We spoke with writer and activist Hillary Lazar on the connections between border politics and antifascism, applying intersectional frameworks to movement organizing, and pushing beyond "bread & butter" unionism toward liberatory unionism.

 

Our talk begins with a conversation about Hillary Lazar's recent essay, Connecting Our Struggles: Border Politics, Antifascism, and Lessons from the Trials of Ferrero, Sallito, and Graham published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (n.30). The piece focuses on the lost history of anarchist editors and supporters of the periodical Man! who were swept up in an anti-immigrant and anti-anarchist political reaction during the early part of the 20th century in the United States. The piece uses this case study to explore connections and continuations of anti-immigrant policies of today and how such policies bolster the repression of political dissent.

 

In the second half of our conversation we focused on the current labor organizing Hillary has been doing with graduate student workers at the University of Pittsburgh. She explains why applying an intersectional framework to labor organizing, as well as other forms of organizing, is necessary for building toward a liberatory society.

 

Hillary Lazar is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches about social movements, gender, power and resistance through an anarchist lens. Hillary has been published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, contributed a chapter to Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach (2018), and has worked on several other book projects. She is a collective member of the Big Idea Bookstore, a content editor for Agency: An Anarchist PR Project, instructor for the Institute for Advanced Troublemaking, and is involved in graduate student worker organizing.

 

Institute for Anarchist Studies 
(publisher of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory)
www.anarchiststudies.org

 

Institute for Advanced Trouble-Making
advancedtroublemaking.wordpress.com/

 

AK Press
www.akpress.org

 

Agency: An Anarchist PR Project
www.anarchistagency.com/

 

Big Idea Bookstore
thebigideapgh.org/