Replacing the state.

Episode Transcript
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Sasha Davis (00:07):
I don't think that social movements are going to be
effective if we just say, well,what we just need is a return to
what we had last year. I thinkthis is an opportunity to think
bigger and to think morefundamentally about the things
that are wrong with governance.

Laurel Mei-Singh (00:21):
I wanna wrestle with these
contradictions. The state hasgotta go, and yet the state also
has these important roles.

Khury Petersen-Smith (00:30):
This approach to changing the world
feels really exciting. And also,we're acknowledging that it's
kind of messy.

My name is Sasha Davis, I'm the author of Replace
the How to Change the World WhenElections and Protests Fail. And
I'm here today to talk a littlebit about this new book with
Curry Peterson Smith and LaurelMay Singh. The book sort of
stems from my research onenvironmental issues, politics,
and social movement organizingin colonized places, and

(01:07):
essentially takes the view thatsocial movements here in North
America could learn a lot fromthe kinds of techniques and
tactics that people have beenusing in other places. First,
just wanted to kind of start offwith some introductions.

Hey, my name is Khury Petersen Smith. I
work at the Institute for PolicyStudies, where I am the co
director of the NewInternationalism Project and the
Michael Ratner Middle EastFellow. My job is to be a
resource for social movementsthat are working against US
militarism.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me here. My
name is Laurel Mei-Singh. I'm anassistant professor of geography
and Asian American studies atUniversity of Texas at Austin. I
am an aspiring documentaryfilmmaker.
So right now I'm editing adocumentary film about Makua in
Hawaii, a military base. It'scalled Life After Empire. And

(02:05):
that's also tentatively thetitle of a book that I'm writing
about demilitarization strugglesin Hawaii.

Thank you, everybody for being you know,
taking part in this today. Youknow, I think we're gonna talk a
little bit about some of thethings that are in the book. I
think also, you know, this is abook that was written almost
entirely, before the reelectionof Donald Trump that happened
last November. And so thepolitical terrain, obviously, in
The United States has shifted abit, but we'll hopefully talk a

(02:31):
little bit about the ways it hasand the ways it has not. But I
think that some of thediscussion today, want to talk a
little bit about tactics andstrategies for building social
movements in the currentpolitical context.
I think that if, you know, had adime for every time anybody
who's a pundit or, you know, aresearcher has said, you know,

(02:52):
need a social movement. We'd allbe rich, but, we need to talk a
little bit about, I think, howthe how tos, right, of building
a social movement. And, so Ihope that's some of the stuff
that we can get into here today.

Thank you, Sasha, for this absolutely
brilliant book. I think itmodels scholar activism in terms
of bringing our scholarlyknowledge to bear to help
inform, amplify, and upliftsocial movements, so I really
appreciate that. I just want toread a couple of quotes from the

(03:27):
introduction. You say, Thecentral problem today is not
that it is impossible to solveour most serious crises. It is
that we keep expecting existinginstitutions to solve them,
institutions that are neitherinclined nor equipped to do so.
And then on page three, you talkabout replacing the state is an

(03:48):
approach where social movementsfocus on directly governing a
place differently, empowering analternative decision making
structure in a place. That's theend of the quote. You very much
in conversation with JK GibsonGraham, who talks about
autonomous zones of counterpower, which is what I see that
your project is trying toanalyze and understand. And you

(04:10):
talk about the importance ofsupplanting state authority
rather than seizing the power ofthe state. So I wanted to hear
more from you about yourunderstanding of the state and
self determination and the workthat needs to be done, and in
particular, what politicaltradition do you align yourself

(04:31):
with?
Gibson Graham is talking aboutthe Zapatistas, which is often
associated with antiauthoritarianism. So I wanted to
hear more about what traditionsof struggle historically do you
see yourself part of.

Thank you. That's a great question. One of the
things that really is at theheart of my approach in the book
is I try to take a ground upsort of approach. And so in some
respects, think there aretheoretical traditions that
think about the political theoryand then look for examples of
application of that theory.Whereas I think I try to flip

(05:07):
that on its head a little bit.
And, you know, where I come fromis a little more, let's see what
people are actually doing kindof in real places, the types of
activities that they're doingand how they're supplanting
power in those places in a veryday to day way. And then how
that could kind of scale up orhow we could use the theory to

(05:28):
kind of understand that and toinclude, of course, you know,
theoretical insights from antiauthoritarian, you know,
perspectives, but also thinkingabout critiquing a little bit
the structurallessness of someof those perspectives. Because
when you actually look at what'sgoing on on the ground, these

(05:50):
aren't spontaneous protests,right? These are they're thought
out, they're planned, there's awhole system of logistics behind
them. You have some people withsort of informal levels of, you
know, knowledge or authoritywithin these movements.
And so while I definitely kindof, I think, you know,
theoretically come from thetradition that looks at things

(06:14):
from like anarchist theory andother kinds of critical theory,
I think that when we look at howthings actually operate on the
ground, that there's a littlebit of a blending of what we
might think of as more kind ofpurely theoretical perspectives,
you know, actually going on toget things done, to actually
supplant power. And I think thatthat's the approach I try to
take in the book. And so to kindof address one of the other

(06:36):
questions too about then how doI see the state, you know, as
sort of an entity in all this, Ithink it's important to
recognize obviously it's not amonolithic entity. You know,
there's a lot of things thatchange with changes in
administration like we've hadhere in The United States from
2024 to 2025, but there's a lotof things that have stayed very

(06:57):
consistent, right? And one ofthe things that I try to bring
up in this book is thecontinuities, right?
And that, yes, things havegotten much worse for many
groups of people, over the pastfew months. But 2024 was not
paradise. Right? There was a lotof things wrong in 02/2024. This

(07:19):
whole book was written, like Isaid before that.
And I think that we need to lookat those continuities because I
don't think that socialmovements are going to be
effective if we just say, well,what we just need is a return to
what we had last year. I thinkthis is an opportunity to think
bigger and to think morefundamentally about the things
that are wrong with governance.And also then, it's also
recognizing that, of course, youhave different levels of the

(07:40):
state. You have municipalities.You have state governments or in
some of the examples I used fromJapan, prefectural governments
that are working against thecentral government, and how
activists and others can usesome of these different
multifaceted natures of of thestates that they're working with
to really create governance thatfollows better ethics than sort

(08:01):
of, you know, the capitalistaccumulation and the protection
of, you know, private propertyfor the wealthy that you kind of
get in the when we think aboutsort of the state in a capital S
sort of way?

Yeah. I want to start just by saying
that, you know, I really likethe book's feature. I think it's
really timely. It's reallycompelling. And it's actually,
early in the book, you talkabout the experience of being a
19 year old part of a blockadein Nevada to disrupt basically a
nuclear test.
You recount that as a kind ofvery ordinary example of protest

(08:35):
actually. And throughout thebook, look at these different
examples and harvest theselessons. One of the things I was
thinking about is how in thistime that we're having this
conversation, actually thatexperience feels kind of
extraordinary. I wonder how manypeople are getting to
participate in kind of directaction you know, blockades

(08:57):
actually. Like I think thatthere's been a real I we're feel
having this conversation at atime where on one hand there's
this kind of crisis ofconfidence in institutions and
yet a sort of belief in them, ifthat makes sense, like a lack of
confidence, a sort of belief ora sense that that's all there
is.
That leads me to this one quotethat I wrote down, which I feel
in a lot of ways kind ofsummarizes the thesis of the

(09:19):
book, he said that movementsthat are seeking to replace the
state are not just saying no,they're creating what they want
to say yes to. Given, again, atthe moment, feels a bit
hegemonic, the notion that theonly politics we have is
electoral politics or kind ofsaying no to whatever policy or

(09:40):
whatever institution. The taskof creating something to say yes
to, I find really compelling,but I'm wondering how do you
square that? Like knowing howhegemonic, how at the moment,
how difficult it can be to kindof imagine something beyond the
state, making the case that it'spossibly creating something we
can say yes to. I just wonderhow you think about that.

Yeah, that's a great question. I wrote the book
because I had these experienceswhere I saw other ways of trying
to do social change. You know,like I said, it started for me
very early as a teenager at theNevada nuclear test site, you
know, with the nuclear weaponstests, and then kind of was
cemented as I saw the way folkswere protesting in Jeju Island,

(10:22):
in Okinawa, you know, in ThePhilippines, in Hawaii, you
know, in all these differentplaces over and over. And I
think it is a little differentoutside the experience of the
way a lot of activism occurs inNorth America, because I think
there is this hegemony that thestate, if it's not acting right
or if corporations are notacting right, well, you go to
the state, right? You go back tothem and say, well, you're the

(10:43):
proper arbiter of fixing theseproblems.
And so a lot of the examples ofplaces that I look at in this,
however, are colonized spaces,like formally colonized spaces
or occupied spaces, where thereis no illusion that the state is
there to help you or help remedywhat's going on in this
situation. And I think likewithin The United States and

(11:06):
other developed countries,there's the idea that at least,
you know, rhetorically or, youknow, at least supposedly the
state is who you go to forredress and that they'll make it
right if you just make aconvincing enough argument, if
you just kind of pull the rightlevers. And part of the reason I
wrote this book is I kind ofthought there was a time coming

(11:28):
where it was gonna become moreand more obvious that that's not
true. And I think that, youknow, my experience with, you
know, in teaching with youngerpeople is that they get very
much into a space of despairwhen they're like, well, we're
supposed to just go electsomebody else or we're supposed
to go petition or we're supposedto have signs and wave at a

(11:50):
protest. And when that doesn'twork, they feel like they're out
of ideas or that there's notreally another avenue.
And I think part of the reasonfor writing this book is to be
like, oh, no, there's otheravenues. Are they easy? No.
However, they exist and they'reeffective and the participants
in them are, you know, speakvery highly of them. They have

(12:13):
gotten some things done.
They're not perfect, and thereare challenges, and I try to go
into that in the book. But,yeah, there there are other
things you can do. And I thinkthe more and more people see
some of the ways in whichprotests and electoral politics
haven't been effective, the morehopefully the examples in this
book will kind of speak to whatis possible. And I think,

(12:37):
because it is it's hard, becauseit's also these techniques may
involve direct action, thingsthat people are not personally
comfortable with. And also thesekinds of struggles can take a
long time.
Sometimes these are strugglesthat take years and years and
years, or sometimes evengenerations. But I think that,
it's important that we thinkabout them when we're in a space
where it really seems like someof the other techniques are not

(12:58):
working. And that's one reasonwhy, you know, like the subtitle
for the book, you know, it'sabout, you know, how to change
the world when elections andprotests fail. It doesn't mean
elections and protests willalways fail, but when they do,
there there there are otherpossibilities.

I wanted to have a conversation about some
of the challenges andcontradictions that we face in
these spaces. I don't wannadownplay the power of these
spaces. Right? I similarly wasable to visit Mauna Kea, Pu'u
Honua, Oulu, Oulu, Only spent Ispent one night there, and then

(13:34):
I visited a second time justfor, you know, a couple hours.
So I didn't have the opportunityto, you know, stay there long
term, but it was completelyempowering and life changing.
And I saw it as selfdetermination and practice and,

(13:55):
you know, people having theirown educational institutions
that they've built themselves,their own infrastructure for,
you know, going to the bathroomand cooking and cleaning and,
you know, social reproductionwas taken care of and people
were having amazingconversations. And so it it

(14:17):
really did just like for thesmall amount of time that I was
able to be there, gave me asense of the possible and, you
know, alternative forms ofauthority that can really grow
and become their own forms ofgovernance. Right? I mean, I

(14:38):
wanna highlight that as kind ofthe lived experience of
replacing the state and alsotalk about the contradictions.
And one of the places that I'vespent a little more time with is
the Waianae Boat Harbor on theWest Side Of Oahu.
They did have their own forms ofauthority. They did kind of take
care of the community. They hadtheir own rules that people had

(15:00):
to adhere to in order to staythere. Something I noticed the
more time I spent there wasthere wasn't, like, a coherent
set of politics there. Right?
You know? There wereevangelicals. There are people
who listen to right wing radiocommentators, and there's people
who want to replace the state,there's the types of people kind

(15:21):
of governing and living in thatspace who are representative of
a larger population. So I justwanna talk about in your really
beautiful formulation ofconnecting, claiming, creating,
how do we account for andunderstand the diverse belief
systems and visions for thefuture and understandings for

(15:41):
self determination that we mightfind in spaces like this?

Great question. It reminds me of some of Trask's
work on Kaholawe, you know, likein, you know, early on in some
of that activism and howproblematic some of the gender
dynamics can be in some of thosespaces. You know, how it's not
necessarily, you know, if you'rekind of into egalitarian ideas
and stuff, it's not necessarilyan egalitarian space. Right? And

(16:08):
that some of the contradictionsand some of the problems that we
have in the larger society getrecreated in the microcosm of
the movements and of the spaces.
And so these are all thingsthat, you know, have to be
attended to, and it's definitelynot these spaces, while
powerful, are not necessarilypanaceas, and and there can be,
you know, problems within them.One of the things that I think
structures some of the coreelements of some of these

(16:31):
protests when I see them, that Ithink is hopeful is that there
tends to be at least a fewcentral ethics around which
people can kind of organizethemselves and organize not just
kind of the life of theencampment or of the space that
they've kind of claimed, butthat also links them to other

(16:52):
struggles in other places.Right. And so I think about this
and this kind of comes out ofsome of my experiences of
hopping around a bit, you know,from movement to movement kind
of over the course of my career,but seeing some of the
commonalities from one place toanother. And I think I talk
about this briefly in this bookand I've talked about it in some

(17:12):
of my past work of going toVieques in Puerto Rico and
sitting down and seeing wallhangings from the Marshall
Islands where I had just doneresearch and people there
saying, hey, you know, yeah,people from the marshals came
here to be in solidarity with usaround our struggles against the
bombing of Vieques and thengoing to Okinawa.
And they're like, oh yeah, someof the people here went to, you

(17:33):
know, Vieques and learned a lotfrom them. And then people in
Hawaii being like, oh yeah, youknow, I went to Okinawa and I
saw these things, right. Andseeing the interweaving of both
the tactics, but also a fewshared ethics. And I think it's
actually worth me just sort ofsaying where I sort of boiled
these down to, this is like onmy notes here, page 93. This is
what I kind of see in all ofthese spaces as sort of a

(17:55):
binding influence or a kind ofcentralizing influences.
So the first is people deserveto be included in the processes
of making political decisionsabout the places where they
live. And I don't think that'svery controversial. I think most
people would be like, okay, yes,that makes sense. And then
second, people deserve equalaccess to economic resources and
opportunities. And then third,people deserve to have a say in

(18:19):
environmental decisions thataffect the health and well-being
of their communities.
And lastly, people deserve to beable to govern their places in a
way that maintains healthy longterm relationships among humans,
other living things and thephysical environment. Now
people's actions may notnecessarily always show fidelity

(18:41):
to those particular ethics, butthey tend to be sort of agreed
upon. And I think in theexamples of the, you know, the
protests on Mauna Kea, and Italk about this in sort of the
introduction, there's a fairlyshort list of, you know, things
that were expected ofparticipants and even visitors,
you know, that come to the spaceto try and keep social harmony,

(19:01):
but also to focus. Well, whatwhat's it all about? Right.
And I think that one of thepoints I try to make is that I
think those ethics are fairlysimple. I think they're fairly
shared. Not by everybody.Obviously there's some people
who are fascists and things whohonestly believe in inequality
and don't care aboutsustainability and absolutely

(19:22):
those people are out there, butI think those are outliers
really. And the thing that I tryto kind of bring up is if the
current governments that we liveunder are really far away from
helping us realize those ethics,this is why we have to sort of
supplant what they're doingbecause in the end, the current

(19:43):
governments are not, that's nottheir mission.
It's not why they were set up.And it's not to the benefit of
the people who are running themnow to follow those ethics, even
though that's kind of what Ithink a lot of people really
thirst for. And I think thatthat's important because it can
drive both the activism as akind of counter power against
the state, but also as agrounding influence of finding

(20:05):
common ground within the spacesand linking them to other
struggles and spacesinternationally.

Can we stick with that for a bit? The
question of ethics in a way, aset of ethics that first of all,
you just kind of laid this out,Sasha. The ethics that you
offer, it's not like you satdown in a room and sort of
contemplated, you know, thesewould be really great rules to
guide our protest. Like thesewere distilled through your

(20:33):
observations. Right?
Like you kind of saw these waysof being and treating each other
popping up over and over againin these contexts. And you point
out that that wasn'tcoincidental because people from
different contexts wouldactually meet with each other
and then bring ideas back and soon. That's really powerful. And
one of the things that feels soimportant about it is, you know,

(20:55):
Laurel just spoke to this. Thisapproach to changing the world,
creating alternatives to thestate through our own self
activity, collective selfactivity, feels really exciting,
think, to us.
Also we're acknowledging thatit's kind of messy. You show up
to these places and you might becoming together to stop this

(21:18):
telescope at Mauna Kea. Theremight be one thing that brought
us out, but that doesn't meanthat we agree on everything or
see the world the same way oranything like that. And part of
what you offer and really,again, what you are distilling
through your observation is oneof the solutions that people
have come up with is, okay,we're coming together for a set

(21:38):
of goals. We're coming togetherthrough our kind of collectivity
and power, and here's a set ofrules.
Here's some ways of being that'sgonna help us figure this out
together. And that feels reallyimportant. Like, it feels like
this key to navigating thismessy situation.

Yeah. No. I I agree. I think that a lot of
these rules or ethics are thingsthat generate from within the
movements themselves. Clearly,they're borrowing on larger
shared ethics that people have,but it's not like they're being
imposed.
There is this sense that, well,okay, people are kind of
agreeing to abide by these, youknow, in terms of like, it's
something that collectivelywe've all come up with. And if
you want to be part of thestruggle, this is what's going

(22:16):
to happen here in thisparticular space. It's kind of
by mutual agreement, we thinkthis is something that can kind
of work for us here, even if itmight include prohibitions
against things that youpersonally would rather do. Like
I remember some of the things onMauna Kea around like, okay, no
drug use and alcoholism, youknow, like alcohol within the
space, just because that'ssomething that, we think will

(22:37):
potentially disrupt the projectwe're trying to do here. So it
doesn't necessarily mean like,you know, this is what we're
going to do for all time andthat we're going to become new
people.
It's done with an idea that,this is going to make the
experience better for the peoplewho are in it, but also more
effective. And I think thatalso, I think back to some of
like the Occupy Wall Streetencampments that also sprung up,

(22:57):
you know, beyond Wall Street andother places, most of them came
up with some sort of loose rulesfor lack of a better term. Yeah.
They weren't just kind of freefor all spaces and and efforts
to make them such were usuallykind of tamped down and we'll
know there's actually kind of asocial process here where we are
coming to agreements with eachother about what kind of what it
is we're trying to do and howwe're going to treat each other

(23:18):
in these spaces. And I thinkthat is really important, also
that they're generated out ofkind of the context and the
activists themselves rather thansort of imposed.
And this also goes back to thekind of the more theoretical
idea of, you know,prefiguration, right? It's like,
okay, we're gonna try and makenow what we think society really
should be about, you know, kindof, you know, after the

(23:41):
revolution. Right? We're gonnawe're gonna do it now. And and I
think that that's obviously avery strong thread that comes
through some of these protestspaces is, you know, trying to
prefigure a little bit, like,what are the ways that we
actually want to interact witheach other?
What are the how are the waysthat we want to manage this
particular place, not just sayno to something? And I'll add,

(24:03):
this is something I really sawin place after place after place
is that people might cometogether, and the galvanizing
influence might be this big no,right? Like, no, we don't want
the telescope. No, we don't wantthe military base. No, we don't
want Wall Street to keep rippingeverybody off.
It doesn't take long before itbecomes very much a, okay, and

(24:24):
this is what we want. Like,think in Vieckis, they're like,
okay, we're gonna make hugeplans, you know, documents, long
documents about this is whatwe're gonna do when the bombing
stops. So now a lot of thosewere not implemented, you know,
because the federal governmentdidn't listen, but they
certainly were like, this iswhat we want for our island. And
that came very, very quicklyafter just the no. And I think
in Okinawa, you know, we havethese ideas for alternatives of

(24:46):
what we could do with some ofthese military based sites.
And in Hawaii, that's, you know,I think very, very strong too.
Like, you know, these placeshave been managed in different
ways for hundreds and hundredsand hundreds of years before
European colonists got here, andwe can do this again. This is
not utopian in that sense. It'slike, no. No.
We have ideas and plans, andwe've done it before. We can do

(25:09):
it again.

I love how Curry started his questions off
talking about your protests whenyou're a Also, circling back to
my original question about,like, how did you arrive at
these set of politics? Like,what life experiences? I think
you mentioned you were kind ofpart of a punk scene growing up,
and then you encountered allthese different movements and

(25:32):
struggles in The Pacific as wellas in Vieques. Could you just
take us on a journey of yourlife travels that brought you to
this particular book?

I'll keep this brief because I've I had a very
kind of weird childhood.

I wanna hear all about it.

I think there was a kind of a crystallizing moment
when I was 15 or 16 because Iremember what high school I went
to. I moved around a lot, butmostly within Arizona. But I
remember I was walking byMcClintock High School where I
was at. I can actually rememberthe moment where I'm like
frustrated and I'm just like,why is the world so fucked up? I
don't even know what triggeredit.
And I think it's a moment thatmany people have, right? Where

(26:12):
this is kind of realizationlike, this is just nuts. You
know, sometime in youradolescence. And, you know,
thinking about the context, thiswas the eighties. It was the
time when there was this real,very real threat of nuclear war
between, you know, the SovietUnion and The United States, and
this was Reagan and the evil,you know, the evil empire and
winnable nuclear wars and allthis.

(26:33):
And so this kind of catalyzedthis. But before that, I think
I'd also had a lot ofexperiences just seeing how
people live differently. I camefrom a split parent family where
my dad was relatively well off,my mom was not. And I kind of
toggled back and forth betweenthese worlds. I was actually
homeless as a younger teenagerwhen I was, 15 for a little
while in Phoenix and just, youknow, slept in parks and, you

(26:56):
know, whatever for months andmonths on end and, you know, ran
into a lot of different peoplewith like different backgrounds
and also, you know, some prettysketchy situations as of course
happens when you're houseless.
My mom was also a member of theBhagwan Sri Rajneesh religious
movement or what people wouldcall a cult in Oregon. And I

(27:19):
would go up when I was I wasabout nine or 10 years old, and
I would spend my summers up atRajneesh Puram, this place up in
Eastern Oregon, which has beenthe subject of a good Netflix
documentary called Wild WildCountry, if you haven't seen it.
And so I think I had thisexperience of really seeing a
lot of ways that you could livedifferently.

Right?

And when I was 16, I started getting involved. I
got a job working for AmericanPeace Test, which was the anti
nuclear organization. And Istarted going out to the test
site. And this was, again, whenI started about 16, so I was
relatively young. And I got tosee some of the more experienced
activists who had been there,you know, for protests through
the '60s and '70s and not justat the test site, but also

(28:02):
mostly in California or otherareas.
And, you know, people had beenalso involved with something
like the Redwood Summer type ofprotests and things the West. So
I just kind of tried to absorb alot of this information like a
sponge, like, you know,different tactics, different
ways of doing it. And I think,you know, like what Curry was
saying that, you know, not a lotof people have that direct
action experience, but I waskind of seeing some different

(28:25):
ways of the way peopleapproached it. So I kind of was
able to also get a critique of,you know, capitalism and
inequality and some of thosesorts of things that I think
really cemented in me prettyyoung. And then I got involved
in the punk scene and, you know,of course, some of the, you
know, more anarchist politicalphilosophies that were attached
that was really into the bandCrass and Subhumans and, you

(28:48):
know, California punk bands andthings like that.
I was in my own punk band for awhile as well and toured the
country and got to see and meetthese people on the scene. And
then I remember having thismoment in graduate school where
I didn't realize I could kind ofstill look at political things
and do graduate school. I hadcome from a fairly conservative
undergrad program and I'm like,wait a minute, you mean I could
do this like for a living? No,this is great. And that's where

(29:13):
I started looking at nucleartesting out in the Marshall
Islands because I had had theexperience with nuclear testing
and then started looking more atanti militarization movements
more generally that were morecontemporary, like Vieques, like
Guahan, like Okinawa, likePhilippines.
And that's where I really sawthese examples of people in
places because of themilitarization and the

(29:34):
colonization didn't have a lotof other options to do effective
activism. And then that's kindof what's brought me full circle
to kind of this book is Irecognize that these are tactics
that aren't well known,understood, or appreciated in a
lot of North American activism.

A lot of the book is about learning from
these different experiences ofprotests, resistance, of
blockades, of of kind of worldcreation, you know, in these
community contexts from aroundthe world. In the interest of
full disclosure or whatever,know, like the three of us, we

(30:12):
met each other because we eachgravitated toward these
resistance movements across thePacific that are resisting US
militarism. Write about this inthe book. Sasha and Laurel just
talked about going to Manukah aswell. For me too, like the
experience of going to Okinawa,I was like, oh my goodness, I
understand the world completelydifferently now.

(30:33):
Right? So first of all, I justwanna commend and appreciate the
internationalism of this bookand that you have taken these
different experiences and areoffering it to an audience who's
going be primarily here in NorthAmerica. That's really powerful.
And at the same time, one of thechallenges I think I think

(30:54):
there's this tendency of a lotof people who are activists here
in this place called NorthAmerica, who have the experience
of going elsewhere and seeingseeing a totally you know, a
transformative kind of mode ofresistance. Like, particularly,
I think, when people go toPalestine.
Like, so people, they they takea delegation to Palestine and

(31:16):
you're like, oh my gosh. Thishas changed my life. But then
it's like, you know, the onlyway to translate that is they
come back and they're like, yougot to come with me to
Palestine. Like, like, like, weall we actually we can and,
like, all don't have to, like,leave here and go to Okinawa and
Palestine. I mean, it's reallyit's great when we do get to.
And so one of the things that Ireally appreciate about your
book, you invite people in,Sasha. In the same way that you

(31:39):
just kind of laid out thejourney of your youth, I think
some people listening will belike, Oh, okay, like that. I
used to, you know I did Food NotBombs or I did, like, I went to
that, you know. And I think thatthis book also, this is great
story where you talk about yourkids having a lemonade stand to

(31:59):
raise money to pay for postageto send hygiene products and
other goods to migrants on TheUS Mexico border. It just feels
really powerful actually,because you don't have to go all
the way to Palestine or Okinawato be familiar with a lemonade
stand and think about thepotentially powerful content of

(32:21):
that experience.
You have kids learning how toraise money to care for people
who they don't personally know.And like that's something they
like they did that. That that'swhat I kinda took, and I wonder
how you think about how you hopepeople here can kind of access
this stuff. It gets to whyinstitutions as they are now

(32:41):
that we can, like, hate andresist but sort of tend to
accept. You know what mean?
Like, you can be like, I want tochange the world. I'm gonna get
a bachelor's in politicalscience. I'm gonna get a
master's at the Harvard KennedySchool, and I will learn how
this institution works. And wedon't necessarily think about
like the lemonade stand as likepotentially like part of the
journey to, I community power.So I wonder if you could talk

(33:02):
about that.

Yeah, thank you. I think it's a good point that
there are multiple ways ofentering into effective
activism. Continuing witheffective activism, and I think
that's one of things I kind oftalk about in the book is, you
know, there are certain timeperiods when I couldn't do
certain types of activism.There's times when I can't,
like, you know, not going tobring my, you know, very young

(33:26):
child to a road blockade andlink arms, right, and wait for
us to get the crap beaten out ofus, you know. But I will take
them to a place where, yes,there may be a threat of, you
know, police action things, butlike, you know, maybe we're
helping in the kitchen, right?
Maybe we're bringing suppliesin. Maybe we're just being in

(33:46):
the space and talking to peopleand recognizing what's possible,
you know, and so that when theyalso get older, they see what's
possible. I think about this inalmost every protest I've been
at. There's always, you know,people that are doing the work
of kind of making the the actionhappen, right, that aren't
necessarily in the actionitself. And so in in military

(34:09):
studies, you know, I'm thinkingof, Rachel Woodward's work on
this idea of when we're tryingto understand how the military
works, that we may focus on theviolent acts, we may focus on
the attack, we may focus on themissile being shot, but that
there's this gigantic pyramid,right, of the military
industrial complex and what haveyou that make that violent

(34:32):
moment possible, right?
And there's actually much moreof that than there is the acting
elements, the ones that areenabling that. And I kind of see
that in activism as well, wherejust because you see, you know,
25 people linking arms in a roadblockade, there's a bunch of
people behind them, right? Thatare supporting them, that are

(34:53):
potentially going to bail themout, that are, you know,
videoing it, that are, that havehelped them with transportation
and food and all of these sortsof things. And so I think that
was one of the things I alsolearned kind of early on in my
experiences at the Nevada testsite, because I worked for the
organization that was helpingput them on. I was doing the
dialing for dollars and lookingat the logistics and all that.

(35:15):
I knew that, you know, thesecond you had the big yearly
protest, it was time to startplanning for the next yearly
protest, right? That there werepeople that were getting ready
for that. And I think it'simportant for folks to know that
they can engage in kind ofeffective, even fairly radical,
you know, kind of counter power,types of, movements. And you

(35:36):
don't have to be like anadrenaline junkie. You don't
have to be, you know, willing toface a lot of violence.
You do have to have awillingness to see that you have
to look for alternatives beyondthe state. And that can feel
scary even if, because you'renot necessarily feel like it's
assured of success and you don'tnecessarily have a lot of

(35:57):
roadmaps. You may not have a lotof roadmaps in your life of
seeing how people have done thatprocess. And again, that's one
reason for the book, you know,to be like, oh no, you can look
into these different examples inthese organizations and you can
do this in your town, right? Butit's not easy, but you have to
start with the kind of makingthat decision that in addition

(36:18):
to kind of sign waving protestsand electoral politics, I also
have to kind of do somethingelse that is perhaps feels a
little risky, but also is goingto take some work and perhaps
some time.
And I think that there are someorganizations here on the
continent that I think kind ofhave that vibe or have that

(36:40):
approach. I've been pretty intosome of the stuff that
Cooperation Jackson has beendoing. This whole build and
fight program. It's like a 15episode over like a whole year
kind of discussion of like, hey,this is how we build power. This
is how we, you know, it's a veryslow, methodical.
And I think people need to seethose kinds of examples while

(37:01):
they're also doing sign wavingprotests and thinking about them
and voting. Let's face it.That's one thing you're gonna do
one day in a year and a half.Lots of time to do all sorts of
other things, and you have to.

I wanna return to our discussion about the
state and how we're defining thestate. The state that you're
talking about here is kind of

a

repressive, oppressive, capitalist state. A
question that I've beenwrestling with, My politics have
kind of moved around from antiauthoritarianism to socialist
communism. What exactly is astate? We could argue that at

(37:44):
Pu'u Honua, Pu'uhulu, you know,houseless encampments or
communities like the WaianaeBoat Harbour, that they are
exercising a lot of the featuresof a state, right? They have
organized political bodies,they're exercising control over
a territory, They're a set ofactors with authority over

(38:04):
larger groups of people.
They have their own systems ofprovisioning for people's needs
and protecting people fromdisasters. Right? So they do not
necessarily hold a monopoly onthe legitimate use of force.
However, they do have some sortof authority that's competing

(38:27):
with these institutions thathold the monopoly over the
legitimate use of force. Socould we say that these, you
know, exercises of replacing thestate and supplanting state
authority are creating their ownstates in the process?
Or are we saying the state is,you know, always an inherently

(38:49):
repressive body?

That's a great question. And I coming from
geography, we do, and, you know,I know that, like, if if I had
gone through graduate school inpolitical science, I'd probably
have a little more backgroundon, definitions of the state and
what counts as a state, whatdoesn't count as a state. And
the way in which that's beensort of implemented more in sort
of geographic, you know,thought, of course, you know, a

(39:12):
function of really focusing onterritoriality and those sorts
of things. But I think it in asense, the rhetorical kind of
definition of whether somethingis a state or not a state, I
think it's sort of importantbecause it can lead us to some
different answers in terms ofhow we then try to organize
social life. Because I thinkthat in a lot of the stuff that
I grew up with, which was moreof an anarchist, you know, kind

(39:33):
of oriented philosophy was thatthe state is there, it's bad,
it's repressive, and you justget rid of it and you replace it
with nothing.
Right? And just have a, and Italk about this in the book,
right? It's like larger andlarger fields of free action,
right? But one of the thingsthat through my experiences I
sort of kind of came to sort ofcritique that view is that

(39:57):
there's always, if we think ofgovernance, right, some way in
which we agree to interact witheach other on any kind of stable
long term sort of way that nevergoes away, right? It can change,
it can shift, but it just neverdisappears as long as you're
still being social with otherpeople.
There's some kind of fabric thatis mediating those interactions.

(40:18):
Now it doesn't have to becapitalist. It doesn't have to
be hierarchical. It doesn't haveto have all these things that we
sometimes think about as thestate. And so, you know, I
definitely wrestled with that interms of just terminology, like,
am I advocating you just get ridof the state or am I saying
you're replacing it withsomething else that is state
like, but not hierarchical?

(40:38):
Then somebody may say, well, ifit's not hierarchical, it's not
a state. Right. So, and I triedto, in the book describe very
carefully then, well, this isthe types of governance
arrangements I'm talking abouthere or that these activists are
talking about creating. And, youknow, I think that where I sort
of come down on that is thatwhat is being created in these

(41:02):
spaces is definitely state likein that it is an effort to come
up with an agreement around howwe're going to interact with
each other, a set of rules, aset of kind of expectations that
people have of each other.However, is non hierarchical is
supposed to be non exploitive.
And that, those are the goals ofthat particular system of
governance. Now, whether onewants to call that state like or

(41:23):
not is a little bit up to howpeople might define it. But I
think that one of the key thingsthat really inspired this
research and the kind ofapproach to it is the idea that
what I argue pretty forcefullyis that social movements are not
just protesting and asking.Social movements are creating
governance. Like whether we wantto call that state like or not,

(41:45):
I kind of say it is, but socialmovements are in the business of
trying to supplant governance,not all of them, but many of
them.
They really do want to say, hey,you know what? We can run this
better. And of course, they'reusually right. They can if, you
know, in the absence of beingcompletely repressed and

(42:06):
attacked. And so that's one ofthe things that I really try to
I think is a real core of thisbook is this idea that social
movements are in a sense maybeproto states.
They are trying to implementgovernance and supplant. And I
think that we have to recognizethat because if we don't, we're
not recognizing some of the realpower that social movements can

(42:29):
have. And I think that one ofthe examples that I talk about
too, especially looking at allthese different contexts where
places are occupied orcolonized, is that how did
governance change to thecolonial state in the first
place was not because they cameand asked the old governance,
Hey, can you do thisdifferently? They moved in, they

(42:50):
supplanted, they took overterritory. And I think that's
what social movements are kindof trying to do now is trying to
be like, yeah.
So in a sense that I talk aboutthis, I think I use the term
like we don't needdecolonization. What we need is
a different form of that. Ifgeneral colonization is a great
word where you have a differentapparatus of governance pushing
out another one. But the newgovernance is more ethical, more

(43:15):
egalitarian, less exploitive andall of that. And so, and also,
and I also talked about thistoo.
It's about reinstatingoftentimes an indigenous system
of governance into those spaceswhere a colonized one has been
sort of laid on top of it,right? And it's kind of having
that reemerge. And so that is areal key. But again, whether we

(43:35):
call it a state or not, I thinkit could get into some semantic.
Some people would probably sayyes and some no.

So one, just quickly, I do think that
like this moment that we're inright now, where we're having
this conversation is, I thinkthat the people currently at the
helm of The US state are makingan argument that's like, this is
what the state is. They're like,USAID, giving aid around the

(44:06):
world and having a Department ofEducation, all of that is
superfluous. The purpose of thestate is coercion. That's it,
you know? And there has beensome scholarship on the notion,
which I agree with, that thenotion of government and of the

(44:27):
state that those of us who wereborn in the twentieth century
and even early twenty first upuntil now, that we kind of
inherited, the notion that agovernment has, that it builds
schools and libraries and haswelfare programs and jobs
programs, that that was that isthat is not actually the nature

(44:50):
of the state.
That is a feature of thedirection that governance took
in certain parts of the world inthe early twentieth century, and
at the moment, there's a sectionof the elite that's like, that
that whole era is over. We'regonna return actually to what
the state looked like before thenineteen thirties. So it's just

(45:12):
interesting to kind of thinkabout the state in this
particular moment because Ithink there's a big there's this
kind of fight, I think, in theelite about what the state even
it's for. But I don't know. Itend to I don't know if I'd say
agree with the Pete Hagsets andthe Marco Rubios of the world,
but I think that there'ssomething honest about what

(45:33):
they're like, this wasn't theway the state was created.
Created for USAID. It wasn'tcreated with the Department of
Education. That's recent. Youknow, that's extra, and it's
time to strip it back to the tothe essential purpose of the
state. So with that, you know,one of the things that you I
thought was super interestingabout the book, you engage with

(45:54):
this, this is what you were justtalking about, this question of
like power, you know, which Ithink in anarchists and anti
authoritarian circles, you know,there's been a tendency that I'm
very sympathetic with to be sofreaked out by anybody having
power, that it's like thisthing, it's what you said, like,

(46:15):
can we get rid of the state andthen just replace it with, and
not replace it at all, you know,just like sort of obliterate
power.
And there's this I wanna getthis quote right, this part of
the book where you say, if poweris simply the ability to make
decisions and implement them,then power is not something that
can be destroyed, can only betransferred. Which I really a, I

(46:38):
think you kind of demystifypower, make it a little less
scary. You're like, look, it'sjust it's just making decisions
and then making them count. Youknow? And if that's gonna
happen, you can't I mean, thatthat that's just that's just
part of the deal of social life.
Am I am I right? Like, that isthat kind of the point? And
therefore, it's like, so thenhow does that power operate?
Like, that is that is that am Iunderstanding that right?

Yeah. So yeah. I think that's great. A couple of
things to say. I'm gonna startit off.
I think the current politicalcontext in The United States
favors fundamental change. I'mgoing to start there. And I
think part of it is like you'resaying, the other functions of
the state are being sort ofstripped away other than
coercion, protecting propertyand enabling capital

(47:21):
accumulation. And you coulddefinitely go back historically
and say, this is why the state,for at least in The United
States, this is what it was madefor. This is who it was made by,
and it was for their benefit.
And then some of these otherkinds of like welfare state type
of programs have been reallyabout them just being able to,
you know, there are time periodswhere they kind of have to throw

(47:42):
some crumbs out, right. To kindof keep people from, you know,
overthrowing the more obviouslyexploitive nature of the state.
And one of the things that kindof occurred to me actually in
the last week or so was Ithought about it in terms of,
you know, Michel Foucault'sperspectives on biopower, right?
This whole idea that statesstarted getting into the game of

(48:03):
building schools and hospitalsand highways and all this stuff,
not necessarily out of thekindness of their heart, right?
But just this idea is, well, ifit population made more
productive and more docile, Itmade them better workers and it
was actually a way to engage inmore hyper exploitation.
Like it seems like they weredoing it out of goodwill, but

(48:23):
really it was about being ableto capture productivity and
healthy workers will make youmore profits than unhealthy
workers and educated workerswill make you more profits than
uneducated. And so now that wesee some of that falling away,
there's obviously immediatenegative, horrible effects the
people who are being thrown, whoare going to be thrown off of

(48:44):
Medicaid and who are going to belosing benefits and, you know,
whose educational opportunitiesare going to go away. And I
think we haven't scratched thesurface of seeing effects of
those cuts yet. I mean, it'sgoing to get much worse in the
coming years. But on the otherhand too, the elites are cutting
their own throats.
Right? Because not not by thefact that they're going to be

(49:07):
first of all, yes, they're goingto have people be more in
opposition to them and people'slives are getting degraded, but
that's also the source of theirprofits. If they replace a bunch
of workers with AI andautomation and all this stuff,
who's buying their stuff thatthey make? Where's the next

(49:29):
generation of employees in termsof education, where are they
coming from? And it's likeessentially a social strip
mining operation.
If you're gonna squeeze the verylast bits of productivity and
not reproduce the ability forten, twenty years, a wave to be
productive in terms of humancapabilities. But also if you

(49:51):
cut down all of the nationalforests or you deregulate and
you pump out all of the, know,frac all the oil or whatever,
it's like, this can't possiblylast and you're going to drive
your contradictions into likehyperdrive, right? And so it
seems like it is going to drivepeople to the point where like

(50:12):
this is absolutely intolerable.We have to make change. And so I
can't see this lasting anylength of time, even on their
own merits, like even on whatthey think it will do for them.
Yeah. It'll give you hyperprofits for a while. And they've
got to kind of know this at somelevel, but it's just like, we're

(50:32):
going to drive it like we stoleit till we go all the way off
the cliff. At some level it'smadness, but it is the context
we have to think about. And sohow we approach that, do we sit
there and say, no, no, no, wejust need to go back to what it
was and these other things?
Or do we need to be like, yeah,those parts of the state are
always there. It's really kindof the core function of it. And
we really need to kind ofreplace it with something

(50:53):
different. And that's why I kindof started it with the current
context favors fundamentalchange.

Yeah. This conversation is so fascinating.
I really appreciate it. Goingback to the idea of a
protostate, I find that reallyfruitful and generative. I would
tweak your formulations slightlyin that I don't see them as non
hierarchical because in theseformations, there always is a
chain of command, whether it's,you know, organic or very much

(51:21):
orchestrated and planned.
There are hierarchies in termsof who has decision making
authority. So in that sense, Ido see these formations as So I
think the proto state is usefulin helping us see it as a
different form of hierarchy witha different set of ethics. So,

(51:43):
yeah, I'd like to hear moreabout that if we're there in
terms of our analysis or we'rekind of still thinking through
what a proto state means. Interms of the state, I agree with
you both, you know, that thestate's purpose right now is has
been laid bare in terms ofcoercion, protecting property,
and capital accumulation. Andyet I still want to send my

(52:06):
children to public schools.
Right? I still want my parentsto have access to Medicare. I
still want my trash to getpicked up. I still want there to
be laws around speeding so Idon't have to, like, be
terrified every time my fouryear old, like, steps his foot

(52:27):
on the sidewalk, right, thathe's gonna get hit by a car. So
I wanna wrestle with thesecontradictions of, you know,
like, the state has gotta go,and yet the state also has these
important roles in terms ofeducating us, taking away our
trash, even though, you know,our system of waste is

(52:48):
completely horrible, right?
And, you know, providing healthcare. I don't trust the state of
making sure we're all gonnathrive, but at least giving us
some basic necessities that makeour lives a little bit better
than if, you know, the currentpolitical administration has
their way of, like, just kind ofstripping the state completely

(53:11):
to its bare bones of coercion.

Can I add one thing to that exactly that
point? The regulatory functionof the state for me feels like
the thing I'm like, how do youreplace it? I feel very aware
that I assume that when I turnon the tap, the water has been
filtered into that. You know, Iknow that the quality of food
inspection isn't like the bestin the world, but there's some

(53:34):
rules. You know what I mean?
You can't just put you have toput list the ingredients. I just
wanted to add that to the pile.You know, how do you kind of
grapple with that?

Yes. Yeah. And I think two pieces there. I think
one, know, recognizing whatLaurel was saying about
hierarchy is I think importantbecause I think there's
different ways of thinking abouthierarchy as a structure by
category of some people just getto be in control of things as
opposed to other people as moreof a class or a caste type of
system, or of course gendereddivisions of labor that are

(54:03):
imbued with expectations ofwho's in charge and that kind of
a hierarchy. And one that's alittle more of a informal or a
kind of respect forunderstanding or skill sets and
things like that.
I think that there have beensome movements that have taken

(54:23):
de hierarchicalization to apoint where it limits function,
right? Where like, so forinstance, if there's somebody in
the movement that's really goodas a spokesperson and talking
and they're like, no, no, we'rejust going to rotate you in and
out with some folks that aren'tthat comfortable with it to be
more equal and to have differentmovements do all the time. But

(54:44):
sometimes you got to recognizethat some people have some skill
sets and some different things,or some people are well
connected and they know some ofthese other folks, or some
people can get these particularresources, have knowledges. And
I think in the, you know,examples in Hawaii, of course,
in the respect, you know, forelders that are in those
protests, you know, that theyare the ones that are leading it

(55:05):
and you're and you're not reallydoing anything that's, you know,
they get kind of the say really,of kind of setting some of the
tone for some of that. And Ithink that's common, but it
feels a little different thansome of the structured
hierarchies that, I guess, maybeare more class oriented or caste
or or gender oriented.
But it's important to recognizethat, yeah, like, sometimes an
effort to completely do awaywith hierarchy entirely can get

(55:27):
you into some trouble. And Ithink some of the stuff I talk
about, one of the middlechapters of the book too, is
some of the arguments thathappen between people that come
from an anarchist perspectiveand some of the indigenous
activists that can also buttheads around this idea of
hierarchy and that there arecertain folks that have certain
knowledges and things like that.And so it's something that
people have to be cognizant of.The second point too about, I

(55:49):
think boils down to me tosecurity, right? There are
certain things that the state,the current state does that we
find security in, right?
That we can turn on the tap thatour kids, you know, my kids at
public school right now, right?That there's some level of
security. And I think that isalso a real challenge when we

(56:10):
think about replacing the stateand the things like, how do you
do it in a way that maintainssecurity? That doesn't just
unravel everything for a whileand then say, we'll figure it
out later. And I think that'simportant because there
definitely are perspectives onprotest that want to maximize
disruption.
And I talked about this in thebook too, where it's like, you
maximize disruption, youdestabilize the state, and then

(56:32):
you just tip it over. And thenwe'll figure out what to do
after that. Right. And it'slike, that's an incredibly
insecure space for everybody. Italso, I think drives people then
into the arms of anybody who issaying, well, the worry will
make you all very secure.
That could be a much more rightwing, you know, kind of, you
know, authoritarian sort ofspace. And that's why I think

(56:53):
these social movements also haveto develop and they do to some
degree develop systems ofsecurity within them as well.
And also articulate this iswhat, you know, in this space
that we're kind of in control ofand hopefully can expand. This
is how we're going to meet someof those needs for things like
clean water, childcare,expectations of behavior among

(57:16):
each other, things like that.And also have the capabilities
to make those agreements sort ofstick so that people can
actually feel secure.
And I have definitely seenaspects of that in these
activist spaces. But sometimesit's also not obviously as well
developed as it is in thelarger, you know, in the larger
state run, you know, spaces.Like, it takes a lot of work. It

(57:39):
also is one of those thingswhere it's a chicken and egg.
It's like you have to be able toprovide security and have
logistics and have resources.
It's hard to do that unless youhave control, but it's hard to
have control unless you havethese things. But people have
been building, I think, towardsthat sort of thing. But it's
something we absolutely have tothink about, I think, activists
and movement builders. How doyou do it with security? Because

(58:01):
not everybody wants to justtopple and then figure it out
later and have, you know, achaotic scene of of insecurity
and uncertainty.
And I think that that's why youkinda have to do some of these
things and build them as you go.And that's, again, going back
to, you know, some of the stufffrom, the build and fight
formula and stuff like thatfrom, like, cooperation Jackson

(58:21):
and other folks. It's like,yeah, you have to build while
you fight.

Sasha, could you talk about what your current
project is? What's next comingfrom doctor Sasha Davis?

Yeah. Interestingly, what's coming
next for me is about organizing.It's not about writing. I am
fairly consciously right nowtrying to put myself in the
space where I'm writing less anddoing more. I think it's the
time where I feel like,especially with producing this
book, I feel like it's a fairlykind of coherent kind of set of

(58:54):
my thoughts on, you know, thekind of ideas for organizing.
And it can sometimes as anacademic, very easy to then get
stuck in that space, both interms of the head space, but
also the space of just kind ofthink, right. Repeat, you know,
observe, you know, right. Youknow, and I'm actually aiming to
break out of that a little bit.And part of, I think my process

(59:17):
for that is actually to write alittle bit less and to do a
little more organizing locallywhere I am here in New England.
I mean, that's also anotherthing for me, you know, being a
kid who grew up in Arizona, whodoes most of his research in The
Pacific and other kind of islandenvironments, bringing it home
and being an effective, youknow, member of a movement here

(59:38):
for me is, you know, somethingthat I've been certainly working
my way into over the past fewyears.
And that's kind of, where I wantto put my, energies is into
that, grassroots ground levelorganizing. And I think that
I'll end up, you know, ofcourse, having more to write
about through that experience,but it's kind of a conscious

(59:59):
decision to write less and actmore. And that's sort of where
I'm at. And it's hard becauseI've got like four or five
writing projects that I wouldlove to do is all sitting there
and document and I'm all ready.Like yourself, Laurel, I would
love to get more into like, youknow, documentary filmmaking.
And I have this whole idea for awhole thing. I'm like, and I'm

(01:00:20):
trying to rein myself in alittle bit because I feel like
the moment is really now forthat more on the ground,
organizing. And of course, youknow, over the coming months, I
also want to do some promotionfor this book, which I think the
way I'm hoping to do, like, youknow, in person events and other
things is really going to bearound sparking conversations to

(01:00:41):
do that organizing. Right. Andso that's what I'm kind of
hoping to do here in the nearfuture.
And what about you both in termsof the projects that you're
working on right now?

Laurel Mei-Singh (01:00:50):
Well, what I really appreciate about this
book is that this bookgerminates from movements, and
its purpose and audience is tospeak to people within movements
and to push those movements andefforts forward. So and, you
know, the practices of replacingthe state. It's a really good

(01:01:12):
document and I've used the wordguide. It's a manual or a guide
for social movements. What I'mtrying to do is similar, but
because I'm still working ontenure, maintain some focus on
the writing, but also make surethe writing I'm doing is
speaking to broader audiences.
That's what brought me intodocumentary filmmaking. Working

(01:01:35):
with a film team based in Hawaiion a a documentary version, like
a shorter documentary version ofmy book that focuses on Makua.
And the US Army has recentlyallowed announced their plans to
let go of Makua militaryreservation, and the future is

(01:01:59):
still unwritten. Like, what islife beyond occupation? What is
life beyond the military base?
So the purpose of this film isto really uplift the grassroots
efforts that have been workingto protect the land and return
the land and with the hope thatthese people who've been working

(01:02:20):
for decades will have a voice, astrong voice in the future of
the land. And I think I thinkthat's already a very strong
possibility, but the purpose ofthe documentary as well as the
book is to kind of push thatforward in making sure that the
future is from the ground up,not from the top down. Yeah.

(01:02:40):
Courtney, what are you workingon?

Khury Petersen-Smith (01:02:42):
I'm very grateful to be connected with
storytellers and professionalcommunicators and artists
primarily, you know, who haveroots and origins in in The
Middle East, but who are also,you know, mostly live in North
America and are kind of familiarwith The US audiences. Trying to
cultivate some conversationabout conversation. How can we
talk about this here in a waythat invites people living in

(01:03:05):
this place called The UnitedStates to a conversation around
what this US Israeli offensivelooks like? What are the ways
that the many, many ways thatwe're, those of us who live
here, kind of entangled in it,and ways that we can contest it
fundamentally in ways that standwith people located in that

(01:03:27):
region. Also, I am working on abook that is about
internationalism.
In so many ways, reading yourbook, Sasha, there's all these
resonances. Literally, we'vebeen to the same places and
talking to some of the samepeople. When I've had the great
privilege of going to Okinawa orGuam, I hit up both of you
first. I'm like, hey, who shouldI talk to? So it makes sense

(01:03:51):
that we've learned from andwith, you know, some of the same
people in the same places.
The whole project, the kind ofanalytical and activist projects
of organizing and thinking andbeing as sort of globally minded
internationalist people, youknow, among critical folks or
leftist folks or whatever youwant to call it, think in The US

(01:04:12):
we're at a real deficit. At themoment, notion of what it means
to be progressive or leftist,for the most part, is considered
a very domestic question. And ifwe're talking about official
politics, for example, somebodycan run as a progressive
candidate and not have anythingto say about anything beyond The

(01:04:32):
US's borders, and that sort ofgoes unquestioned. And then I
think for those of us who dowork to build anti war
resistance, to stop Israel'sgenocide, things like that, or
just kind of engage with therest of the world, I think we
tend to look to frameworks thatare a bit outdated respectfully.
Frameworks that are rooted inthe twentieth century, that

(01:04:54):
historical experiences that Ithink are extremely important
points of reference.
You know, I think about theBandung conference, I think
about the non aligned movement.You know, there's all these
moments that are extremely, youknow, various revolutions in
twentieth the century, but theworld has also moved and it's
time to develop some differentframeworks. And so I'm hoping to

(01:05:14):
gather, you know, insights I'vefound from some of the more
inspiring movements around theworld and in this country and
look at their linkages, see howwe can learn and work with each
other.

Sasha Davis (01:05:26):
Great. And I completely agree in terms of the
focus has become more and moredomestic, think particularly, A,
because you have kind of oneside of the political spectrum
becoming in the right side ofthe political spectrum, becoming
so hyper focused, America firstand all of this, as if nobody
else in the world existed tosome degree. And then, but on

(01:05:46):
the left, sort of trying todefend against that onslaught
really here instead ofnecessarily building bridges of
solidarity with, and thinkingthat they have something to
learn from other movements andother places and things like
that, particularly beyond justsometimes the bringing up of
like, you know, European Nordicsocialist, you know, kind of

(01:06:06):
ideas. And so I think that's areally great, you know, project
because I think it's somethingwhere, I think that people in
The United States particularlyreally do have a deficit of that
international perspective and acontemporary international
perspective in what is nowreally, you know, clearly a
multipolar world that is influx. Well, I cannot thank you

(01:06:26):
both enough for taking the timeto meet today and to, you know,
for spending the time with mybook and to then spend the time
talking about it today.
I've learned so much, and it'sbeen really, really enjoyable to
be able to talk with with bothof you. And like I said, I I
can't tell you enough, you know,how much I appreciate, you know,
joining in this conversation.

Thank you for all that you do and all that you
do support scholars andactivists and movements and I'm
sure your students. So this bookis a testament of that. Thank
you.

Khury Petersen-Smith (01:06:58):
Yeah, absolutely. Really grateful.
It's really, really reflective,Sasha. Like I just think it's
really cool that you've lookedout over the expanse of your
efforts in life to change theworld and you reflected on it in
a way that I think is so useful.

Sasha Davis (01:07:14):
Thank you. I appreciate that. Like I said,
one thing too with this book isobviously I also write academic
papers and things. I reallywanted to make sure that the
focus on an audience that maynot have spent a semester
digging into Foucault, right?You know, like this is something
that people that are in activismand that people that are coming
to these ideas kind of morerecently and something that
could be accessible to them.

(01:07:35):
So, I hope that I was able tohit that mark.

Definitely did.

Narrator (01:07:42):
This has been a University of Minnesota Press
production. The book Replace theState How to Change the World
When Elections and Protests Failby Sasha Davis is available from
University of Minnesota Press.Thank you for listening.

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