nanopolitics handbook - Minor Compositions

We met for our first nanopolitics debrief at the end of the intense monththat began with demonstration in November 10th, which lead to theoccupation and trashing of the Conservative Party headquarters at Millbank,and ended with the kettling 7 of thousands outside Parliament on theday the bill to triple the university tuition fees was passed. Keeping ourexperiences alive, talking them through together, we created a forum toallow us to support each other beyond the day of protest itself, a forumwhich facilitated what many friendly conversations would, but did so withmore focus and depth: the political creation of an affective, analytic andnarrative common.We shared our recent experiences with police violence, we worked onour fears and paranoias created or made worse by the repression, and talkedabout our different needs, and how to prepare ourselves better; how to makeit through ‘the kettle’, and how to avoid it. How to deal with the different levelsof acute violence, the intensity of the experience. And how to strengthenthe group that is shaped through sharing this experience, move from beingsubjected group to becoming a collective subject, to making leaving the kettlesomething more than a dispersal of a number of sca(r)red individuals. Wediscussed how we could contribute to creating a sense of belonging beyondthe spectacle by opening up spaces for learning everywhere. We talked aboutthe need to learn from each other transversally, to fight for learning (doingourselves!), to create a pedagogy of occupation (learning about consensus,152