- 29th November 2021
- 1 hr 13 mins
We talk to Jess Spear, National Organiser of RISE, a network of People Before Profit, and editor of Rupture magazine, about her experience campaigning with Socialist Alternative in the US; moving to Ireland, the foundation of RISE, and decision to join PBP; and the development and aims of Rupture as a broad eco-socialist magazine and means to explore contemporary Marxist and socialist ideas and strategies.

Direct download:
Our guest in this episode is Jess Spear. Jess is an eco-socialist and socialist feminist activist based in Dublin. She is National Organiser of RISE, a revolutionary Marxist network of People Before Profit (PBP). She is the editor of the eco-socialist quarterly magazine, Rupture, and co-authored the pamphlet What is eco-socialism?. She was a research scientist at the US Geological Survey and Burke Museum of Natural History before moving to Dublin in 2017.
We discuss how Jess came to political activism in the US, and particularly, as a climate scientist, to environmental activism; her experience campaigning with Socialist Alternative (then part of the Committee for a Workers’ International) in Seattle, and as an electoral candidate there in 2014; moving to Ireland, the foundation of RISE, and decision to join PBP; and the development and aims of Rupture as a broad eco-socialist magazine and means to explore contemporary Marxist and socialist ideas and strategies.
Find out more:
- RISE Network - The RISE website
- Rupture - the website of Rupture Eco-Socialist Quarterly and the Rupture Radio Podcast
- What is Eco-Socialism? , by Jess Spear and John Molyneux
Comments 3
Great work
By: Chris | 13th December 2021, 12:13pm
Just wanted to say, really enjoy the podcast, what you're doing here and the archive is really really valuable work and please keep it up. iirc you asked at the intro to an episode once for episode suggestions, I'd be really interested to hear someone from the Irish Anti-War Movement talk, especially w/r/t the organisation of protests against the Iraq War in 2003. Thanks again!
Re: Great work
By: Aonrud | 13th December 2021, 9:47pm
Thanks Chris! Great to hear you're finding it useful.
That's a great suggestion. There's a short section about the organisation of the 2003 anti-war march in this episode with Roger Cole, if you haven't heard it: https://www.leftarchive.ie/podcast/28-roger-cole-peace-and-neutrality-alliance/.
But a more detailed look at the subject from someone involved in the Irish Anti-War Movement would be interesting. Any suggested guests would be welcome!
Re: Great work
By: Chris | 14th December 2021, 11:17am
Re: Re: Great work
ah nice, I did miss that one actually, cheers!
in terms of suggestions, yous would probably know better than me, but boyd-barrett, memet uludag do occur to me off the bat. i think andrew flood was involved too, any of those would be great I think
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