Caliban i la bruixa

Federici brings to life a picture of the early middle ages that smashed a lot of stereotypes I had. She reveals what a rich time it was, but also chock full of peasant uprisings against a (re-)emergent aristocracy. She successfully contrasts it with the "Iron Centuries" where women were further pushed out of the public sphere into a highly gendered, mechanistic world that turned people's reproductive bodies into a new commons to be mastered by the state. She also points to many "heretical" movements that could have possibly been the ecofeminist alternative communities resisting this movement.

Where I felt it falls short is while she investigates several lines of development, it is never combined into an overall narrative that I was hoping she would write. Some claims also seemed a bit thin and were difficult to verify, but definitely have left me curious and wanting to learn more. And it is showing its age a bit by equating "women" with "people who can become pregnant." I would love to see more exploration into how the shift in gender roles went hand in hand with queer erasure brought on by these same "Iron Centuries."

TL;DR: 10/10 BUENÍSIMO LIBRO LÉANLO



Para Silvia Federici, el capitalismo fue la respuesta de las clases dominantes frente a las rebeliones populares anti-feudalistas. En este trabajo, da cuenta de cómo a través de políticas estatales de privatización y despojo, inicia la reconfiguración de la vida en torno al factor salario. En este escenario, los poderes de la época recurrieron a implantar regímenes de terror y represión violenta contra quienes representaban un peligro para la instalación del nuevo orden. A estas personas rebeldes se les acusó, en primera instancia, de herejía, y posteriormente de brujería, en una etapa dónde el mayor enemigo del modelo económico entrante fueron las mujeres. Federici profundiza en el rol de la mujer como eje organizativo en las comunidades autónomas, y como siempre han estado presentes en las rebeliones contra el poder.

Otro punto importante del libro consiste en la relación existente entre la conquista de América, la acumulación originaria que impulsó al capitalismo, y las similitudes entre la situación de los pueblos sometidos en el nuevo continente y la persecución contra los pobres, por sobre todo, contra las mujeres de las clases bajas europeas.

Por supuesto, todos estos hechos encuentran su correlato en la actualidad. Esto lo explica Federici en un prólogo que te invita a iniciar la lectura de esta obra atrapante y esclarecedora.

Part of my response paper:

I found this book fascinating, as until the last chapter it covered what was largely new ground to me. The resistance of the serfs to feudalism and early capitalism was inspiring and the thesis that the witch-hunt was a mechanism to regiment and subordinate women to the requirements of capitalism, in particular primitive accumulation, was compelling.

At the same time, something felt off to me about the book. Perhaps it was because this paradigm-shifting argument fit together so neatly (Marxists do love their teleology), but often without primary sources or the use of single examples extrapolated to apply to a broad setting.

Or perhaps it’s because I’ve understood patriarchy as a pre-capitalist phenomenon, which Federici doesn’t deny, but the weight she gives to capital in the creation of patriarchal oppression of proletarian women is obvious. Whereas capitalism constructed racism, it seems to have modified patriarchy. And as capitalism requires racism and patriarchy, it makes sense we need to destroy capitalism. We can do this already equipped with an ontological understanding of racism. Is there an ontological understanding of patriarchy? Does resistance to capitalism require it? Is Federici’s proposal enough?

Finally, in the introduction, Federici touches briefly on “’women’ as a category,” arguing that “’women’s history’ is ‘class history’” and “’women’ is a legitimate category of analysis” (14). I don’t disagree, but am hesitant about embracing a sharp “biological” (undefined) definition of “women.” I think there are important postmodernist contributions, in particular Butler’s critique of the gender/sex distinction and normative gender performativity, that can add to our understanding of patriarchy and offer ways to subvert it. I wonder how Federici’s account would be different if it at times included some postmodern reflections on gender. Overall I think it would have been beneficial.