In this essay, Sarah Gelbard reflects on the messy relationship between punk, anarchy, and anarchism and ways it can be conceived of as identity, politics, scene, performance, and/or practice. For punks in academia and academics studying punk, how do we position ourselves in relation to the work, to power, and with our comrades?

Sarah Gelbard is a Ph.D. candidate in urban planning at McGill University. Her research speaks to the ways marginalized and alternative urban groups negotiate with, subvert, and refuse the formal city-building project of mainstream placemaking and planning. She is a co-organizer of the Spaces of Struggle Radical Planning conferences and research group. Sarah is also the lead singer and bassist in the punk band Bad Missionary.

Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).

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Artwork by Sam G.

Essay #40: Sarah Gelbard, ‘Practicing Performances of Punk Anarchism in the Academy’