Without Masters

Autogestión, Anarchist Ethics, and Mexico City Punk

Livia K. Stone

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781478039105
  9781478034094
• eBook ISBN:
  9781478062660
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Without Masters is an anthropological history of the radical ethical and political principle of autogestión as it traveled around the world in the twentieth century and came to be popularized in Mexico City in the early 2000s. A political term that first arose in 1962 Algeria traveled across continents until it landed in Mexico City's anarcho-punk scene in the 1980s, where it eventually came to be associated more with zines, music, art, and Zapatismo than with its origins in anarchism or syndicalism. Without Masters brings the true history of autogestión and the quiet radicalism of Mexico City's autogestive collectives to an English-speaking audience for the first time. Along the way, Stone brings together diverse materials, from punk zines and political fliers to Beat novels and Zapatista parables, that tell an alternate history of radical politics throughout the world in the second half of the twentieth century which serves as a reminder of Mexico's formative role in the creation of modern social theory.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Getting the History Right
• 2. Ubiquitous and Invisible Mexico City
• Interlude El Chopo
• 3. Punk and Zapatismo
• Interlude It All Starts with a Strike
• 4. The Strike
• Interlude What Do We Have Left?
• 5. Colectivos Autogestivos
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• References
• Index