Mutual aid

{{short description|Voluntary exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit}}

File:Irish-stew dinners for the poor. Wellcome L0003267.jpg Conder Street Mission Hall, 1881]]

Mutual aid is an organizational model where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. This can include physical resources like food, clothing, or medicine, as well as services like breakfast programs or education. These groups are often built for the daily needs of their communities, but mutual aid groups are also found throughout relief efforts, such as in natural disasters or pandemics like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resources are shared unconditionally, contrasting this model from charity where conditions for gaining access to help are often set, such as means testing or grant stipulations. These groups often go beyond material or service exchange and are set up as a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions.

Mutual aid groups are distinct in their drive to flatten the hierarchy, searching for collective consensus decision-making across participating people rather than placing leadership within a closed executive team. With this joint decision-making, all participating members are empowered to enact change and take responsibility for the group.

History

The term "mutual aid" was popularized by the anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin in his essay collection Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which argued that cooperation, not competition, was the driving mechanism behind evolution, through biological mutualism.{{cite book |author1=Peter Kropotkin |author2=Victor Robinson |title=Mutual Aid – A Factor of Evolution: With an Excerpt from Comrade Kropotkin by Victor Robinson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CbLoDwAAQBAJ |chapter=Introduction |date=26 May 2020 |publisher=Read Books Limited |isbn=978-1-5287-9015-4}}{{cite book |title=Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution |url=http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution |last=Kropotkin |first=Petr |date=1902 |via=The Anarchist Library |access-date=6 May 2020}} Kropotkin argued that mutual aid has pragmatic advantages for the survival of humans and animals and has been promoted through natural selection, and that mutual aid is arguably as ancient as human culture. This recognition of the widespread character and individual benefit of mutual aid stood in contrast to the theories of social Darwinism that emphasized individual competition and survival of the fittest, and against the ideas of liberals such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who thought that cooperation was motivated by universal love.{{Citation|last=Bertram|first=Christopher|title=Jean Jacques Rousseau|date=2020|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/rousseau/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Winter 2020|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-12-11|archive-date=2021-03-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210325184914/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/rousseau/|url-status=live}}

Practice

Mutual aid participants work together to figure out strategies and resources to meet each other's needs, such as food, housing, medical care, and disaster relief while organizing themselves against the system that created the shortage in the first place.{{cite web |last=H |first=Katie |date=27 April 2020 |title=From Mutual Aid To Dual Power: How Do We Build A New World In The Shell Of The Old? |url=https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/from-mutual-aid-to-dual-power-how-do-we-build-a-new-world-in-the-shell-of-the-old/ |access-date=28 July 2020 |website=Plan C}}

Typically, mutual-aid groups are member-led, member-organized, and open to all to participate in. They often have non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic structures, with members controlling all resources. They are egalitarian in nature and designed to support participatory democracy, equality of member status, power-shared leadership, and consensus-based decision-making.{{cite book |last=Turner |first=Francis J. |title=Canadian encyclopedia of social work |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediacana00turn |url-access=limited |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press |year=2005 |isbn=0-88920-436-5 |location=Waterloo, Ont. |pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediacana00turn/page/n359 337]–8}}

Some challenges to the success of mutual aid groups include lack of technical experts, lack of funding, lack of public legitimacy,{{cite journal |last1=Zola |first1=I. K. |title=The problems and prospects of mutual aid groups. |journal=Rehabilitation Psychology |date=1972 |volume=19 |issue=4 |pages=180–183 |doi=10.1037/h0091061 |url=https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-06279-001 |access-date=December 17, 2020 |archive-date=September 20, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230920122803/https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-06279-001 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }} and institutionalization of social hierarchies.{{Cite journal|last=Izlar|first=Joel|date=2019-11-01|title=Radical social welfare and anti-authoritarian mutual aid|url=https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/10.1332/204986019X15687131179624|journal=Critical and Radical Social Work|language=en|volume=7|issue=3|pages=349–366|doi=10.1332/204986019X15687131179624|s2cid=211453572|issn=2049-8608|url-access=subscription}}

Examples

In the 1800s and early 1900s, mutual aid organizations included unions, the friendly societies that were common throughout Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,{{cite book |last1=Bacharach |first1=Samuel B. |last2=Bamberger |first2=Peter |last3=Sonnenstuhl |first3=William J. |title=Mutual aid and union renewal: cycles of logics of action |year=2001 |publisher=Cornell University |location=Ithaca, N.Y. |isbn=0-8014-8734-X |pages=173}} medieval craft guilds,{{cite book |last=Kropotkin |first=Peter |title=Mutual aid: a factor of evolution |year=2008 |publisher=Forgotten Books |location=[Charleston, SC] |isbn=978-1-60680-071-3 |pages=117}} the American "fraternity societies" that existed during the Great Depression providing their members with health and life insurance and funeral benefits,{{cite book |last=Beito |first=David T. |title=From mutual aid to the welfare state: fraternal societies and social services, 1890–1967 |year=2000 |publisher=Univ. of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill [u.a.] |isbn=0-8078-4841-7 |pages=1–2}} and the English working men's clubs of the 1930s that also provided health insurance.{{cite book |last=Shapely |first=Peter |title=Medicine, charity and mutual aid: the consumption of health and welfare in Britain, c. 1550–1950; [5th international conference of the European Association of Urban Historians, which was held in Berlin in summer 2000] |publisher=Ashgate |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7546-5148-2 |editor-last=Borsay |editor-first=Anne |edition=[Online-Ausg.] |location=Aldershot [u.a.] |pages=7–8}} In the United States, mutual aid has been practiced extensively in marginalized communities, notably in Black communities, working-class neighborhoods, migrant groups, LGBT communities, and others.{{cite book |last=NEMBHARD |first=JESSICA GORDON |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/j.ctv14gpc5r |title=Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice |date=2014 |publisher=Penn State University Press |isbn=978-0-271-06216-7 |doi=10.5325/j.ctv14gpc5r |jstor=10.5325/j.ctv14gpc5r}}{{cite journal |last1=Bacon |first1=Jacqueline |last2=McClish |first2=Glen |date=2000 |title=Reinventing the Master's Tools: Nineteenth-Century African-American Literary Societies of Philadelphia and Rhetorical Education |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3886116 |journal=Rhetoric Society Quarterly |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=19–47 |doi=10.1080/02773940009391187 |jstor=3886116 |s2cid=144385631 |issn=0277-3945|url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=Colin C. |last2=Windebank |first2=Jan |date=2000 |title=Self-help and Mutual Aid in Deprived Urban Neighbourhoods: Some Lessons from Southampton |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43084635 |journal=Urban Studies |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=127–147 |doi=10.1080/0042098002320 |jstor=43084635 |bibcode=2000UrbSt..37..127W |s2cid=155040089 |issn=0042-0980 |access-date=2020-12-11 |archive-date=2022-04-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424225059/https://www.jstor.org/stable/43084635 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last1=Hernández-Plaza |first1=Sonia |last2=Alonso-Morillejo |first2=Enrique |last3=Pozo-Muñoz |first3=Carmen |date=2006 |title=Social Support Interventions in Migrant Populations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23721354 |journal=The British Journal of Social Work |volume=36 |issue=7 |pages=1151–1169 |doi=10.1093/bjsw/bch396 |jstor=23721354 |issn=0045-3102|url-access=subscription }} The Black Panther Party's urban food programs in the 1960s were another prominent example of mutual aid. During the AIDS crisis in the United States, many LGBT+ groups started mutual aid networks to provide medical care, support groups, and political activisim when the government chose to ignore the community.{{Cite news |last=Graceffo |first=Loretta |date=2020-10-06 |title=What activists who fought the AIDS crisis can teach us about organizing during a pandemic |url=https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/10/what-act-up-teaches-us-about-organizing-during-pandemic/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20241216094935/https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/10/what-act-up-teaches-us-about-organizing-during-pandemic/ |archive-date=2024-12-16 |access-date=2025-04-05 |work=Waging Nonviolence |language=en-US}} A Common Ground Relief mutual aid group organized to provide disaster relief for the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.{{r|Solnit}}

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mutual aid and grassroots solidarity groups around the world organized distribution networks for food and personal protective equipment.{{Cite journal |last1=Preston |first1=John |title=Rev. of Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During the COVID-19 Crisis |journal=Anarchist Studies |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=125–128 |date=2022-03-22 |id={{gale|A708386016}} |language=English |issn=0967-3393 |df=mdy-all }} The term "mutual aid", previously associated with anarchism, drifted into public parlance during the pandemic. Local mutual aid groups, sometimes as local as the street level, organized to help shop, deliver medicine, create games for kids,{{cite web |date=2020-05-14 |title='The way we get through this is together': mutual aid under coronavirus |first=Rebecca |last=Solnit |url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/mutual-aid-coronavirus-pandemic-rebecca-solnit |access-date=2020-06-14 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} offering civic connection during a time of isolation. Multiple online outlets ran stories on how to create a mutual aid group.{{cite magazine |last=Tolentino |first=Jia |author-link=Jia Tolentino |date=11 May 2020 |title=What Mutual Aid Can Do During a Pandemic |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/what-mutual-aid-can-do-during-a-pandemic |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=28 July 2020}}

Around the same time was the Black Lives Matter movement, which resulted in multiple protestors detained and arrested by police.{{Cite web |date=2020-06-04 |title=AP tally: Arrests at widespread US protests hit 10,000 |url=https://apnews.com/article/american-protests-us-news-arrests-minnesota-burglary-bb2404f9b13c8b53b94c73f818f6a0b7 |access-date=2025-04-05 |website=AP News |language=en}} Bail funds, which are community organizations that pays cash bail for people in need for free, is another example of a mutual aid organization.{{Cite web |last=Gaspar |first=David |date=2024-12-26 |title=Why Mutual Aid Is Vital to Criminal Justice Reform's Next Chapter |url=https://bailproject.org/learn/why-mutual-aid-is-vital-to-criminal-justice-reforms-next-chapter/ |access-date=2025-04-05 |website=The Bail Project |language=en-US}}

References

Bibliography

{{Cite book|last=Amaro Hernández|first=José|year=1983|title=Mutual Aid for Survival: The Case of the Mexican American|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oh1HAAAAMAAJ|publisher=Krieger|isbn=9780898745467}}
{{Cite book|editor-last=Awry|editor-first=Wren|year=2023|title=Nourishing Resistance: Stories of Food, Protest, and Mutual Aid|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7QhpEAAAQBAJ|publisher=PM Press|isbn=978-1-62963-996-3|lccn=2022943234}}
{{Cite book|last1=Bacharach|first1=Samuel B.|last2=Bamberger|first2=Peter|last3=Sonnenstuhl|first3=William J.|year=2001|title=Mutual Aid and Union Renewal: Cycles of Logics of Action|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A_o39enf6DsC|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=0-8014-8734-X|lccn=00-012151|access-date=2023-02-06|archive-date=2023-02-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206191129/https://books.google.com/books?id=A_o39enf6DsC|url-status=live}}
{{cite book|last=Baylouny|first=Anne Marie|year=2010|title=Privatizing Welfare in the Middle East: Kin Mutual Aid Associations in Jordan and Lebanon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VOleUU47AmMC|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-22195-7|lccn=2009045228}}
{{cite book|last=Beito|first=David T.|year=2000|title=From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FIOp0ofIwDwC|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=0-8078-4841-7|lccn=99-41895}}
{{cite book|last=Borkman|first=Thomasina|year=1999|title=Understanding Self-help/mutual Aid: Experiential Learning in the Commons|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EaCyXL2vvWEC|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=0-8135-2630-2|lccn=98-50649|access-date=2023-02-06|archive-date=2023-02-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206191130/https://books.google.com/books?id=EaCyXL2vvWEC|url-status=live}}
{{Cite book|editor-last1=Borsay|editor-first1=Anne|editor-last2=Shapely|editor-first2=Pete|year=2016|orig-year=2007|title=Medicine, Charity and Mutual Aid: The Consumption of Health and Welfare in Britain, c.1550–1950|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yogWDAAAQBAJ|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-7546-5148-2|lccn=2006030263|doi=10.4324/9781315594699 |last1=Borsay |first1=Anne }}
{{Cite book|editor-last1=Bridgen|editor-first1=Paul|editor-last2=Harris|editor-first2=Bernard|year=2007|title=Charity and Mutual Aid in Europe and North America since 1800|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-203-93240-7|lccn=2007031877}}
{{cite book|last=Delalande|first=Nicolas|year=2023|title=Struggle and Mutual Aid: The Age of Worker Solidarity|publisher=Other Press|isbn=9781635420111|lccn=2022027364}}
{{Cite book|last1=Firth |first1=Rhiannon|title=Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action|year=2022|isbn=978-0-7453-4046-3|publisher=Pluto Press|oclc=1288196115}}
{{cite book|editor-last1=Gitterman|editor-first1=Alex|editor-last2=Shulman|editor-first2=Lawrence|year=2005|title=Mutual Aid Groups, Vulnerable and Resilient Populations, and the Life Cycle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AK6rAgAAQBAJ|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=0-231-12885-1|lccn=2005056035}}
{{cite book|last1=Grubačić|first1=Andrej|author-link1=Andrej Grubačić|last2=O'Hearn|first2=Denis|author-link2=Denis O'Hearn|year=2016|title=Living at the Edges of Capitalism: Adventures in Exile and Mutual Aid|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=raowDwAAQBAJ|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520962484|lccn=2015036704}}
{{Cite book|editor-last1=Midgley|editor-first1=James|editor-last2=Hosaka|editor-first2=Mitsuhiko|year=2011|title=Grassroots Social Security in Asia: Mutual Aid, Microinsurance and Social Welfare|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-203-83178-6|lccn=2010031554}}
{{cite book|last=Moyse Steinberg|first=Dominique|year=2009|orig-year=2004|title=The Mutual-aid Approach to Working with Groups: Helping People Help One Another|edition=2nd|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-7890-1462-7|lccn=2004007025}}
{{Cite book|last1=Preston|first1=John|last2=Firth|first2=Rhiannon|year=2020|title=Coronavirus, Class and Mutual Aid in the United Kingdom|publisher=Springer|isbn=9783030577131}}
{{cite book|last1=Servigne|first1=Pablo|last2=Chapelle|first2=Gauthier|year=2022|title=Mutual Aid: The Other Law of the Jungle|publisher=Wiley|isbn=978-1509547920}}
{{cite book|editor-last1=Sitrin|editor-first1=Marina|editor-last2=Sembrar|editor-first2=Colectiva|year=2020|title=Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During the Covid-19 Crisis|publisher=Pluto Press|isbn=978-0-7453-4320-4|jstor=j.ctv12sdx5v|doi=10.2307/j.ctv12sdx5v|last1=Rebecca |first1=Solnit |s2cid=240768553 }}
{{cite book|editor-last1=Swain|editor-first1=Dan|editor-last2=Urban|editor-first2=Petr|editor-last3=Malabou|editor-first3=Catherine|editor-last4=Kouba|editor-first4=Petr|year=2021|title=Unchaining Solidarity: On Mutual Aid and Anarchism with Catherine Malabou|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VQNOEAAAQBAJ|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=9781538157961|lccn=2021034081}}
{{Cite book|last=Winfield Fretz|first=Joseph|year=2020|title=Christian Mutual Aid: A Handbook of Brotherhood Economics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HwUCEAAAQBAJ|publisher=Wipf and Stock|isbn=9781725283695}}

External links

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lReWpkn0dU Mutual Aid Societies] (lecture by Sheldon Richman)
[https://histphil.org/2020/03/24/mutual-aid-and-physical-distancing-are-not-new-for-black-and-racialized-minorities-in-the-americas/ Mutual aid and physical distancing is not new to the Black and racialized minorities in the Americas By Caroline S. Hossein.]

Category:Collectivism

Category:Communism

Category:Left-wing politics

Category:Mutualism (movement)

Category:Organizational theory

Category:Social anarchism

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Category:Syndicalism