Jura Books is an

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...

bookshop and

infoshop Infoshops are places in which people can access anarchist or autonomist ideas. They are often stand-alone projects, or can form part of a larger radical bookshop, archive, self-managed social centre or community centre. Typically, infoshops offer ...

located in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. The shop was named after the

Jura federation The Jura Federation represented the anarchist, Bakuninist faction of the First International during the anti-statist split from the organization. Jura, a Swiss area, was known for its watchmaker artisans in La Chaux-de-Fonds, who shared anti-s ...

, the federation of workers of the Jura region that associated with Bakunin in the

First International The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...

. It has operated since August 1977, first on King Street, Newtown, before moving to

Parramatta Road Parramatta Road is the major historical east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, connecting the Sydney CBD with Parramatta. It is the easternmost part of the Great Western Highway. Since the 1990s its role has been a ...

, Petersham. Anarchist Resources Incorporated, a non-profit collective, manages the bookshop building, which also includes meeting space and an inherited library collection, The Fanya Baron Library, that was named in honour of Russian anarchist, Fanya Baron. Australian Ethical Investment uses Jura Books as an example of

Socially responsible investing Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about soc ...

practice, stating that Jura is "a major source in Australia for a wide range of affordable books of community and educational interest including the areas of trade unionism, women's rights, environment,

permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principl ...

, indigenous peoples' issues, poetry, arts and non-violent revolution." Over the many years of operation Jura has built a collection of more than 4,500 Australian and international posters, believed to be one of the biggest and most complete collections of political posters known to exist in Australia. In 2003 a selection of over 100 political posters spanning from the 1960s to the late 1980s were on display at Jura Books. Jura Books is also used for community meetings and talks. Members of the collective have been involved in organising several successful conferences in Sydney including on Workers Control, 1984 and Social Control, and the 1995 Visions of Freedom conference with guest speaker

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

. For many years (1982 to 2013) the

anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence i ...

paper, Rebel Worker, was published from the Jura Books premises. It is now published elsewhere.

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External links

Jura Books
{{coord, 33, 53, 16.59, S, 151, 9, 34.59, E, type:landmark_region:AU, display=title Anarchist organisations in Australia Infoshops 1977 establishments in Australia

See also

References

External links