Toward Broader Anarchist Geographies

Space/Place, Nation/State, and Anarchist Scholarship

Authors

  • Joshua Mullenite Department of Culture and Economy, Wagner College

Keywords:

Anarchism, State, Nation, Space, Place

Abstract

This intervention tries to broaden the theoretical works considered under the framework of anarchist geographies. Currently, scholarship in anarchist geography draws from a limited body of writing for theoretical and practical insights, primarily (but not exclusively) from anarchists who were also geographers. However, people who have self-identified as anarchists, including those from cognate disciplines and those who are not part of academia, have dealt with several concepts of significant interest to geographers. I highlight some of these interventions as a means for suggesting a broader conceptualization of anarchist geography by considering the ways in which various anarchists have grappled with key concepts within geography, mainly focused on the nation and state. Specifically, I argue that further engagement with anarchist scholarship both from within academia and from outside academia’s walls offers a means for understanding the operations of power at play from, within, and beyond the state in human relations.

References

Anderson, Benedict. 2005. Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination. London, UK: Verso.

Anonymous. n.d. Short Circuit: Towards an Anarchist Approach to Gentrification. Zine.

Araujo, Erin, Federico Ferretti, Anthony Ince, Kelvin Mason, Joshua Mullenite, Jenny Pickerill, Toby Rollo, and Richard J. White. 2017. Beyond Electoralism: Reflections on Anarchy, Populism, and the Crisis of Electoral Politics. ACME: An International Journal of Critical Geographies 16 (4): 607–42.

Bey, Hakim. 1991. The Temporary Autonomous Zone: Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.

Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons. 2016. Plantation Rising: A publication on resistance and liberation in Florida prisons and beyond. Zine.

Clastres, Pierre. 1989. Society Against the State. In Society Against the State, 189-218. New York: Zone Books.

Clough, Nathan and Renata Blumberg. 2012. Toward Anarchist and Autonomist Marxist Geographies. ACME: An International Journal of Critical Geographies 11(3): 335-351.

Cresswell, Tim. 2015. Place: An Introduction. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Crow, Scott. 2011. Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective. Oakland, CA: PM Press.

Do or Die. 2003. Down with the Empire! Up with the Spring! Zine.

Drissel, David. 2011. “Anarchist Punks Resisting Gentrification: Countercultural Contestations of Space in the New Berlin.” The International Journal of the Humanities 8(10): 19-44.

Edwards, Joseph. 2014. Workers’ Self-Management in the Caribbean: The Writings of Joseph Edwards. Atlanta, GA: On Our Own Authority Publishing.

Fernandez, Frank. 2001. Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement. Tuscon, AZ: See Sharp Press.

Ferretti, Federico. 2018. Teaching Anarchist Geographies: Elisée Reclus in Brussels and ‘The Art of Not Being Governed.’ Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108 (1): 162–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2017.1339587.

Goyens, Tom. 2009. Social space and the practice of anarchist history. Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 13(4): 439-457.

Hall, Matthew. 2011. Beyond the Human: Extending Ecological Anarchism. Environmental Politics 20 (3): 374–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2011.573360.

Harvey, David. 2017. ‘Listen, Anarchist!’ A personal response to Simon Springer’s ‘Why a radical geography must be anarchist.’ Dialogues in Human Geography 7(3): 233-250.

Heynen, Nik and Jason Rhodes. 2012. Organizing for Survival: From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Anarchism through the Life of Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 11(3): 393-412.

Hodges, Donald C. 1995. Mexican Anarchism after the Revolution. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Ince, Anthony. 2019. Fragments of an Anti-Fascist Geography: Interrogating Racism, Nationalism, and State Power. Geography Compass, no. December 2018: e12420. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12420.

Kadale, Modibo. 2019. Pan-African Social Ecology: Speeches, Conversations, and Essays. Atlanta, GA: On Our Own Authority Publishing.

Kropotkin, Peter. 2019. The State: Its Historic Role. In Anarchism, Anarchist Communism, and the State: Three Essays, 85-146. Oakland: PM Press.

Martin, Keir. 2012. The ‘Potlatch of Destruction’: Gifting against the State. Critique of Anthropology 32 (2): 125–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X12437861.

Mbah, Sam and I.E. Igariwey. 1997. African Anarchism: The History of a Movement. Tuscon, AZ: See Sharp Press.

Morris, Brian. 2015. Anthropology, Ecology, and Anarchism: A Brian Morris Reader. Oakland, CA: PM Press.

Mott, Carrie and Daniel Cockayne. 2017. Citation matters: mobilizing the politics of citation toward a practice of ‘conscientious engagement.’ Gender, Place, and Culture 24(7): 954-973.

Newman, Saul. 2011. Postanarchism and space: Revolutionary fantasies and autonomous zones. Planning Theory 10(4): 344-365.

Nugent, Stephen. 2012. Anarchism out West: Some Reflections on Sources. Critique of Anthropology 32 (2): 206–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X12437860.

Purcell, Mark. 2013. A New Land: Deleuze and Guattary and Planning. Planning Theory & Practice 14 (1): 20–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2012.761279.

Robinson, Andrew, and Simon Tormey. 2012. Beyond the State: Anthropology and ‘Actually-Existing-Anarchism.’ Critique of Anthropology 32 (2): 143–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X12438779.

Rocker, Rudolf. 1937. Nationalism and Culture. New York: Rocker Publication Committee.

Schaffer, Kirwin. 2019. Anarchist Cuba: Countercultural Politics in the Early Twentieth Century. Oakland, CA: PM Press.

Scott, James C. 1997. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Have: Yale University Press.

Scott, James C. 2017. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the First Agrarian States. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Sethness-Castro, Javier. 2012. Imperiled Life: Revolution against Climate Change. Oakland, CA: AK Press.

Springer, Simon. 2012. Anarchism! What Geography Still Ought to Be. Antipode 44(5): 1605-1624.

Springer, Simon. 2014. Why a radical geography must be anarchist. Dialogues in Human Geography 4(3): 249-270.

Ssorin-Chaikov, Nikolai. 2012. Writing Power: An Anarchist Anthropologist in the Looking Glass of Critical Theory. Critique of Anthropology 32 (2): 189–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X12439486.

Trotsky, Neon. 2011. Race and Border: The Two-Headed Ogre of White Supremacy. Zine

Uzcategui, Rafael. 2010. Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle. Tuscon, AZ: See Sharp Press.

Downloads

Published

2021-03-09

How to Cite

Mullenite, J. (2021). Toward Broader Anarchist Geographies: Space/Place, Nation/State, and Anarchist Scholarship. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 20(2), 206–213. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1949