is based on the calculation of profit through extreme labor exploitation, and a science decoupled from social and moral principles and human welfare. Work must recover its sacred meaning as a human activity that preserves life. Work is sacred because it creates community and community is part of the larger cosmos that gives us life. It cannot be quantifiable or monetizable. Work is to create community, not capital for a few. The economy must be detached from the logic of capitalism and science and technology must detach from the interests of capital. Labor must return to service the community and the perpetuation of life.
- The decolonization of politics: The reconstitution of the social bond or vincularity, depatriacharlization, de-racialization and the resacralization of labor will only be possible by decolonizing politics. Power must be returned to communities and shared between women and men, and between different races and ethnicities equally. Liberal democracy must be decolonized. Military industrial complexes must be reconverted into peace industrial complexes. Police forces must be replaced by communal forces of women and men who guard the community. Punitive justice must be replaced by restorative justice. The economy restructured into an economy of care and life support.
HOW - BY CREATING A COMMUNITY OF THINKERS & DOERS
- Bringing together CSUN faculty and students from all disciplines in a public forum to think together and create new projects.
- Creating a GWS Lecture Series
- Bringing CSUN faculty and students together with local community leaders to form common ground.
- Inviting international scholars that share our project as guest speakers.
- Structuring mentorship opportunities to guide students’ work under the new principles while at CSUN and beyond.
HOW - OUR HOME
