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CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE SECOND AUTONOMIA

Zinesters for Utopia!

It has been some months since the first “Autonomia-Zine for queer-/feminist Self-organizing and Empowerment” was published and we decided to continue with this project. We think, that FLINTA*-Perspectives (By FLINTA* we mean Perspectives of Women*. Lesbian, Inter*-, Non-Binary-, Trans*, and Agender Persons) need more space and need to be heard in our radical left context. As well there is always more to say, we have to deal with new and different problems, we discuss new topics, we have to mourn and fight new and old (patriarchal) Bullshit and there happen and happened great queer-/feminist actions that need to be celebrated. If you want to participate and bring your perspective to our zine collective, and if you’d like to do editorial work, read texts, think and discuss together, or drink a lot of coffee, then write us a mail to autonomia-zine@riseup.net or try to contact us via other paths :)
 
For the next Autonomia we chose a focus following the 8th March campaign “Kein Zurück zur NORMalität – Aus der Krise in die Utopie!” (We don’t want to go back to NORMality – Out of the crisis into Utopia!”). NORMality sucks and we are fed up by crises, we want to know for what utopian ideas you and we fight for, where we already have that, or are able to live our utopias, how many different ideas of a different world there are and why we need utopian ideas!
Also this time we don’t only ask for big social theories, but want to give space for personal stories, fiction (maybe even science-fiction considering the topic), pictures, or what ever medium you want to use to spread your ideas. 
We already collected some questions that came to our mind while we were discussing over the next Autonomia: 
 
  • What do you, your group, your collective, your living context, … personally mean when you say utopia?
  • How do you call what you fight for, are there different words you find more adequate than utopia, and why?
  • Why do we need utopian ideas?
  • What stops you from reaching your utopias, and against what and in which ways do you need to fight?
  • Where do you already have little peninsulas on which you try to live your life differently and how do you organize these peninsulas?
  • …
 
We try to make different modes of writing possible and give space to a queer-/feminist approach to the production of knowledge. Now it is your turn to start: alone, together, as a collective, as many as you want and send us our utopian ideas, we will print and publish them!
 
We’d be very glad if you are willing to write a few sentences to your perspective. Meaning for example, who you are, how you are living and what things you are confronted with in your daily life. Of course it is your choice how much you want to mention and open up about. You can also send in material anonymously or as a group. We further ask for a use of language that is sensitive to gender and discrimination. How exactly you will realize this in your content is your choice.
We will not change content for general adjustments.
 
If you’d like to read the last Autonomia Zine, or you want to know some more about the project visit autonomiamagazin.blackblogs.org.
Send us your pieces till the beginning of June to autonomia-zine@riseup.net. 
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Last Call!

To complete our zine, we will be taking last submissions until the 15th of Octobre. At he end of the month we will finally print! We look forward to all your texts, pictures, drawings, comics etc.. Don’t hestitate to also tell your friends.

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Autonomia Zine for queer- /feminist self-organizing and empowerment – How did we get here and what is it supposed to be?

A little trip back in time: a short reflection on the 8th of march

The time around the 8th of march showed us how big of an impact the networking of many different queer- /feminists groups and individuals can have. Actions within this context were collected and published with the hashtag #feministischkämpfen (feministfights) and at feministischkaempfen.blackblogs.org to enable a wider access to the public. Especially around the 8th of march many leftist inter-sectional events and actions were organized.

The start of this weekend was the action day on the 6th of march against violence against women* at which “Frauen*streik”, a group of chilean women, fridays for future and further more performed “las tesis” in front of the first police department. The performance was meant to mark pigs and the state as part of the oppressive and patriarchal system. On the 7th of march several actions took place. At noon the women’s* demonstration of the kurdish women’s councils, which demonstrated in solidarity with all women* who fight against patriarchal, neoliberal, fashist and racist violence took place in the city center. In the evening, male dominated public places like the “Konstablerwache” or “Alt Sachsenhausen” were taken back by an angry FLINT*-only “We reclaim the night” demonstration. At this event the FLINT*-Mob marched through “Alt-Sachsenhausen” and marked the places, which are known for sexualised violence with color bombs.
The 8th of march was dedicated to the strike and collectivization of reproductive work (Care Work, domestic work). FLINTQ* gathered in striking-cafes and started marching from there to the “Römerberg” to feministically relax in public. This is just a fraction of the actions that took place. You can find further ones in the blog mentioned above.

While working together, we once again felt the potential and strength of FLINTQ*-organizing and networking. We often couldn’t find our perspectives in “the daily and normative cis-male dominated political activism”. But especially from that position we want to denounce the patriarchal-capitalist system with our actions!
This system is inscribed on us as women, lesbians, inter-, trans- and queers daily. And we will not stop, until we have overcome this bullshit!
Through bundled press work, many feminist actions and the attention that we can reach through that for feminist fights and struggles, through getting to know each other better and through empowering each other we realized, that we shouldn’t look at our work as isolated. But instead that we can only continue and get further by intertwining our struggles and working together.

Even though it was our claim from the beginning to include intersectional perspectives in our feminist work and to fight a joint international fight, even though we knew clearly that not all of us are affected by oppression and patriarchy in the same way: we sadly had to find out that we are further from that goal than we might have thought. We were not able to create a space in which queer perspectives from black women and women of color were displayed loudly and clear. Because of that, some people were excluded from our political work. We are sorry for that.

Why we want to publish a Zine…

Even though there was a strong an empowering output existent around the 8th of march, there were many feminist perspectives and actions that didn’t find a place in the last edition of the “Swing”. Since this is not a new phenomenon in the media, we are now taking our publicity into our own hands to break the male dominated discourse once and for all!

In doing so our wish to continously make our struggles and perspectives visible was only strengthened. So we decided to publish our own queer-/feminist magazine.

In this Zine, many different texts, pictures, poetry and further more shall be collected. The main topics we thought of were empowerment, self organizing as well as local and international queer-/feminist fights and struggles. These texts are supposed to gather from subjective /individual and collective perspectives of fighting FLINTS* out there. One of our aims is, to reflect the intertwining of Political and Private in our fights. We explicitly ask for articles /output that are not /not just based on facts or theories, but that also portray the emotional inheritant of our politics. Dare to describe and write/draw/create your own perspectives!
Everyone has the possibility to send in their texts, or whatever you are thinking of.

If there is not enough space for all submissions in the first edition we will definitivly see that as reason to publish a second one!

Editorial Stuff:

As a small circle of people who want to publish this zine, we do not see ourselves in the role of regular editors. The main idea of this zine is to make queer-/feminist perspectives of the radical left in Frankfurt visible. Since we cannot represent all of those and since we have to start off with the knowledge, that this zine too will be incomplete in its range of perspectives, we see ourselves in the role of supporters. We give the structuring, the layout and the financial backup of the magazin. At the same time we want to maintain the right to sort out harmful and discriminating content. Everything that is content by the “editors” will be marked accordingly. For example, we will place small info boxes at the side of texts to explain complicated  language/words or similar things. It is important to us, that the texts remain accessible, even if they contain lot’s of theory.

We’d be very glad if you are willing to write a few sentences to your perspective. Meaning for example, who you are, how you are living and what things you are confronted with in your daily life. Of course it is your choice how much you want to mention and open up about. You can also send in material anonymously or as a group. We further ask for a use of language that is sensitive to gender and discrimination. How exactly you will realize this in your content is your choice.
We will not change content for general adjustments.

Submissions:

For security reasons we want to mention that it is best to submit material in an encrypted way or from a trash-mail. That way, the institutions of repression cannot retrace the origin of submissions.
Send your content to autonomia-zine@riseup.net until the 1st of september!

Enough about us, now it’s your turn….

We are excited to read from you!