Book 2 – DIY or Die!

DIY or Die! Do-it-yourself, do-it-together & punk anarchism

ISBN: 978 1 914567 37 7

Edited by Jim Donaghey, Will Boisseau and Caroline Kaltefleiter

Published by Active Distribution (Karlovac, Croatia), May 2024.

604 pages.

DIY or Die! brings together a diverse collection of punks, scholars and activists to explore Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-Together production of punk culture and punk spaces. A DIY/DIT ethic has animated a wide range of punk-associated anarchist activisms, and this extensive influence is on display in this book. The relationship between anarchism and punk is explored through numerous intersecting themes, starting from the tangible anarchisms found in punk spaces, squats and social centres, and extending to a range of DIY/DIT cultural production including: films, records, and fanzines; performance art; sports clubs; and other anarchistic sites of resistance. Across the chapters, the DIY OR DIE! attitude of anarchist punks across the globe is critically examined and celebrated.

Table of Contents:

  • Foreword: Commodified from head to toe? Hell no – here come the DIY squads! – Mita (Needle ‘n’ Bitch Collective, Indonesia)
  • Introduction: If I Had a Hammer … the radical potential of do-it-yourself (beyond punk) – Jim Donaghey, Will Boisseau and Caroline Kaltefleiter
  • Chapter One: Autonomy in the capital: the short life and sudden death of an anarchist punk centre in London, UK – Rich Cross
  • Chapter Two: From punk to squat: the (re)birth of Social Centres and the role of anarcho-punk in 1980s Italy – Giulio D’Errico
  • Chapter Three: What are punk spaces? Where are punk places? Heterotopias of Leipzig, Germany – Yannleon Chen
  • Chapter Four: Building a more caring and accessible future: successes and failures of squatted and autonomous spaces in London, Amsterdam and Berlin – Efa Thomas
  • Chapter Five: The construction of social and urban alternatives through anarchism and punk in Madrid, Spain, during the 1980s – Blanca Algaba Pérez
  • Chapter Six: First there was Amparo, then it was Ronda Atocha … What will be next? Anarchism, punk and squatted Social Centers in Madrid, Spain – David Prieto Serrano, David Álvarez García and Gomer Betancor Nuez
  • Chapter Seven: Autonomous Social Centres and squats as rhizomatic real utopias: the case of Athens, Greece – Yorgos Paschos
  • Chapter Eight: Transgressive street intervention as a form of anarchist (in)direct action and embodied punk philosophy in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and New York City (United States) – Hugh Sillitoe
  • Chapter Nine: Punk spaces in Bogotá, Colombia during the Covid-19 pandemic: reflections on solidarity and mutual aid – Minerva Campion (translated by Maxwell Woods)
  • Chapter Ten: The Wuhan punk scene in autonomous community and film: anarchism and Covid-19 in the People’s Republic of China – Emily Jane O’Dell
  • Chapter Eleven: Suburban Scream: the noise of resentment and revolt in the São Paulo metropolitan region, Brazil – João Augusto Neves Pires (translated by Raíssa Koshyiama)
  • Chapter Twelve: Smashing whiteness: race, class, and punk culture in the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (North America, 1989-1998) – Spencer Beswick
  • Chapter Thirteen: Band praxis: punk and the anarchist squint – DaN McKee
  • Chapter Fourteen: Under the pavement, the beach! Punk, anarchism and community organising in North West England – David Kay
  • Chapter Fifteen: ‘I’m a pink prole threat’: revolution, Marxism and anarchism in the French punk scene – Christophe Becker (translated by Luke Ray Di Marco Campbell)
  • Chapter Sixteen: Running Punks as an anarchistic rejection of traditionally sporty endeavour – Ashley Morgan
  • Chapter Seventeen: Beyond anarchy: skateboarding and punk politics in Barcelona, Catalunya – Oriol Batalla
  • Chapter Eighteen: Cyberpunk and industrial music: dethroning the megatechnics – Johan Eddebo
  • Chapter Nineteen: Hip hop’s ‘punk moment(s)’? Punk aesthetics and anarchistic lifestyle in SoundCloud rap – Max Tretter