The collective nature of one’s existence is the heart of this book. A transfeminist essay on the street situation, a way to think and discuss the militant task or a millefeuille as its author says Florencia Montes Paz, in an attempt to give an image to the idea of capillarity that the book proposes: “We think of it as a way to establish discussions in the territory, in the daily lives of those of us who have militant tasks or those of us who are accompanying people in situations of crisis from institutional places. vulnerability,” he explains. The dimension that the book takes in this context is crucial: Faced with the government’s proposal to design individualistic and meritocratic lives, the trench is built from collectivizing existence as a daily practice.
“Accompanying is political” also inaugurates Abducting Editions, the publishing house of No tan Distintes, an organization made up of women and dissidents who accompany – and are made up of – people who were or are homeless. The book is a cross between the history of No Tan Distintes and the concerns of its author who is also the founder of the organization back in 2010: “It is a book signed by Flor and authored by her, but at the same time it is quite a fold of multiple construction. Not only in the sense of speech, but also in its dust jacket (a silkscreen) with one more fold, which is the manuscript, the image, the pictorial. “Everything intertwined to account in that case for all the layers of the discussion we bring,” he says. Daniela Camozzieditor and part of the organization.
Accompanying is a between
Between the definitions, the research and one’s own experience, reading the book is a meticulous journey through the task of accompanying, dismembering its meaning into ten principles that are listed in Chapter 2: put the body, link from affection, compose support, register desire, cushion violence, respect the process, sustain over time, consolidate ethics, build a code and fight with all.
“We call accompaniment the multiplicity that is made up when accompanying another person in a specific situation.” In that multiplicity appears the between “which is always relational, it is not something that is offered, nor received, it is not an object that is delivered.”
In chapter 4 there is the idea of interdependence that goes to the heart of the discussion: “It is a Butlerian idea that there is no individualism or autonomy in life but rather that what there is is interconnection between lives and that we must think about taking care of that between”, says Montes Paz, underlining the binding order of the entire issue. In this context, the book is daring, not only because of its mode of production but also because it brings up a core discussion between individualism and collectivism: “This is a collective book and I think how the government is attacking everything that has to do with the collective, to the point that he uses the word collectivist as an insult. It is very important in this context that we remember and emphasize certain practices and demands that are unavoidable, such as the power of the collective.. We also pay a lot of attention to how this installation of the fascist and violent is in the singular body as well as in the collective as well,” says Camozzi.
“Putting people who suffer responsible for these sufferings is part of the government program,” explains Montes Paz. The government’s policy of “cleaning the streets” of homeless people Jorge Macri It is the other side without metaphors of what the book is about to bring. The conservative right presents the well-being of neighbors as an individual demand that nullifies the relationships, conflicts and social structures that enable the housing problem.. In this sense, the accompaniment proposed by the book is committed to a transfeminist character that transcends the identity perspective: “It implies not only dismantling the universality of the category people and registering that it accompanies a body crossed by multiple assignments-determinations that are expressed in forms of violence, also implies accompanying against the grain of what integrated global capitalism has designed for that body.”
In this sense, “Accompanying is political” does not lend itself to explicitly academic language but rather to a perspective all terrain who takes the time to stop repeatedly on the difference between individuality and singularity, in short to continue contributing to the same discussion: “It is one thing to produce individuals, in the sense that Guattari thinks about it.” which would be the codes of integrated world capitalism and reinforce that autonomous subjectivity, that believes that it can exist by itself and that reinforces the egoic place, all capitalist values. On the other hand, the process of singularity is not to reinforce – in this case in the accompaniment – the individuation of people, but to focus on the process that involves the desires of each person, the history, what makes it singular but in relation to others, I would say. Guattari with the cosmos, with the social, with the political” concludes the author.
The end of the introduction states that “a book is written when it can”, in the case of ““Accompanying is Political”, is published in a national political context of return to liberalism where the impact is on the most vulnerable sectors. Its reading, which ranges from the macro to the micro, is capable of capturing not only the turn to the right in government practices and at the State level, but also in one’s own work and daily life.
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