The term “accountability” is often bandied about, but the Pinko Collective’s latest book, After Accountability, does a deep dive into what it actually means to be accountable and to whom. While the text, a series of nine interviews with activists of varying races, ages, gender identities and political experiences, is best suited for folks who are in or have been in leftwing organizations, it asks good questions about what it means to be accountable to oneself, one’s friends and sexual partners, and one’s political and social communities. 

Each interview is a discrete entity, so the questions posed vary depending on which member of the Collective — a small, feminist group devoted to “thinking gay communism” —  is doing the asking. Conclusions are scant because, as Pinko wisely cautions, “there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to accountability.”

That said, the book stresses that those planning to intervene in interpersonal conflicts, including allegations of sexual misconduct, need training in active listening and staying grounded. They also need to understand that different people handle discord differently, some opting for avoidance and others going full-tilt into confrontation. So what to do?

“Over the last decade, a specific framework for addressing intra-movement harm has become dominant,” the Pinko Collective writes in After Accountability’s final chapter. “In its rigorous form, it is often called Transformative Justice (TJ). TJ has spread with the growing prominence of prison and police abolitionism and with a few high-profile and brilliant advocates. It has been taken up by many activists seeking the best available practices for addressing and repairing harms between members of a shared community.”

While transformative justice recognizes the many destructive social forces that prey on us — including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and economic inequities — and eschews reliance on law enforcement agencies, how it holds abusers accountable remains somewhat nebulous. Indeed, the book would have benefited from examples of transformative justice being used to hold violators accountable and ease the suffering of the aggrieved. And even if the examples were time and place-specific, including them as models would have helped clarify the process and made it less opaque. 

Likewise, although the Maoist practice of criticism/self-criticism is mentioned as another model, the references are vague and do not adequately showcase how it can be used (and misused) to promote accountability or its opposite.

All told, After Accountability’s strength lies in the questions the interviewers and interviewees pose, questions that are both challenging and uncharted.  

As Peter Hardie, a 65-year-old trade unionist and former member of the Proletarian Unity League, told his interviewer, “Movements are not just about issues or ideas, they’re really about community and embracing people, learning how to embrace each other … because we don’t really know [how]. … We’ve been raised not to, we’ve been raised to be jerks and idiots and mean and hostile. Maybe not all necessarily, but to compete. To defend. To not be vulnerable. We’ve been raised for all these things and I think our movements have to change, to create something new. Maybe we haven’t imagined it yet.”

After Accountability encourages that imagining, reminding readers that the personal is political and vice versa. Moreover, it reminds us that the process can be as important as the end result.  As we work to create the caring and respectful world we need and want, it’s an important injunction. 

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After Accountability: A Critical Geneology of a Concept (Revised and Updated Edition)
By the Pinko Collective
Haymarket Books, 224 pages

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