Book Review: Constructing Worlds Otherwise

 

Image: The cover of the book has an watercolor landscape background with hills, mountains, and forests at the very bottom and the rest made of an orange-cream colored sky. In front of the landscape is an illustration of a woman using highly saturated colors so that her skin appears a rich red-orange, her hair a dark violet. She is looking to the right and perched on her shoulder is a large monarch butterfly. Behind her head is a large orange circle looking like a halo made of a sunset. In the same color as the circle in large letters is the title of the book "constructing worlds otherwise" across the cream colored sky. Above and below the title in smaller violet letters is the author's name- Raúl Zibechi and the byline "societies in movement and anticolonial paths in latin america," "translated by George Ygarza Quispe."

Constructing Worlds Otherwise: Societies in Movement and Anticolonial Paths in Latin America, written by Raúl Zibechi and translated by George Ygarza Quispe is a welcome window into the worlds of many radical movements and autonomous communities of resistance in Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Bolivia, as well as some non-latin America locations. Zibechi places much of his focus on movements that center indigenous resistance, womens liberation, Black liberation, and other such struggles. While he does also include the words and experiences of bigger name revolutionaries whose groups may have been more patriarchal in nature, he makes sure to discuss and include why the centering of women, Black, and/or indigenous people is not only ethically critical, but is strategically so as well. 

Let me first say that the translation by Quispe is quite good. I have not read the original as my Spanish is quite limited by what I have learned alone from duolingo and online classes, but I have read many translated texts from all over the world. One can often tell when a translation is dry, inaccurate, or simply a word for word reproduction that doesn't quite make sense to the new audience. Translation is an art form in both words and culture and I believe the passion of Zibechi was conveyed very well in this book. The book grips you from the start. 

I also like to inform the reader of my very unofficial assessment of the text's difficulty in terms of academia. On a 1 to 5 scale where 1 is "8th grade reading level" and 5 is "inexcusable big word crotch measuring contest," I would nestle this book somewhere around a fair 2.5. There are some words or referenced movements that a complete beginner may be unfamiliar with, but it is navigable with attention and effort.

I really enjoyed learning so much non-eurocentric history. As a USAmerican, even one who would like to know more about the world, we still tend to get buried by our country's false idea that we are the center of it and that there are a few other homogeneous continents. The variety of movements from different countries and cultures of Latin America as well as Rojava and Kurdish resistance are critical in understanding and thinking about how to build new worlds without capitalism and the state. I enjoyed learning a lot more about the Zapatistas, which I always knew I should know more about as well. It was also interesting to read more indepth about how critical women have been in these movements despite the universal assumption of maleness often hiding their efforts.

Zibechi is the kind of theorist that seeks out real life structures and analyzes them in order to ask new questions, rather than relying on idealist hypotheticals. While I am regularly accused of being an idealist, I also see how many of us can be naive when it comes to implementation of sustainable, long term, anti-authoritarian and autonomous communities. He discusses ways of resisting neoliberalism while avoiding stepping into the shoes of the oppressor (such as is the case with authoritarian communisms.) What stuck out to me in these ethnographies was how words and structures I often associate with authoritarians took on different meaning. There is discussion of the holding of territories and keeping them independent from paramilitary, authoritarian, and abusive structures. There is discussion of several different kinds of organized guards of communities that protect them without turning into cops. While I would like to read a larger book about the specifics of how these structures keep from turning authoritarian, we do get an idea of many of the ways that they both protect autonomous communities and resolve conflicts in ways that are needed. There is acknowledgement that even if we were to dismantle all oppression, people will still be human- flawed and conflicted at times - in need of guidance and occasionally ostracism or defense. 

The way Zibechi discusses nonhuman animals could have been better. There are sections where other animals are discussed solely as items of trade as if they are the same as inanimate objects. In another section, he mentions the importance of relationships with the nonhuman world, but I did not see this described much in practice. I do also think he falls a little bit into the infallible indigenous people trope, even though he is able to fairly critique the ways in which other movements may have issues with patriarchy for instance. He does acknowledge that indigenous people are highly variable, but seems to default to them having it "correct" so to speak. Being that things such as extinction of hunted species, various versions of strict gender roles, and other issues have followed humans everywhere they have migrated since leaving Africa, I would have liked more in depth analysis of those things in his discussion of indigenous communities. That said, this is a 200 page book and in that space, he can only cover so much.

Constructing Worlds Otherwise is an great look into the way new things can be created from the ashes of the old or simply outside of them. It is passionately written, well researched, and translated with great skill. I learned a lot and definitely recommend it to anyone seeking ways of being outside of oppressive systems of control and exploitation.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.