Community Safety in the Fourth World War: Notes on Insurgent Conviviality

by Manuel Callahan and Annie Paradise Pluto Press 7/20/2026, paperback SKU: 9780745351513 A toolkit for self-organized, radical community safety We are living through what the Zapatistas call the "Fourth World War"--a war waged by the forces of colonialism and racial patriarchal capitalism--that insists we forget our victories, relinquish our practices of care, and abandon our struggle. For communities targeted and ravaged by policing and militarization, safety is a paramount concern. But where do we turn? To the state, with its warped ideas of security and all its attendant violences? Drawing on more than a decade of "convivial research and insurgent learning," alongside struggles across the San Francisco Bay Area, and in dialogue with struggles across the Global South, the authors argue for self-organized, locally rooted insurgent conviviality. This book aims to re-enchant the world by focusing on life; to share and generate tools, strategies, and theorizations that build from below to cross-pollinate struggles everywhere. Manuel Callahan and Annie Paradise are part of the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy (CCRA), a small transterritorial collective based in the San Francisco Bay Area. CCRA also facilitates Universidad de la Tierra, Califas. Reviews: "An indispensable handbook for living in the dark times. Study it, engage with it, and most of all, live by it." --Nicholas Mirzoeff, author of To See In the Dark "A combative book aimed at disarming societal violence while weaving new fabrics of life." -- Ana Esther CeceÒa, Institute for Economic Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico "A collective ethnography, a workbook, and a toolkit for convivial research that makes us want to study assembly and create the councils of care." --Gerald Raunig, Zurich University of the Arts About the Contributors: Manuel Callahan is the co-founder of the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy (CCRA), a transterritorial research collective based in the San Francisco Bay Area with connections to struggles in Southern Mexico. Since 2003, he has been a participant in the Universidad de la Tierra Califas. Callahan is currently the Latinx Studies Collection editor for Lived Places Publishing. Annie Paradise is a member of the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy (CCRA), a transterritorial research collective, and a collaborator with the Universidad de la Tierra Califas, an autonomous learning initiative, both based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also a researcher with the Counter Counterinsurgency Lab.