Red Medicine

In this, the first of a two-part interview, Beatrice Adler-Bolton explains how capitalism shapes what we think of as health. Beatrice explains how health communism provides us with the tools to critique the National Health Service from the left. Specifically, we discuss the the long history of healthcare being used as a way to discipline and punish the working class and why we shouldn’t be afraid to demand more from the NHS despite the establishments enforced austerity.  

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Chelsea A Jackson is an academic, activist and member of Cradle Community which is a collective of organizers committed to radical education and building understanding of prison abolition and transformative justice. Last year the collective published their first book with Hajar Press. Titled Brick by Brick, the book provides an introduction to abolitionist theory and a manifesto for those of us who want to build a society free from prisons and police.

In this episode we discuss abolitionism and what an abolitionist critique entails in relationship to how we think about healthcare. Chelsea explains how prisons and police shape healthcare provisions in the UK, how austerity has made access to healthcare more predatory and dangerous, and the importance of mutual aid as a tool for building a better system.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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In this episode Dr Rita Issa discusses the forthcoming strikes in the NHS. She explains the ongoing pressures faced by healthcare workers including austerity, privatization and poor working conditions and pay. Rita also explains how the COVID-19 pandemic has made all of these things worse and how workers are organizing ahead of unprecedented strike action in an attempt to turn things around for the benefit of workers and patients. 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Sophie Lewis explains how the family shapes care in capitalist societies and what health might look like in a society that is no longer structured around the institution of the family. Drawing on the works of Marx, Alexandra Kollontai, Charles Fourier and the gay liberationists, she presents us with a radically different approach to healing and care.

Sophie is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia and the author of Full Surrogacy Now and Abolish the Family, both published by Verso Books. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, Boston Review, n+1, the London Review of Books and Salvage.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Joe Glenton reflects on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu’s complex and intimate relationship with various currents of right-wing politics.

He explores the dominant cultures within BJJ including the prevalence of reactionary conspiracy theories and how Brazilian fascism continues to shape the upper echelons of the sport. We also discuss Comunidade Jiu Jitsu, an invitation only gym founded to create a welcoming and inclusive space built on commitments to anti-racism, LGBTQ+ inclusion and gender equality.

Joe is a journalist, film-maker and award-winning writer. He is the author of Veteranhood, which was published by Repeater books in 2021, a book about the political world of veterans and militarism in Britain. Joe is a veteran turned conscientious objector and anti-war campaigner who served in Afghanistan before going AWOL and using the ensuing legal case to mount a critique of The War on Terror and British Imperialism.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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In this episode James Schneider outlines a strategy for the left in Britain drawing on his new book OUR BLOC: How We Win. He argues that the left must organize an alliance of socialists in Parliament, the Labour grassroots, the trade unions and social movements.

Specifically, Schneider reflects on the severity of our current crisis, the tentative confidence of the British left and why demands around health and care are central to a 21st century socialist project.

James Schneider co-founded Momentum in 2015 and went on to serve as Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesperson and Head of Strategic Communications. He is Communications Director for Progressive International and a regular voice in the UK media.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Lewis R Gordon discusses the philosopher, psychiatry and revolutionary Frantz Fanon as well as his own work on Black consciousness.

Gordon is a philosopher, educator, public intellectual and the author of numerous books on topics including existentialism, phenomenology and postcolonial theory. His most recent book The Fear of Black Consciousness was published earlier this year by Penguin and Macmillan.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Writer Hannah Zeavin discusses the politics of the psychoanalytic encounter. Specifically she explores the supposed neutrality of the psychotherapist, the relationship between analysis and political organizing, and The Psycho-Social Foundation, the nonprofit educational organization for which she is the founding editor.

Hannah Zeavin is a scholar, writer, and editor whose work centers on the history of human sciences (psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry), the history of technology, and media theory. She is Assistant Professor at Indiana University in the Luddy School of Informatics. Additionally, she is a visiting fellow at the Columbia University Center for the Study of Social Difference and an awardee of the Courage to Dream Prize from the American Psychoanalytic Association.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Historian John Foot discusses the movement in 1960s Italy to reform and eventually abolish the psychiatric asylum system. Specifically, he’ll be focusing on the work of Franco Basaglia, whose antifascist politics drove him to radically alter the way in which mental health treatment is managed in Italy. 

John Foot is a historian and author based at the University of Bristol. He is the author of numerous books on Italian history and most relevant to the discussion today he is the author of The Man who Closed the Asylums, published by Verso books in 2015 and recently co-edited Basaglia's International Legacy: From Asylum to Community with Tom Burns. 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Object Relations is a series of discussions about the relationship between politics and the psyche produced in collaboration with The Polyphony.

Taking its name from the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s theory of how psyches develop in relationship to one another, this series will explore some questions about the politics of psychotherapy, psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

Episodes will be published every Friday for the next four weeks, beginning (on July 29) with a conversation with Camille Robcis about institutional psychotherapy in France and North Africa. Institutional psychotherapy refers to a movement within psychiatry that occurred in the aftermath of the rise of fascism in Europe. Medical practitioners such as François Tosquelles, Frantz Fanon and Jean Oury began to apply social and political critiques to the practice of psychiatry in the hopes of producing ways of living that alleviated suffering and avoided the fascistic ways of relating to one and other produced by institutions.

Camille Robcis is a professor of French and history at Columbia University and the author of Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France, which was recently published by The University of Chicago press.

In this conversation she explores the experiences of fascism and ‘concentrationism’ that produced the conditions for Institutional Psychotherapy to emerge and how it relates to a broader history of psychiatry. She also reflects on what this movement offers us in understanding questions of the political, the personal and the psychic.

Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington 

Artwork by Ava Gardner 

SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine

Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

Twitter: @red_medicine__

www.redmedicine.substack.com/