Do It Yourself A Handbook for Changing our World Edited by The Trapese Collective www.handbookforchange.org Pluto P Press LONDON • ANN ARBOR, MI Trapese 00 pre iii 11/4/07 15:12:26 First published 2007 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 www.plutobooks.com Copyright © The Trapese Collective 2007 The right of The Trapese Collective to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial- ShareAlike 2.0 England and Wales Licence. Permission for reproduction is granted by the editors and the publishers free of charge for voluntary, campaign and community groups. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ or write to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. Reproduction of the text for commercial purposes, or by universities or other formal teaching institutions is prohibited without the express permission of the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Hardback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2638 2 ISBN-10 0 7453 2638 2 Paperback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2637 5 ISBN-10 0 7453 2637 4 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on paper accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council and is suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed and bound in the European Union by Gutenberg Press, Malta Trapese 00 pre iv 11/4/07 15:12:26 contents List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgements ix Glossary xi Introduction: Do it yourself 1 1. Why we need holistic solutions for a world in crisis 11 2. How to get off the grid 28 3. Why do it without leaders 50 4. How to make decisions by consensus 63 5. Why society is making us sick 78 6. How to manage our own health 94 7. Why we still have a lot to learn 108 8. How to inspire change through learning 120 9. Why we are what we eat 139 10. How to set up a community garden 154 11. Why we need cultural activism 171 12. How to prank, play and subvert the system 187 13. Why we need autonomous spaces in the fi ght against capitalism 201 14. How to set up a self-managed social centre 216 15. Why we need to reclaim the media 233 16. How to communicate beyond TV 246 17. Why we need to take direct action 262 18. How to build active campaigns 277 Conclusion: Changing our worlds 292 Index 299 Trapese 00 pre v 11/4/07 15:12:26 illustrations 1.1 The permaculture fl ower 18 2.1 An eco-home 29 2.2 A haybox 32 2.3 Solar shower 1 33 2.4 Solar shower 2 33 2.5 Solar shower 3 34 2.6 Solar shower 4 34 2.7 Solar shower 5 35 2.8 Solar shower 6 36 2.9 Solar shower 7 36 2.10 Solar shower 8 37 2.11 A two-chamber compost toilet 39 2.12 Grey water system 42 2.13 Slow sand fi ltration at home 43 4.1 Conditions for good consensus 64 4.2 A model for small group consensus 65 4.3 Consensus hand signals 71 4.4 A typical spokescouncil 73 4.5 A model for spokescouncil consensus 74 5.1 Zapatista health clinic 88 8.1 Poster advertising our workshops 122 8.2 Spidergram 126 8.3 Chair game 127 8.4 Timeline of world history and resistance 131 8.5 No Borders Tour of Asylum Shame, Leeds 132 8.6 Designing your own life: before and after 134 9.1 Resistance is fertile 145 9.2 The Cre8 Summit Community Garden, Glasgow 147 10.1 Design for a community garden 159 10.2 Crop rotation 160 10.3 Circular wire mesh compost bin 162 10.4 Wooden pallet compost bin 163 vi Trapese 00 pre vi 11/4/07 15:12:26 illustrations vii 10.5 Earthworm 164 10.6 Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) 164 10.7 Fat hen (Chenopodium alba) 165 10.8 Aphid 165 10.9 Ladybird 165 10.10 Slug 166 10.11 Beetle 166 11.1 Rebel clown at the G8 summit, Scotland 2005 172 11.2 Subvertising, Manchester, UK 179 11.3 The pink and silver block 182 12.1 Praise be, to therapy 192 12.2 Proposed Nike monument in Karlsplatz, Vienna 194 12.3 The Yes Men live on TV 195 13.1 The Square Social Centre, London, UK 206 13.2 Autonomous spaces in the UK and Ireland 209 14.1 Fitting a Yale lock 223 14.2 Fliers from UK social centres 224 14.3 Activities in UK social centres 227 15.1 Irish Indymedia website 239 15.2 Reclaim the media logo 240 16.1 Bristle: Bristol’s local monthly magazine 249 16.2 The Hate Mail spoof newspaper 252 17.1 Action against Shell 269 17.2 Workers’ assembly at the Zanon occupied factory, Argentina 270 17.3 Demonstration in Billin, Palestine against the building of the apartheid wall 272 18.1 Karabiner hand lock on 285 18.2 Tripod 285 Trapese 00 pre vii 11/4/07 15:12:26 The Trapese Collective is Alice Cutler, Kim Bryan and Paul Chatterton. After studying Social Anthropology, living in the Can Masdeu community in Barcelona, and campaigning with London Rising Tide, Alice has recently settled back in Brighton where she is putting her ideas into practice – running workshops, teaching English to asylum seekers, community gardening, writing and cooking at the Cowley Club social centre. Kim travels between Escanda (Spain), Dublin and Trapese (UK) trying to avoid getting tied up, but simultaneously wanting to settle down – juggling love, life, jobs, politics, worrying about ensuing climate chaos and growing vegetables. Paul can normally be found teaching and researching on autonomy and inter- national politics at Leeds University. His other lives include helping to set up a social centre, the Common Place, and a housing co-operative in Leeds, volunteering with Kiptik, a Zapatista solidarity group and spending time on his allotment. Previously, he has written Urban Nightscapes: Pleasure Spaces and Corporate Power (2003) and Taking Back Control: A journey through Argentina’s popular uprising (2004). Trapese 00 pre viii 11/4/07 15:12:26 acknowledgements In this book, we have tried to gather into one place many of the inspiring examples and ideas that we have come across in an attempt to make them more accessible and possible to realise. We see this as one part of our ongoing work to communicate these analyses and initiatives with as many people as we can. This book would not, of course, exist without the thousands of people who work away on these projects, campaigns and networks. It would not exist either without all the people who have helped us organise and who have come to our workshops over the years, asked questions, engaged with these debates and given us the motivation to write it. Our inspirations come from the many movements and people within them who are acting to make the world a more sustainable, fairer place. We would particularly like to thank everyone involved with: the Common Place, the Cowley Club, the Sumac Centre, Escanda, Can Masdeu, Seoma Sprai, and all the other radical social centres, Rising Tide, Schnews, Indymedia, Kiptik and the Zapatistas, No Borders Network, Clearer Channel, the Wombles, Seeds for Change, the Dissent! Network, Shell to Sea and Rossport Solidarity Camp, the Piqueteros, the Camp for Climate Action, CIRCA, Smash EDO, Corporate Watch, Café Rebelde, the Permaculture Association, PGA, (People’s Global Action), Activist Trauma Network, Via Campesina, Scottish Education for Action and Development, Cre8 Summit, Bristle, the Aubonne Bridge Campaign, Carbon Trade Watch, International Solidarity Movement, Anarchists Against the Wall, Earth First!, Food Not Bombs, Moulsecoomb Forest Garden, Xanadu and Cornerstone housing co-operatives in Leeds, EYFA, Mama Cash, Carbusters, Radical Routes, the Advisory Service for Squatters, Bicycology, and the many struggles against privatisation in the UK and beyond. There are also many specifi c people whose contributions and advice have made it possible to produce this book, and thanks to you all. Especially, we are very grateful to the chapter authors who had the time, patience and confi dence in us to contribute their work to this publication; Andy Goldring, Bryce Gilroy-Scott, Seeds for Change, Tash Gordon and Becs Griffi ths, Jennifer Verson, the Vacuum Cleaner, Stuart Hodkinson, Chekov Feeney, and Mick Fuzz. Also to the many people and groups who have added their experiences and stories that make this book what it is, including; Starhawk, George Marshall, Earth Haven, Malamo Korbetis, Jo and Tony ix Trapese 00 pre ix 11/4/07 15:12:26 x do it yourself: a handbook for changing our world Bryan, Warren Carter, Donna Armstrong, Ruth O’Brien, Graham Burnett, Insight Video, the Porkbolter, Mark B, Ziggy, Dave Morris, Fuzz, Freya, Anarchist 606, Isy, Claire Fauset, John Jordan, the Alberta Council for Global Co-operation and Nicola Montanga.