“A most nourishing and encouraging book” McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto and Capital is Dead

In many places around the world, the freedom to simply care for one another is under attack by the powerful, and acts of solidarity are being made illegal. In a moment of struggle defined by the rollback of the social safety net, the criminalization of migration, and the right-wing clampdown on bodily autonomy, radical networks of care are fighting back.

From volunteer rescue boats in the Mediterranean to underground labs preparing gender-affirming hormones, people are reclaiming the means to care for one another in defiance of a system that devalues and exploits the labor of care.

Against atomized despair, Pirate Care shows that fighting back isn’t only about legal and legislative changes but also about organizing, direct action, and disobedient care.

Valeria Graziano is a cultural theorist and organizer researching militant practices of work refusal and repair. She co-founded the Carrotworkers Collective and Micropolitics Research Group. Marcell Mars is an advanced internet user. Tomislav Medak is a commons and disability activist and an independent researcher with interests in technologies and environmental crisis. Mars and Medak are founding members of Multimedia Institute/Mama and custodians of the Memory of the World shadow library.

The authors are the convenors of the Pirate Care project.