Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief

by Cindy Barukh Milstein (Editor)

"This intimate, moving, and timely collection of essays points the way to a world in which the burden of grief is shared, and pain is reconfigured into a powerful force for social change and collective healing." —Astra Taylor, author The People's Platform "A primary message here is that from tears comes the resolve for the struggle ahead." —Ron Jacobs, author of Daydream Sunset " Rebellious Mourning uncovers the destruction of life that capitalist development leaves in its trail. But it is also witness to the power of grief as a catalyst to collective resistance." —Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch We can bear almost anything when it is worked through collectively. Grief is generally thought of as something personal and insular, but when we publicly share loss and pain, we lessen the power of the forces that debilitate us, while at the same time building the humane social practices that alleviate suffering and improve quality of life for everyone. Addressing tragedies from Fukushima to Palestine, incarceration to eviction, AIDS crises to border crossings, and racism to rape, the intimate yet tenacious writing in this volume shows that mourning can pry open spaces of contestation and reconstruction, empathy and solidarity. With contributions from Claudia Rankine, Sarah Schulman, David Wojnarowicz, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, David Gilbert, and nineteen others. Cindy Milstein is the author of Anarchism and Its Aspirations , co-author of Paths toward Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism , and editor of the anthology Taking Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism .

Genres: Nonfiction, Grief, Essays, Death, Queer, Social Justice, Activism

412 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2017

About the author

Cindy Barukh Milstein is a diasporic queer Jewish anarchist and longtime organizer. They've been writing on anarchism for over two decades, and are the author of Anarchism and Its Aspirations and Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle. They edited the anthologies Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief and Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy, among others.

Reviews

[Audacia Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really pushed me to fully grapple with the idea that being present in movement work is doing grief work. For much of my activist life I’ve pushed down and away my feelings of grief, sadness, and anger or channeled them into overwork - via writing, vigils, protests, campaign planning. I believed that feelings are weakness and not helpful or productive. But in the last few years I’ve been thinking about the utility of feelings (ugh even putting it that way is wrong) in a different way, and this book really spoke to that. We must be able to bring our full, messy, grieving selves into movement and not treat the work like a space to be professionalized and sanitized of emotion.

[Maud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay this book was 412 pages not 200 JUST SO YOU KNOW I read a REALLY LONG BOOK
but it didn't feel like it because every essay was so awesome. Spans from about the time of the 80s AIDS crisis (Sarah Schulman, David Wojnarowicz) through coal country struggles, Palestine, Black Lives Matter, police shootings, to disability studies - so mostly pretty recent issues.
Written by those deeply invested in the struggles, most essays are very touching. They are sorrowful but strong. The general thesis of the book - that we can overcome anything if we are honest, open, and deliberate about working together - is one I firmly agree with. It is certainly not always easy but I took a lot of heart from this collection and I think everyone will be able to find at least one piece that deeply resonates, and hopefully spurs them into action.
<3<3

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there are some extremely well written and touching pieces in this collection, I didn’t think it delivered what it set out to do. There was little that was transformative nor reconfigerative vis a vis grief. Reading it during the times of covid and climate chaos should have made this an appropriate read but instead it came off flat. While all the testimonies show incredible resilience and that for many organizing is not an option but duty/responsibility, unless you are new to movements and their struggles and that death and trauma is a huge part of it, there is little more than that here. I’m fairly well versed in activist/anarchist praxis so maybe my expectations were too high but a friend had bought this book after the tragic death of a comrade and I chatted yesterday about it and she had also hoped & assumed it would tackle head on ‘we are all traumatized by the different processes of grief and mourning we are experiencing, here is some some reflections with critical & radical analysis on what healing collectively and individually can look like and be’. She never finished the book.

[cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first few essays in this book grabbed me and shook me, and I wanted ALL of them to do that, but will happily settle for several spectacular essays and many other fine ones in this collection that looks at the collective work of grieving and mourning. The essay 'Feeling is Not a Weakness' by Benji Hart reeled me right in.

" I suggest", Benji says, "we need to recognize both when sadness is keeping us from moving and when the urgency of movement is blocking our need to feel grief." WOW did that resonate. And never more than in this moment, this movement, this now.

And then Benji goes on to say, "Let us not push forward so decidedly that we do not stop to mourn. It is not merely okay to grieve. It is wholly necessary if we are to remain connected to our collective power, truly invested in liberation, and whole enough to sustain ourselves in struggle."

And in the next essay, Claudia Rankine brings that to life in such a visceral way in her chapter called 'The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning', in which she recounts a conversation with a friend who tells her that when she gave birth to her son, that before nursing or naming or anything else, she had her first thought, "I must get him out of this country" - wanting to protect her black son from this country that creates this condition of life. As Claudia Rankine says, "For her, mourning lived in real time inside her and her son's reality : At any moment she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black : no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black."

A recognition of the collective mourning, a call to remember mourning lives side by side with action, a historical perspective asking us to not look away from the grief that is so at the base of what we are fighting for and fighting against. These essays discuss the grief of racism, the grief of AIDS and the genocidal policies that ignored it for so long, the grief of those killed by police brutality and those who are disappeared, the grief of sexual abuse, and the grief of loss of community, among many others.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful and powerful collection. It's important to make space to feel the feelings, to grieve our losses, and to remember all of the pain that fuels so many movements. The stories were deeply personal and covered a wide range of subjects and it was refreshing to read after reading so much dry research and history. I also learned quite a bit. Cindy Milstein's essay at the end made me cry and I loved it. She's great and you should totally read this book.

[Amy Layton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautiful, touching, visceral book.  Filled with collections of essays, experiences, interviews, and photographs, this anthology makes for a read like no other.  Cindy Milstein and the other authors discuss their experiences surrounding tragedies such as border-crossing, the AIDS epidemic, Fukushima, Palestine, incarceration.  Such events and experiences are traumatic, filled with death, yet they argue that as a community, such tragedies can be acknowledged and worked through collectively.  But how?

For some, that "how" is through activism.  My personal favorite essay, "Dust of the Desert", discusses the traumatic experiences of those who have illegally crossed the Mexican-USA border in order to find a better life.  It's too hot, too cold, and they're too hungry, too thirsty.  And the stories that we receive and learn about are from those who actually made it to the other side.  What of those left behind?  What bodies are in the midst of the desert?  And how does one begin to work through that?  What does it feel like to be the keeper of those stories?

The design of this text is phenomenal, and all of the stories are hard in their own ways, but spaced out just enough so that reading them isn't draining.  Rebellious Mourning is truly a non-fiction anthology unlike anything else I've read.  This is an astounding read, and absolutely worth delving into.

Review cross-listed here!

[Sølvi Goard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I wanted a strategy for grief from this, and it felt uncomfortable adjusting to the fact that it wasn't going to do that. It made me cry, a lot. Not just from the tragedy, the sadness, but in the richness and fullness of emotional tools that we build to approach injustice and loss.

[Corvus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really beautiful. I've loved everything Cindy Milstein has written and edited and this is no exception. Aside from gathering a wide variety of interesting pieces, the actual editing of each polished piece is clearly there throughout. I have found that lacking in many anthologies unfortunately.

My favorite piece was probably Schulman's essay "The Gentrification of AIDS," but honestly, all of these are stellar. I initially was reading this as part of firestorm'd reading group, but a bunch of life showed up and I couldn't participate. But, I'm glad that it got me to pull this off of my large to-read shelf because I bought it a while ago and never got around to it.

[Samu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to judge. Some essays were definitely four stars, some two. This book would have benefited from having been a 100 pages shorter. I lost my capacity to take in more somewhere around page 300 and just skimmed the rest. While I was reading, I thought a few times that, "This text will certainly stay with me for longer" but now, having finished, can't remember a single one in detail. I think it's mostly because there was just too much of everything here.

[Victoria Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

AJ Withers’ “Cracks in my Universe” should be read by everyone who is part of a community or constellation of someone who has a chronic (or acute) health condition—especially the “what happens if you say you’ll show up and then flake.”

[Sohum · Rating 4 out of 5]

frequently affecting and useful, though the preponderant whiteness of the collection is limiting.

[Scott Neigh]

A powerful collection of mostly personal essays (plus a few interviews) about collective experiences and expressions of grief occasioned by all manner of harms – youth murdered by police, sexual assault, racism, colonial occupation, AIDS, the prison-industrial complex, ableist abandonment, the violence of borders, and much more. A more honest grappling with emotion and with loss than we're usually capable of in social movement contexts, and moments of willingness to name not just the harms caused by easily identified enemies but also the ways that systematic failure to care for each other so easily reproduces trauma. Without at all losing sight of how tremendously difficult it can be, most of the pieces point towards the value of speaking over silence, of making grief collective as part of challenging the conditions that created harm and loss to begin with, of refusing the oppressively enforced forgetting of trauma in favour of the vocal remembrance that is the basis for transformative resistance. Often quite difficult to read, but worth it.

I wrote a post responding to one particular essay here: https://scottneigh.blogspot.ca/2018/0...

[Micah · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Cindy saw that hospice workers and death doulas were able to hold space in a way that anarchists weren't, she went and made an entire book on how leftists can do better.
After meeting with Cindy at this year's Anarchist book fair in Victoria I may have started a book group at the Spartacus Collective just to make myself read this. It's a collection of pieces, so it's hit or miss in terms of craft, but I did learn more about global movements as a whole. Plus, the pieces that stuck out (Cindy's, Awry's, Sandusky's) are still kicking around in my head today, especially as I find myself dealing with the deaths of more people in my life as the opiate crisis/the passage of time takes its toll on my communities.
I'd highly recommend this for anyone trying to make meaning or movement out of severe grief.

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been slowly working my way through this book for nearly a year now and as a book-a-day reader, that requires an explanation. “Rebellious Mourning” is a compilation of grief from accumulated perspectives of social activists doing front-line work. The stories collected range from the chronically disabled, migrants along the border, life in the wake of nuclear disaster to LGBTQ activism, racial violence and sexual abuse, and every hard thing we humans experience in-between.

The aim of this anthology of grief is to give voice to the silent grief we are all already carrying, from living in a world so desperate for reform, not just the grief of bereavement we are most comfortable expressing. The editor of this work, Cindy Milstein turns to the question posed by philosopher Judith Butler, “What counts as a liveable life and a grievable death?” and allows the marginalized and those serving them to tell their stories in response.

These stories are excruciating to read. Many of them are gut-wrenching and visceral. But is turning toward the suffering of grief necessary to galvanize change? Is it an act of political protest to honor the suffering of those deemed mute by the systems that govern us?

As Judith Butler reminds us: “To grieve, and to make grief itself into a resource for politics, is not to be resigned to inaction, but it may be understood as the slow process by which we develop a point of identification with suffering itself. The disorientation of grief-‘Who have I become?’ or, indeed, ‘What is left of me?’ ‘What is it in the Other that I have lost?’­ posits the ‘I’ in the mode of unknowingness.”

I don’t suggest this is a light and easy read, that you’ll learn something hopeful about yourself or our world from reading it. But I do believe those of us with the privilege of not enduring the oppression of these systems have a responsibility to witness the grief those systems are inflicting on our neighbors. This is an excellent resource for that humbling work.

[JJ Moon · Rating 4 out of 5]

in a time of exponential pain and loss that are threatened to be drowned out by the mistakened belief that "we" have moved "post post beyond beyond" the viral pandemic and ready to go back to "normal," this collection of essays grounded me with its exploration of grief.

a few months ago, i was taught the ball-in-a-box model of grief: over time, the ball of grief grows smaller and bounces off the box of life less and less. recently, i came across a counter model: grief remains the same size, but instead life grows around this ball of grief. if time and memory can only accumulate in a unilateral manner, then the latter model makes more sense to me and aligns with what these essays offer: grappling with immense loss and figuring out how to grow life, practice care, and build community around grief.

my favorite quotes:

"maybe dignity, out of the ashes we're handed too frequently, is the only justice we can hope for in this life.

as the heart continues to break, dignity." - cindy milstein

"as anarchists, we do not make a fetish out of death... we do not prefer our comrades, friends, and lovers to be cold and stern memorials, or rose-colored memories revived in the haze of sentimental poetry. we prefer them besides us, creating with us the spaces and struggles of our liberation, and fighting alongside us in defense of our lives. we do not ask for martyrs." - patrick o'donoghue

thank you to emma who gifted me this book for my 23rd birthday 1.5 years ago, and thank you to sohum who discussed this with me when he had long finished it and i had barely read half of the book.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A recommendation from a friend in the movement.

One quote that I wrote down, though the entire anthology made me ache:

"My sadness is proof of my love, and my love proves that I am driven by profound spiritual bonds to my people, present and yet to come."

I recently read Laura Hudson's profile of Timothy Morton text and hyperobjects.

Hudson writes:

The word hyperobject offers a useful shorthand for why threats like global warming are so difficult to understand or accept: They threaten our survival in ways that defy traditional modes of thinking about reality and humiliate our cognitive powers, a disorienting shift that sends many people reeling into superstition, polarization, and denial.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a hyperobject, Hudson writes, as is climate change. Reading about them slid some of the experiences of our present day into some focus for me, giving some texture to the grief and mourning that I've felt bloom and blossom in my life.

It does not feel hopeful. I do not feel hopeful.

It seems that we are hurtling ever faster toward climate disaster, that Black and Brown communities continue to be terrorized by the police and white supremacy, that disabled folxs are choosing to end their lives because they no longer want to live in poverty on the slim benefits that the government provides them. And still, many are a part of the movement, a movement, and this anthology brought together so many voices on the frontlines, thinking and feeling through their emotions as they continued to work. There are many beautiful essays, photographs, and it's a work so needed for this time.

[Aian · Rating 5 out of 5]

by far one of my favorite reads this year. very much recommend!

i started reading a handful of the essays that were assigned from a class called "death & dying", and then i continued to read it. each essay held so much so i read 1-2 at a time

so much from this collection resonated for me. especially at this current political moment as we witness multiple genocides in Palestine, Sudan, and the Congo, and as we witness a lack of disability justice and community care as our communities are subject to covid and other illness. plus on-going surveillance, policing, murder, and violence towards those that are bipoc, unhoused, queer, trans, undocumented, etc.

these essays uplifted community members, activists, organizers, comrades, martyrs, youth, and more who are no longer with us. there were stories from across the globe highlighting resistance despite the threat of violence such as in Palestine and Mexico. there were also stories from sf about those murdered by police and those pushed out due to gentrification

how are we thinking about and experiencing grief, death, and mourning, especially as so much is political and collective? how are we coming together and transforming our pain with one another? how are we building our movement and continuing the fight for liberation?

[Concertina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creo que este libro podría ser ETERNO, es una recopilación de ensayos de diferentes estratos, países y personas sobre las muchas maneras de ver y asimilar la muerte… ya que no todo es esta idealización que debemos morir de viejos y después de haber llevado una vida plena. Existen las desapariciones forzadas, la pérdida de seres queridos por enfermedades llenas de prejuicios, guerras y bueno. En el ideal la muerte debería ser un proceso melancólico y voy a decir bello, pero no es así para la gran parte de la humanidad… más viviendo en México. Hay una parte a lo que está pasando con el pueblo palestino que vale mucho la pena leer. Todos deberíamos tener derecho de honrar y despedir a nuestros muertos.

[Jamille Rancourt · Rating 5 out of 5]

It felt timely to read this book in the midst of a global pandemic. At a time when collective grief is powerful and painful, when the cracks in our unjust systems are being exposed, these essays felt healing. So often, it is difficult to place the pain we feel at the state and unjust systems. Pain that often leads to action without a chance to feel. I felt years of grief awoken and then healed while reading this. I loved how this anthology shows us how grief is borderless. We can grieve collectively and in global solidarity with the fight for freedom around the world. As I read, I mourned for Palestine, Fukushima, and Ayotzinapa. This is a visceral read. Highly recommended.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot to think about here.

Some of the features where you have families of missing people, or dead people where the bodies are being held hostage, underscore how while grief can be there for a long time, it is hard to make progress -- going through mourning -- while the situation is ongoing.

I was most interested in some of the parts that related to gentrification, giving me new thoughts on it.

One referencing hospice hit hardest; but that was inevitable, my mother is in it right now.

Several of the pieces have an anarchist viewpoint, which may be off-putting for some.

Read over a longer time period so there could be time to reflect.

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely brutal, urgent, inspiring collection of essays. The books takes the lens of collective mourning as a rebellious and socially constructive act and explores a wide variety of tragedies, failures, and successes. Much of this writing is painfully raw, but the unifying theme of rebellion and group mourning gives a slightly hopeful tinge to even the most depressing writings. Highly recommended.

[Molly Roach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief edited by Cindy Milstein

This book made me feel so many things. It was so good, I loved every submission. They gave me time and space to grieve for things both big and small. They showed me that grief can be revolutionary. I think that you all should read this collection, especially now. There’s so much to grieve for in the world and this can provide an effective way to feel that anger and sadness in community with others.
5/5⭐️

[Fee Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this has helped me synthesize both grappling with personal grief, and finding a larger scope for continued work in social justice. To be in the streets in protest, even as an ally, is to witness grief. A beautiful volume from brilliant minds & storytellers, across race, class, gender, orientation & expression, government, & religion. Reading this is helping widen the scope at injustices worldwide, and how I may continue engaging and asking questions. Will absolutely return to this.

[Ems · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an astounding collection that I've been meaning to read for awhile and was pleasantly surprised to pick up at my local library. So many powerful stories of channelling immense grief into collective liberation movements. The two essays that really stuck out to me were Lee Sandusky's “Dust of the Desert" and the editor Cindy Milstein's “Ghost Stories/ Rock, Paper, Ash". Can't stop thinking about alot of these stories. Looking to get a physical copy of this book asap.

[Madeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

helpful and critical intervention in a needed discussion of the ways that affect and vulnerability need to factor into our organizing strategies. reckoning with how to cope with the state of being haunted in a way that doesn't explain away our pain but gives hope for submitting to the process of being tranformed :'(

[Soph Nova · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely collection. Very intense, as the subject matter would suggest, but still absolutely worth the read. Covered some struggles I knew a lot about, some I didn't - and the range of formats was also great.

(On a logistical note, this is not the correct number of pages in the book...)

[sylas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book bingo hua-silo winter 2018: political bent

[Michelle Pawlak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful collection, edited together in a way that lets each story of grief into the next. A beautiful reminder we grieve together.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

exactly what I needed for the end of 2019 - lyrical, honest and vulnerable. So many essays had me nodding and underlining

[Zoe Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5