Pre(watch&read) material:

Watch 8 Minutes with Silvia Federici interview on The People's Forum NYC (2019) and read an interview published on viewpointmag.com (2015)

Wxtch Craft lecture by Silvia Federici
'Reclaiming magic as subversive practice'*

*hosted by melanie bonajo

Aiming at controlling nature, the capitalist organisation of work must refuse the unpredictability implicit in the practice of magic, and the possibility of establishing a privileged relation with the natural elements, as well as the belief in the existence of powers available only to particular individuals, and thus not easily generalised and exploitable.

Magic was also an obstacle to the rationalisation of the work process, and a threat to the establishment of the principle of individual responsibility. Above all, magic seemed a form of refusal of work, of insubordination, and an instrument of grassroots resistance to power. The world has to be ‘disenchanted’ in order to be dominated.

Bio - Silvia Federici is a feminist activist, writer, and a teacher. In 1972 she was one of the cofounders of the International Feminist Collective, the organisation that launched the Wages For Housework campaign internationally. In the 1990s, after a period of teaching and research in Nigeria, she was active in the anti-globalisation movement and the U.S. anti–death penalty movement. She is one of the co-founders of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa, an organisation dedicated to generating support for the struggles of students and teachers in Africa against the structural adjustment of African economies and educational systems. From 1987 to 2005 she taught international studies, women studies, and political philosophy courses at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY.

All through these years she has written books and essays on philosophy and feminist theory, women’s history, education and culture, and more recently the worldwide struggle against capitalist globalisation and for a feminist reconstruction of the commons. Her publications include ‘Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation’ (1998), ‘Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women’ (2018) and ‘Beyond the Periphery of the Skin’