From the George Floyd rebellion to Stop Cop City: Ungovernable abolition geographies as an ecosystem of tactics

Abstract

In this author reply to four commentaries on our article, ‘Rioting as legitimate abolitionist practice: Counterinsurgency versus radical place-making in the George Floyd rebellion’, we reflect on the extension of the George Floyd rebellion (GFR) into the Stop Cop City (SCC) struggle, and state repression against them. SCC (temporarily) succeeded in its stoppage of carceral infrastructure expansion by forming an ecosystem of tactics – a collaboration between the procedural, autonomous, and insurrectionary abolitionisms we analyzed in our article. We stress that, even when procedural tactics are helpful or necessary, state repression against the GFR and SCC further reveals an adverse relationship between abolition and the state.