Acknowledgements

This book deals with mutual aid on a theoretical level. But, behind the scenes, there was quite a bit of practice. We have been helped by many living beings over the past few years.

We would like to start by thanking Marine Simon,1 who introduced us to each other almost seven years ago, precisely in relation to this magical subject of mutual aid. It seems like we've known each other forever, so fundamental have been the ideas that the three of us have been able to develop, exchange, share and discover together. Thank you!

Over the past few months, we have benefited from the interest, intuition, understanding and patience of our editors, Henri Trubert and Sophie Marinopoulos, from the aptly named publishing company Les Liens qui Libèrent (The Bonds that Free). What a work of weavers! Thank you also to Élise Roy for her impressive proofreading and correction work.

A huge thank you to Charlotte de Mévius for making it possible to write, so quickly and comfortably, this manuscript that has been running through our heads for years. Thank goodness you were there! We almost didn't write it . due to the collapse of civilization. We are touched by your friendship and your trust, and by your sensitivity to the worlds of 'other than human' creatures.

Thank you also to the courageous and generous reviewers of the first versions of the manuscript, for their compliments, advice and criticism: Benoît Richard, Bruno Corbara, Pablo Michelena, Marine Simon, Rachid Tahzima, Alain Caillé, Philippe Audfray, Élise Monette, Bruno Tracq, Jacques Lecomte, Matthieu Ricard and Serge Tisseron.

Thanks to Alain Caillé for his wonderful foreword, his kindness and his surprising availability given the dynamism of the convivialist movement.

Thank you to all of our loving tribes for their support: in the first place, Raphaël Stevens, the other (inter)dependent researcher and acrobat; Corinne, Helena, Vincent, Nathalie, Aline, Josué, Nathéa, Laurent, Valérie, Azul, Élisabeth, Muriel and other accomplices of the mycelium which now extends beyond the 'Travail qui Relie' ('Work that Connects'); Hélène, Guibert, Michaël, Hermann and other enthusiasts of the planet Lunt; Julie, Pierre, Nico, Corentin and the satellites of the planet Giraf.be.

We also wish to thank all the pioneers, in particular the thousands of researchers who added their special touch and helped to raise up the giant on whose shoulders we stand (and it's not just Darwin .). Seen from above, it makes us feel dizzy!

Finally, thanks to those who put at our disposal their patience as naturalists, their analytical intelligence, their nocturnal intuitions and their taste for wonder, helping us discover the countless stories of encounters between living organisms of all sizes, of all ages, of all shapes and of all origins, and to reveal their beauty and fragility.

(Pablo Servigne)
My first and most heartfelt thanks go to Élise, who helped, supported and encouraged me so intensely and for such a long period that I believe that we have gone beyond the framework of the principles of the living world . It's your turn to accompany me in giving birth to another little monster! I look forward to expanding our family, this little superorganism to which we give so much and which returns it to us fivefold, for example when our sons, without us realizing it at the time, keep us connected and (inter)dependent.

Thank you also to all those who made it possible, materially and psychologically, for us to write this book, in a real ritual of initiation. You made all the difference! A special dedication to all my neighbours who spontaneously practise mutual aid on a daily basis, by helping out and caring. In town: Mat and Andrea; in the plain: Annette, Francis and Nadia, Jean, Bernard, Philippe G., Philippe M., Daniel and Elke; and, in the mountains: Luc and Flo, Didier and Violaine, Sam and Typhaine, Flo and Aline, Yannick and Virginie (the list is certainly not exhaustive).

A huge thank you to my parents and to my brother, who demonstrate a particularly persistent and comforting kinship altruism, to Jacques Van Helden for having been such stimulating company at the time when we were both giving a critical course in sociobiology at the Université libre de Bruxelles, and to former colleagues from the same institution, with whom we shared so many ideas and PDF files! This is all very impersonal, but I hope you will all recognize yourself in these words.

Thank you also to the anarchist friends whom I have met over all these years, and who have engraved in me, by theory as much as by example, the great and warm idea of mutual aid. Thank you to the members of the editorial board of the journal Réfractions, in particular André Bernard, Pierre Sommermeyer and Marianne Enckell, who encouraged me to write on this subject at a time when I didn't dare. This is all your fault!

Thanks also to the editors of Imagine demain le monde, the Carnets de n'GO, the Institut Momentum, Éditions Aden, Sarkophage, La Revue du MAUSS, Etopia and Barricade for giving me the opportunity to learn my skills on this subject by writing little articles throughout the years.

I also want to name my heroes, my guides, who have inspired me and awakened me for years, to whom I feel deeply connected through the vision of the world they have passed on, a vision that is gentle, sparkling, immensely colourful, systemic and complex, and by their tenacious refusal to separate science and society: Peter Kropotkin, Charles Darwin, Lynn Margulis, Edward O. Wilson, David S. Wilson, Jonathan Haidt, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, Edgar Morin, Jared Diamond and Jean Claude Ameisen. You have given me so much through your writings and your talks . This book is proof of the power of indirect reciprocity. Thank you!

My fingers have vibrated to the sound of many musics: Muse, Jean-Paul Dessy, Armand Amar, René Aubry, L. Subramaniam, Dead Can Dance, Daft Punk and numerous others. Thanks also to Yves Blanc and his brilliant radio show La Planète bleue - the most podcasted in the world! -, which I discovered when we were starting the editorial marathon, and which helped me weave the ideas, colours, textures and shapes together.

Finally, thank you, Gauthier, my brother, for being so 'simpatico' (from the root meaning 'to suffer together') during these few months of sharing when we finally wrote down what we had felt for a long time and couldn't really express. And it's not over! If I have sometimes taken you on uncomfortable paths, it was because I was sure to find reciprocity on the way.

(Gauthier Chapelle)
Indeed! Thank you, Pablo, for the honour you have done me by associating me with the delivery of your baby after such a long gestation (ten years - much longer than even in sperm whales). Thanks to you, I took enormous pleasure both in re-examining the latest research on the incredible universe of symbiodiversity and in discovering the entire spectrum of human relationships, patiently woven in your networks (of neurons . and of PDF files!). Beyond our incredible complicity of seven years, you also taught me solidarity in writing, while showing patience and wisdom in the face of my belated and/or fiery reactions as a big brother of a proofreader (a lot) and as a scribbler (a little).

I also thank all those who are so close to me, parents, brothers and sisters and children, for having simultaneously welcomed, endured and encouraged my periods of writing, in particular the summer and holiday times: Nicole, Michel and Geneviève, as well as my two big sons Hoël and Ywen.

While paying homage in my turn to the many heroes whom Pablo and I share, I wanted to add a special mention of the extraordinary tellers and transmitters of stories who have so influenced me (some of them have already left us): Jean-Marie Pelt, Desmond Morris, Patrice Van Eersel, Wade Doak, Yves Paccalet, Francis Hallé, Frédéric Lints and Philippe Lebrun - not to mention Adrien Desfossés and his comrades from La Hulotte, the most widely read newspaper in the burrows, who have been educating and delighting me with each issue devoured since 1982 (thirty-five years of subscription) - a huge thank you to Pierre Déom!

Thank you to my godfathers and godmothers Michèle, Constance, Viviane and Jean.

Thank you again to all my naturalist accomplices and lovers of the living, with whom I have shared for so long the joy of encounters with 'other than human' creatures, near Brussels or on the other side of the world: Godefroid, Pierre, Marc and Sophie, Fatine, Enzo, Hubert, Benoît, Erik, Jean, Claude, Cova, Henri .

And, of course, thank you to all those creatures without whom life would be infinitely dull: the most familiar ones, like Orion el magnifico, the Great Red Beech, Dony the ethnologist, Dusty the Irish bard, 'my' Montpellier maple, 'my' avocado tree and 'my' ferns2 from Costa Rica; some of the most memorable, such as the Antarctic killer whales, the baobab of Boa Vista, the great crows of Brittany and the Ardennes, the saffron mycenae, the midwife toads, the Atta ants and the Acanthogammarus of Baikal; all their cherished communities, from the coastline of King George...