A downloadable, printable PDF of this document is available from here

The Class + Identity Politics readings document has been re-worked, re-designed and is now back up online. Below is the introductory blurb which hopefully explains what the publication aims to achieve…

This is pretty much everything I’ve written so far for the Thinking Out Loud section on the South Essex Heckler about the issues of class, cultural identity and identity politics. The articles are presented in chronological order, starting with the oldest and progressing through to the most recent. This has been done to offer some insights into how my thinking on these issues has evolved and hopefully, developed some nuances along the way. Apart from some minor amends for clarity, these articles are as already published.

Those who know us – the South Essex Heckler and our comrades from Basildon & Southend Housing Action – will be well aware that we’re class struggle anarchists. It’s this perspective that informs these writings – we make no apology for that. For those people who may think we’re class reductionists, we hope that the last but one article in this compilation shows that we have developed a nuanced understanding on intersectionality and privilege theory.

Yes, we realise there’s a glaring omission in that there’s no mention of the ongoing debate about gender identity. Here’s a very brief explanation – we only comment on issues that we’ve dealt with directly in our practice and that we’re confident we have a reasonable understanding of. Given the complexity and sensitivity of the issue, not to mention the level of toxicity that the debate around it has descended to, we’ve made a conscious decision to not make any comment while we try to improve our understanding of it. We hope people appreciate why we’ve chosen to do this.

This is a work in progress. As we write extra material on class, cultural identity and identity politics, it will be added to this publication. Please note that none of us are academics. What we’ve written has always been for the purpose of promoting our views on class struggle anarchism. It’s not about intellectual grandstanding, let alone any form of ‘right on’ point scoring!

To conclude, we’re presenting this compilation in a bid to encourage a comradely discussion around these issues. As mentioned previously, these pieces were published on Thinking Out Loud and that pretty much sums up what we’ve been doing! We welcome your views on what we’ve written.