A Thousand Small Fires

About A Thousand Small Fires

What would it look like to organise the world around care instead of profit? Not as a fantasy. As a serious, uncomfortable, unresolved question. A Thousand Small Fires is a podcast that takes anarchist, feminist, and queer thought seriously — not as a doctrine to follow, but as a lens for asking better questions. About work, food, love, land, the state, the prison, the family, the body. About who decides, on whose terms, and what gets built when people refuse to wait for permission. Each episode is around 15 minutes — long enough to go somewhere real, short enough to earn your attention. The show is philosophical in tone and open in frame. It holds contradictions rather than resolving them. It cites thinkers without hiding behind them. It uses history as evidence rather than as comfort. The anarchist tradition argues that hierarchy — in governments, workplaces, relationships, and intimate life — is not natural or inevitable. It was made, and it can be unmade. This show follows that argument wherever it goes, including into the places the mainstream left doesn't want to look. Topics across Season 1 include: mutual aid and what makes it different from charity; the care labour that the economy runs on and refuses to count; food, land, and the global struggle for food sovereignty; the women who built anarchism and were written out of its history; queer liberation as a refusal, not a request; love, relationship anarchy, and the politics of intimate life; prison abolition; settler colonialism; carceral feminism; and what it means to start building the world you want inside the one that exists. No fixed answers. Only better questions. New episodes every week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

A thousand small fires

Category

history · society & culture · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Jun 2026

Latest episode

30 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

29 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 Oct 2026

   Sparks #3 Spain and Portugal’s housing revolt

   Maricarmen Abascal had lived in her Madrid flat for seventy years when an investment fund bought the building and raised her rent by more than 200 per cent. On 23 September she was evicted, and the people who tried to block it were cleared with tear gas. She died in hospital two weeks later. This Sparks follows what came next. A march and a camp in the Puerta del Sol. Emergency housing decrees thrown out by parliament. A snap election, and a general strike for housing called for 11 November. In Portugal, camps in Lisbon and Porto were cleared by police twice, and went back up. Then we go back to 1931, when the anarcho-syndicalist CNT led a rent strike across Barcelona, and neighbours carried evicted families’ furniture back up the stairs. The question it leaves is an old one: do you wait for the right law, or do you make a building impossible to empty? Facts as of 29 October 2026. The story is still moving. Content note: discusses an eviction and the death of an elderly woman, and police force against protesters. Nothing graphic. In this episode Maricarmen’s eviction, and the investment fund behind it Proudhon’s line between a home and property The march, the camp in Sol, and the decrees parliament threw out Rent at nearly a young person’s whole wage A general strike called by tenants’ unions How this camp differs from 15-M in 2011 Lisbon and Porto: camps cleared twice, and a popular assembly that stayed The 1931 Barcelona rent strike and the Ferrer i Guàrdia neighbourhood Wait for the law, or empty the stairwell of bailiffs? Sources Al Jazeera, “Spanish unions call general strike over housing before snap election” (7 October 2026): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/7/spanish-unions-call-general-strike-over-housing-before-snap-election (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/7/spanish-unions-call-general-strike-over-housing-before-snap-election) Working Mass / New Left Review, “Fifteen Years Later” (26 October 2026): https://working-mass.com/2026/10/26/fifteen-years-later/ (https://working-mass.com/2026/10/26/fifteen-years-later/) Euronews, “Lisbon police arrest 55 housing protesters and clear Rossio tent camp” (20 October 2026): https://euronews.com/2026/10/20/lisbon-police-arrest-55-housing-protesters-and-clear-rossio-tent-camp (https://euronews.com/2026/10/20/lisbon-police-arrest-55-housing-protesters-and-clear-rossio-tent-camp) Euronews, “Demonstrators wounded as police break up Lisbon and Porto housing protest camps” (25 October 2026): https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/25/demonstrators-wounded-as-police-break-up-lisbon-and-porto-housing-protest-camps (https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/25/demonstrators-wounded-as-police-break-up-lisbon-and-porto-housing-protest-camps) Wikipedia, “1931 Barcelona rent strike”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Barcelona_rent_strike (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Barcelona_rent_strike) Episode Tags anarchism, housing, housing crisis, Spain, Portugal, Madrid, Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona, tenants union, Sindicato de Inquilinas, rent strike, evictions, general strike, Puerta del Sol, 15-M, CNT, anarcho-syndicalism, Proudhon, direct action, mutual aid, news, anarchist podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   27 Oct 2026

   Ep:23 You Are Probably Already Doing Anarchism

   There's a pharmacy in a small Swedish town where a paper ticket machine keeps the line moving all day. Nobody enforces the order. Nobody breaks it either. That's not a Swedish habit. It's a human one, and it's where this episode starts: most of the cooperative structure that actually holds a day together was never built by a government and isn't enforced by one. From there it moves through Colin Ward's "seed beneath the snow" in Anarchy in Action, Peter Kropotkin's guilds and village communes in Mutual Aid, and David Graeber's case that most people already live like anarchists without ever calling it that. The evidence gets less European from there: West African esusu rotating savings pots carried into Caribbean mutual aid circles, the Filipino tradition of bayanihan house-carrying, the Sámi siida herding system that never fully stopped functioning under Swedish and Norwegian law, and queer chosen family built with no legal paperwork behind it at all. Where the disagreement never resolves gets equal time: Murray Bookchin thought naming this "anarchism" let people off the hook, a comfortable substitute for actually organising against the state. Colin Ward thought naming it was the whole point, removing the excuse that people can't be trusted to run things themselves. Further reading: Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action (Freedom Press, 1973) Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (William Heinemann, 1902) — available via theanarchistlibrary.org David Graeber, "Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You," 2000 — available via theanarchistlibrary.org Scott Branson, Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life (Or Books, 2022) Murray Bookchin, "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm" (AK Press, 1995) Tags: everyday anarchism, mutual aid, Colin Ward, Peter Kropotkin, David Graeber, esusu, bayanihan, Sámi siida, chosen family, Murray Bookchin, lifestyle anarchism, anarchism Show notes: You Are Probably Already Doing Anarchism A Thousand Small Fires, Season 2, Episode 9 Most of the cooperative structure that actually holds a day together was never built by a government and isn't enforced by one — from a pharmacy queue in Sweden to rotating savings circles across four continents, this episode asks whether recognising anarchism already at work in ordinary life is a radicalising insight or a comfortable excuse to stop there. In this episode: A pharmacy ticket machine in Sweden and the informal order nobody enforces Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action, and the "seed beneath the snow" Peter Kropotkin's guilds, village communes, and Mutual Aid David Graeber's essay "Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You" West African esusu and its Caribbean diaspora forms: partner, box hand, sou-sou Bayanihan, the Filipino tradition of communal house-carrying The Sámi siida system and Scandinavian state registration Queer chosen family as mutual aid with no legal recognition Murray Bookchin's "lifestyle anarchism" critique of Colin Ward Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   26 Oct 2026

   Sparks #2 Serbia’s students win

   At 11:52 on 1 November 2024, a newly renovated canopy fell at the railway station in Novi Sad and killed sixteen people. Students began blocking their own universities, and ran every faculty through a plenum: an open assembly where anyone can speak, the room votes, and nobody is in charge. This Sparks follows that model from Belgrade in 2006, through the Zagreb occupation of 2009 and the Tuzla plenums of 2014, to neighbourhood assemblies across Serbia. We look at the unions and farmers who joined, what the state threw at the students, and the strict rules the plenums wrote when they decided to stand for parliament. Then we set it against Otpor, the leaderless student movement that helped bring down Milošević in 2000 and was gone as a party four years later. On 25 October the Student List won a projected 140 of 250 seats on the highest turnout in decades. The students haven’t named a prime minister yet. Their victory speech started late because they couldn’t agree on who should give it. Results are preliminary projections as of 26 October 2026. Content note: discusses the deaths of sixteen people in the Novi Sad canopy collapse. Nothing graphic. In this episode The 11:52 silence, and the canopy that fell in Novi Sad How a plenum works, and why delegates can’t negotiate From Belgrade 2006 to Zagreb’s Occupation Cookbook and Tuzla’s plenums Zborovi: the neighbourhood assemblies that spread off campus Unions, farmers, the 15 March protest and the alleged sonic weapon Vučić’s resignation and his run for prime minister How the plenums vetted 250 candidates, and the Student Plan Otpor: the last leaderless student movement to become a party The result, the irregularities, and a victory speech nobody could agree on giving Can a plenum hold on to its own MPs? Sources Al Jazeera, “Serbia’s Vucic concedes election defeat to student-led movement” (25 October 2026): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/25/serbia-voter-turnout-highest-in-decades-as-students-oppose-longtime-leader (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/25/serbia-voter-turnout-highest-in-decades-as-students-oppose-longtime-leader) The National, “Serbia’s leader concedes defeat after 12 years in power” (26 October 2026): https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/2026/10/26/serbias-leader-concedes-defeat-after-12-years-in-power/ (https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/2026/10/26/serbias-leader-concedes-defeat-after-12-years-in-power/) ECPR The Loop, “From plenums to parliament: the rulebook behind Serbia’s Student List” (21 October 2026): https://theloop.ecpr.eu/from-plenums-to-parliament-the-rulebook-behind-serbias-student-list/ (https://theloop.ecpr.eu/from-plenums-to-parliament-the-rulebook-behind-serbias-student-list/) European Western Balkans, “CRTA reports widespread violations of ballot secrecy and voting irregularities” (25 October 2026): https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2026/10/25/crta-reports-widespread-violations-of-ballot-secrecy-and-voting-irregularities/ (https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2026/10/25/crta-reports-widespread-violations-of-ballot-secrecy-and-voting-irregularities/) transform!europe, “From Grief to Resistance: One Year On”: https://transform-network.net/blog/analysis/from-grief-to-resistance-one-year-on-how-students-sustained-serbias-broadest-protest-movement/ (https://transform-network.net/blog/analysis/from-grief-to-resistance-one-year-on-how-students-sustained-serbias-broadest-protest-movement/) Episode Tags anarchism, Serbia, Serbian protests, student movement, student protests, Student List, plenum, direct democracy, horizontalism, leaderless movements, assemblies, zborovi, Novi Sad, Vučić, Serbian election, elections, Otpor, Occupation Cookbook, Balkans, news, anarchist podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

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