Reading groups: Organisation for minor politics?

This article introduces reading groups as organisational forms. It argues that reading groups are important forms of mutual learning and critical knowledge production that have a place in alternative organising and social and political movements. It also highlights the importance of the co-creation of knowledge and subjectivity which can potentially lead to the development of agency, solidarity and social power. In order to start to map a genealogy of reading groups, a range of examples are examined, from the early 20th century in relation to anti-authoritarian mutual pedagogy and worker cultures of self-learning and cooperation; from the 1970s in relation to feminism, the New Left and union organised worker education; and then from the recent past, in relation to contemporary work and social movements. By excavating some key historical examples, these everyday forms of resistance are made available to be accessed and utilised in the present as a form of ‘minor’ politics, following Deleuze. This article thereby shows the potential for mutual learning practices to help to build and sustain social infrastructures for resistance and social transformation.