“Dispersion, itself, as that opposed to accumulation and concentration, but also dispersion of that which fixes and shapes it. Dispersion of power, war on state. Dispersion against centralization.” Rául Zibechi
I'm glad I took the time to read this. It pushed me to consider the role of the artist in community. The artist, whose condition(s) of privilege work both for and against their desire(s) to transform the inevitable and ineffable. Zibechi's story of the Bolivian struggle and fight had me contemplating a much more subtle plight here on US soil, in neighborhoods that are inhabited by and then displace artists. The narrative usually goes, "Oh this neighborhood was rough before the artists came in, now they can't afford to live here." (See Williamsburg, Fort Point, etc) Historically those artists displaced others, often immigrants, the working class and working poor, and then shield themselves in privilege's most complicated factor, guilt. And before the displaced were displaced, there were the indigenous communities in those same zones. All displacement is temporary, the land is always owned by its ancestors. Zibechi: "Community is a particular, historical configuration of the common. The common as a virtuality that pulsates a is made manifest in the community, but doesn’t live fulfilled within it." Dispersing Power pushes us to interact with being agitated in our melancholic world, with a story of the Aymara and El Alto people. This book engenders action. Since the majority of humans on this planet are either colonized or colonizers in some post-colonial/primordial combination, the Bolivian people offer social movements, conditions, and strategies of revolution, that up until now have been mostly buried to the broader public. But that's just me, maybe you will get something even greater from this incredible book.