Springer S. 2013. Anarchism and Geography. GC

Anarchism and Geography: A Brief Genealogy ofAnarchist Geographies

Simon Springer*Department of Geography, University of Victoria

Abstract

Anarchism and geography have a long and disjointed history, characterized by towering peaks ofintensive intellectual engagement and low troughs of ambivalence and disregard. This paper tracesa genealogy of anarchist geographies back to the modern development of anarchism into a distinctpolitical philosophy following the Enlightenment. The initial rise of geographers’ engagementwith anarchism occurred at the end of the 19th-century, owing to Elisee Reclus and PeterKropotkin, who developed an emancipatory vision for geography in spite of the discipline’senchantment with imperialism at that time. The realpolitik of the war years in the first half of the20th-century and the subsequent quantitative revolution in geography represent a nadir for anar-chist geographies. Yet anarchism was never entirely abandoned by geographical thought and thecounterculture movement of the 1970s gave rise to radical geography, which included significantinterest in anarchist ideas. Unfortunately another low occurred during the surge of neoliberal poli-tics in the 1980s and early 1990s, but hope springs eternal, and from the late 1990s onward theanti-globalization movement and DIY culture have pushed anarchist geographies into more wide-spread currency. In reviewing the literature, I hope to alert readers to the ongoing and manifoldpotential for anarchist geographies to inform both geographical theory and importantly, to giverise to more practice-based imperatives where building solidarities, embracing reciprocity, andengaging in mutual aid with actors and communities beyond the academy speaks to the ‘freedomof geography’ and its latent capacity to shatter its own disciplinary circumscriptions.

Anarchist theory is a geographical theory.– Richard Peet (1975, 43)

Introduction

Anarchism and geography have had a long courtship. Like any extended romance therehave been periods of deep engagement and connection, and times when ambivalence andeven separation have occurred. Yet if we are to accept anarchism as the dismantling ofunequal power relations and the pursuit of re-organizing the way we live in the worldalong more egalitarian, voluntary, altruistic, and cooperative lines, then it becomes neces-sary to appreciate anarchism as a geographical endeavor. Similarly, if geography is to beprogressively understood as ‘‘a means of dissipating… prejudices and of creating otherfeelings more worthy of humanity’’ (Kropotkin 1885 ⁄ 1978), then it seems that anarchismhas a great deal to contribute to such an agenda. The late 19th-century accordingly saw aflourishing of geographical writings from influential anarchist philosophers like Peter Kro-potkin (Morris 2003) and Elisee Reclus (Fleming 1996), who were both very wellrespected geographers in the times and spaces in which they lived their lives, having con-tributed much to the intellectual climate. Although explicit engagement with their workfaded following their deaths in the early 20th century, the impact of these two visionary

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thinkers continues to reverberate within contemporary geographical theory, influencingeverything from the way that geographers think about ethnicity and ‘race’, to questionsof social organization and capital accumulation, to conceptualizations of urban and regio-nal planning, as well as within discussions surrounding environmentalism.

The anti-authoritarian vision and critical concern for social justice that Reclus andKropotkin advanced in their work sadly seemed to have skipped a few generations as thewar years of the early 20th-century shifted concerns to realpolitik and the quantitativerevolution took hold of geography soon thereafter. In concert with the rise of the NewLeft and the counterculture movements of the 1970s, anarchism was once again back onthe agenda and was afforded serious consideration by academic geographers who utilizedMarxian, feminist, poststructuralist, and anarchist theories to set the tone for what is nowknown as ‘radical geography’ (Chouinard 1994; Peet 1977). Unfortunately, the 1980s and1990s represented another dry spell, even though some important work that employedboth geographical and anarchist concerns was still being done during these years. Morerecently, as the current conjuncture of intensifying neoliberalization, deepening financialcrisis, and ensuing revolt – as witnessed in the Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring –has begun to push anarchist theory and practice back into widespread currency, a newgeneration of geographers have been stretching the boundaries of radical geography byplacing anarchism at the center of their practices, theories, pedagogies, and methodolo-gies. As the house of cards that capitalism has built slowly collapses under its own weight,the result has been a lot of renewed interest in anarchism both outside and inside theacademy. Given geography’s position as a scholarly enterprise that takes some measure ofpride in straddling various disciplinary lines, it is critically important for geographers to beinvolved in this conversation.

This article is intended as a review of the existing literature on anarchist geographies. Itrace the origins, developments, flourishings, declines, and renewals of anarchist thoughtwithin geography. Readers should note from the outset that this article is not intended tooffer an overview and appraisal of the various geographies of anarchism that have beenemployed in different locations or the spatial tactics that anarchists have used in resistingvarious forms of domination. In this sense, I take anarchist geographies to be the theoreticalterrain in which anarchism has been established as a political philosophy, as opposed tothe geographies of anarchism that represent anarchism in its actually existing practice. I rec-ognize that this sets up somewhat of a false dichotomy, particularly because direct actionis about as close to a tenet as one might expect to find within the anarchist tradition,meaning that thought (anarchist geographies) is never separable from practice (geographiesof anarchism). However, owing to space restrictions, it was necessary to adopt a specificapproach, where charting a path through the literature seemed like a useful exercise.

My decision to primarily focus on anarchist thought was also made for historical reasons.Early engagements with anarchism were primarily rooted in thought, representing a lowpoint for organized anarchist activity (Ince 2010). As Blunt and Wills 2000: 2) lament, ‘‘itis frustrating that Kropotkin and Reclus were not able to combine their anarchist ideaswith their geographical scholarship as they might do today’’. So the reduction in directengagements with anarchism within academic geography since the time of Reclus andKropotkin did not necessarily signal the decline of anarchism as a relevant political idea.Rather, it is perhaps indicative of how anarchism left the academy for the greener pasturesof practice on the streets as direct action, civil disobedience, and Black Bloc tactics; in thecommunes and intentional communities of the co-operative movement; amid DIY acti-vists and a range of small-scale mutual aid groups, networks, and initiatives; as tenants’associations, trade unions, and credit unions; online through peer-to-peer file-sharing,

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open-source software, and wikis; among neighborhoods as autonomous migrant supportnetworks and radical social centers; and more generally within the here and now of every-day life. The closer we come to the present moment, the more the literature begins totake a turn towards an appreciation for praxis as a number of geographers have begunidentifying with anarchism where the result has been a burgeoning consideration of bothsides of the theory-practice divide. Readers should accordingly take the cited literature onanarchist geographies as a cue for exploring in more depth the geographies of anarchismthat have been productively established in various contexts, and better still, as a point ofdeparture in putting anarchism into practice within their own daily lives. Similarly, I hopethat this article will be useful in encouraging other geographers to explore anarchistthought and practice. Anarchism offers a rich and fertile ground for those working from ageographical perspective, where all that is required for it to bloom is more individuals will-ing to till its bountiful soils.

The Origins of Anarchist Geographies

The anthropological record confirms that before recorded history, human societies wereestablished without formal authority, where only the rise of hierarchical societies neces-sitated the formulation of a critical political philosophy called ‘anarchism’ that rejectedcoercive political institutions (Barclay 1982). Some have traced the origins of anarchistthinking to Taoism in ancient China (Graham 2005; Marshall 1992), while others havenoted that the first usage of the word anarchos, meaning ‘lack of a ruler’ and fromwhich the contemporary word ‘anarchy’ arises, arose in Europe and can be traced backto Homer’s Iliad (Verter 2010). While these developments should be recognized asimportant historical antecedents, it is more difficult to contend that they are part ofanarchism’s actual genealogy. Anarchism is a modern political philosophy, born ofEnlightenment thinking, where William Godwin was ‘‘the first to formulate the politicaland economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name tothe ideas developed in his work’’ (Kropotkin 1910; np). His book ‘Enquiry ConcerningPolitical Justice and its Influence on Modern Morals and Manners’ laid a foundation of critiqueagainst government and its related institutions of property, monarchy, and law as imped-iments to the ostensibly natural and inevitable ‘progress’ of humanity (Godwin1793 ⁄1976).

Godwin’s focus on the state gave an implicit geography to anarchist thought, so thatby the time Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1840 ⁄2008) picked up on this line of criticism withhis monumental ‘What is Property? Or, An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Govern-ment’, as the first person to ever explicitly call himself an ‘‘anarchist,’’ Proudhon alreadyhad a philosophical edifice that was deeply concerned with the ways in which humanbeings had come to arrange, order, and codify their relations in and across space as aresult of the Industrial Revolution. Proudhon railed against property, considering it aninstitution that sanctioned theft from the commons. By aligning the proprietor with thesovereign, he conceptualized a relational geography between property and the state. Yethis ire was not limited to these two institutions, as Proudhon also attacked notions ofprofit, wage labor, worker exploitation, capitalism, and the theological idea of theChurch, all of which had a profound influence on a then young Karl Marx, which con-firms anarchism and Marxism as sharing a lineage within socialist thought. Proudhonapplied the term ‘mutualism’ to his version of anarchism, envisioning the workers asbeing directly involved in and controlling the means of production, which he consideredthe only legitimate incarnation of ‘property’.

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Writing at the same time as Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin contributed much to anarchisttheory, but remains something of an enigma inspiring great controversy in his lifetimeand even to this day (Marshall 1992). What is clear in Bakunin’s vision is that he pos-sessed a profound hatred for the socio-political conditions in which he lived, and muchlike Proudhon, this manifested itself as complete distrust for the state. His view of thestate was directly related his beliefs about humanity, as he saw people as more or lessequal, naturally social and therefore desiring solidarity, and he held that people intrinsi-cally want to be free (Guerin 2005). Consequently, Bakunin’s anarchism is focused onthe problem of establishing a free society with a context of egalitarianism and mutualinteraction. The arrangement of existing societies into states was to Bakunin completelyartificial and unacceptable. He argued that the territorializing institution of the state wasnecessarily violent and anti-social, which actively denied alternative forms of non-hierar-chical organization that would enable the fulfilment of humanity (Bakunin 1873 ⁄2002).His pessimistic view of the state lead to a rivalry with Marx, where in the long march ofhistory, Bakunin’s concern that worker’s governments and the dictatorship of the prole-tariat would evolve into bureaucratic police states has been proven true. It is this veryquestion – rooted in the structuring of socio-spatial organization – that continues to ani-mate the concerns of many contemporary anarchists.

Bakunin and Proudhon were not just anarchists, as each man also considered himself aproponent of socialism. Their ideas were very influential in late 19th-century Europe,contributing much to the First International in 1864 and the subsequent Paris Communeof 1871 when workers overthrew the municipal government in revolt against authoritari-anism (Archer 1997). These events demonstrate the alignment of anarchist and socialistpractice from a very early stage, as both Proudhon and Bakunin faced off with Marx atvarious times throughout the libertarian movement, attempting to make a case for themore emancipatory version of socialism, which they firmly believed to be anarchism. Inmaking a liberal critique of socialism, and a socialist critique of liberalism, anarchism wasenvisioned, and is still intended as a thoroughgoing alternative to capitalism. Currentefforts by the libertarian right to appropriate anarchism for their so-called version of ‘freemarket anarchism’ or ‘anarcho-capitalism’ have no connection to the intellectual traditionand history of anarchist political thought and action. Although calling for the eliminationof the state, the political system they propose is rooted not in the collective, egalitarian,and democratic self-management of everyday life, but in a distorted sense of neo-socialDarwinism that promotes individual sovereignty and a ‘survival of the fittest’ mentalitythrough the free market. ‘Anarcho-capitalism’ is accordingly an oxymoron as it isentrenched in the very system of capitalist domination that anarchists have long sought toabolish.

The Rise of Anarchist Geographies

Given the tacit geographical framework that Proudhon and Bakunin laid alongside thefoundations for anarchist thought, it is perhaps somewhat unsurprising that Elisee Reclusand Peter Kropotkin, two of anarchism’s most renowned philosophers, were also geog-raphers. Reclus’s primary contribution, other than giving ‘social geography’ its name(Dunbar 1978), was his liberationist ideals, which he charted in meticulous detail in TheEarth and its Inhabitants: the Universal Geography. Reclus (1876-94) envisaged a coales-cence between humanity and the Earth itself, regarding the former as ‘‘nature becomingself-conscious.’’ While the universalism of his thought has become unfashionable as aresult of poststructuralism’s influence on the academy, one cannot ignore the profound



influence that his social and ecological ethics have played in the development of radicalthought, which stretches far beyond what many would consider ‘anarchism’. Reclus wasdedicated to extending compassion, altruism and the capacity for love beyond ourimmediate families, our nations, or even our species; a process that he believed wouldsimultaneously disavow and diminish all forms of domination. On humanity’s pathtowards a greater planetary consciousness, Reclus bravely imagined that such a trajectoryof reciprocal empathy, generosity, and respect would help the world to collectively dis-cover a more profound emotional meaning in our shared experiences as earthlings(Clark and Martin 2004). Long before the affective turn put emotional implications atthe forefront of critical geography, Reclus was already establishing a ‘caring geography’of the sort Lawson (2009) advocates. In line with his holistic view of an integral plane-tary system united in affinity and affection, Reclus advocated for the conservation ofnature, opposed animal cruelty, and practiced vegetarianism, thereby anticipating con-temporary social ecology and the animal rights movement (Fleming 1996; Marshall1992), while also foreshadowing veganarchism (Dominick 1995).

Although greatly influenced by the mentorship of Reclus (Ward 2010), Kropotkin’swork has received more attention as of late, where influential works such as The Conquestof Bread (1892 ⁄2011), Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution (1902 ⁄2008), and Fields, Factories,and Workshops (1912 ⁄1994) are now regarded as groundbreaking texts that have beeninstrumental to anarchist philosophy. Kropotkin developed his views at least partially inresponse to the social Darwinism of his time, where he took exception with the notionof fierce competition as the primary tenet of evolution and in particular its use as a ratio-nalization for the dominance of capitalism. He believed a more harmonious way of liferooted in cooperation was possible, and sought to offer a scientific basis to the idea thatmutual aid was in fact the natural order of things. Kropotkin accordingly viewed capital-ism as an affront to human freedom by promoting privilege, scarcity, and poverty. Severalyears spent in Siberia as a young man made a huge impression on Kropotkin, allowinghim to directly observe cooperation among both nonhuman animals and pre-feudal socie-ties, where he concluded that mutual aid and voluntary cooperation are the most impor-tant factors in the evolution of many species, including humans, by enabling their abilityto survive. His time in Siberia instilled in him a very different geographical imaginationthan that of the Marxists, where he emphasized not the centrality of the industrialworker, but the agriculture, local production, and decentralized organization of rural life,allowing him to envision a place for self-sufficiency and question the supposed need forcentralized government (Galois 1976). Through his experiences, observations, and travels,Kropotkin (1885 ⁄1978, 7) also viewed teaching geography, particularly to children, as anexercise in intellectual emancipation insofar as it afforded a means not only to awakenpeople to ‘‘the harmonies of nature,’’ but also to dissipate their nationalist and racist prej-udices, a promise that geography still holds.

While the intersections between anarchism and geography became less overt as the 20thcentury dawned, anarchist ideas remained vital to the philosophical milieu of radical ideas.One of the best examples of such vibrancy is the influence of Emma Goldman, whobrought anarchism into direct conversation with feminism, and in doing so she turned anew page for anarchist geographies. Although not a geographer by training and neverdirectly engaging with geographical thought, her focus on those institutional structures ofdomination that exist beyond the state instilled a heightened focus on the body as a spacefor radical politics. She was an outspoken opponent to marriage, railed against homopho-bia, and promoted free love, wherein the question of sexualities, and specifically the free-dom to choose, became a primer on liberation (Goldman 1917 ⁄1969). Her concern for



the corporeal well being of the individual extended into a commitment to Atheism as abulwark against ‘‘the perpetuation of a slave society’’ and the false promises of heaven, aview of free speech as an essential component of social change, and a understanding ofprisons as the extension of an economic system committed not to justice, but to penalizingthe poor (Goldman 1972 ⁄1996, 233). Near the end of Goldman’s life, she traveled toSpain to support the anarchist revolution, where between 1936 and 1939 a peasant andworkers movement took control of Barcelona and large areas of rural Spain, collectivizingthe land and implementing anarchist organizing principles (Goldman 2006). These eventsdemonstrated to the world that anarchism could work in practice, and the Spanish case isstill invoked by anarchists as one of the movement’s most successful moments(Ealham 2010).

Two decades after Goldman’s death in 1940, Murray Bookchin resurrected the envi-ronmental focus of Reclus, developing his anarchist critiques into what he dubbed ‘socialecology’, which views ecological problems as inextricably bound to and often the resultof social problems. In 1962 Bookchin published an impassioned critique of various envi-ronmental ills with Our Synthetic Environment (Bookchin 1962 ⁄1974). Although receivinglittle attention due to its radicalism, the book predated Rachel Carson’s (1962 ⁄ 2002)watershed Silent Spring by several months. Strongly influenced by the ethical naturalismof Reclus and Kropotkin, throughout the 1960s Bookchin promoted his libertarian andecological ideas among the counterculture movements of the time through a series ofpioneering essays later compiled in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (Bookchin 1971 ⁄2004). ColinWard also published a number of influential works around this time, including Anarchy inAction (1973 ⁄ 1982), Housing: An Anarchist Approach (1976) and his most well knownbook, The Child in the City (1978 ⁄ 1990), which once again demonstrated the importanceof geography to anarchist practice and thought. The majority of Ward’s writings concen-trated on issues of housing and planning laws, which he critiqued as circumscribing peo-ples ability to care and provide for themselves. Proudhon and Kropotkin had a clearinfluence on the solutions he proposed, with recommendations philosophically rooted inautonomous, non-hierarchical forms of solidarity that overturned authoritarian methodsof socio-spatial organization (White and Wilbert 2011).

The Role of Anarchism in Radical Geography

In the wake of the quantitative revolution, some geographers had begun to notice theanarchist currents happening outside and on the margins of the discipline. The publicationof the first issue of Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography announced the arrival of a newethic in human geography, concerned not with Stochastic models, inferential statistics, andeconometrics, but rather with qualitative approaches that placed the actual lived experi-ences of human beings at the center of its methodological focus. Positivist geographieswere critiqued on the basis of their being but one single version in a multitude of otherpossible ways of knowing and being in the world, limited in their own narrow outlook bymethods of enquiry that predetermined what questions were even worthwhile asking(Galois 1976). Within this atmosphere, Marxist and feminist critiques quickly found aplace within an emerging radical geography. Yet anarchism also played a key role in itsfoundations as the epistemological critique radical geography offered in many ways mir-rored anarchist evaluations of the state, which was interpreted as but one possible form oforganization within an infinite number of alternative spatial arrangements. It is perhapsunsurprising then that Richard Peet (1975), founding editor of Antipode, was so inspiredby Kropotkin that he argued radical geography should adopt his anarcho-communism as



its point of departure. Kropotkin’s work was similarly embraced by Myrna Breitbart(1975), who argued against the privation of the majority through a reading of the organi-zation of human landscapes, which were said to unfairly advantage a privileged minority,rather than being established through principles that benefit everyone.

A few years later, Breitbart (1978a) organized a special issue on anarchism and theenvironment for Antipode, explicitly placing anarchist ideas at the center of radical geogra-phy. The issue demonstrated the ongoing influence of anarchist thought and practice ongeography, as well as geography’s influence on anarchism. Included in the issue wereexplorations of worker collectivization and spatial practices during the Spanish Revolu-tion (Amsden 1978; Breitbart 1978b; Garcia-Ramon 1978), including how such alterna-tive organizational impulses influenced a new generation of libertarianism withincontemporary Spanish politics (Golden 1978). The inner workings of an anarchist com-munity within Paterson, New Jersey around 1900 were also unpacked in detail, whichenabled readers to draw some comparisons with the Spanish case (Carey 1978). Reclusand Kropotkin received accolades in the issue, as Dunbar (1978) conveyed the impor-tance of Reclus’s geographical vision for freedom, while Horner (1978) teased out theimplications of Kropotkin’s anarcho-geography on the spatial organization of cities, andPeet (1978) explored the ethics of Kropotkin’s work in relation to the socio-spatiality ofdecentralization as a means to achieve a geography of human liberation. Kropotkin’s(1885 ⁄ 1978) essay ‘What geography ought to be’ was also reprinted in this special issuealong with the inclusion of Bookchin’s (1965 ⁄1978) ‘Ecology and revolutionary thought’,which signaled the enduring value of anarchist writings and their relevance to the radicalgeographical thought that was emerging at the time.

The newsletter of the Union of Socialist Geographers also published a short themedsection on anarchist geographies in 1978, arising from an informal ten-week reading-discussion group comprised of students and faculty members that took place at the Uni-versity of Minnesota in 1976. This included an opening essay that reviewed and critiquedkey works by Kropotkin, Ward, and Bookchin among others, which were read by theMinnesota group (Lauria 1978), a paper that sought to remind readers ‘‘how ignorant andfearful our colleagues and friends are to [anarchist] ideas’’ and delineate some possiblefuture directions to the study of anarchism from a geographical perspective (Pissaria1978), and an article that considered the degree to which anarchist organization might be(im)possible given the scale and complexity of contemporary social relations and politicaleconomic forms (Porter 1978). Although the themed issue had a limited audience andlifespan given its newsletter status, it demonstrates the keen interest in anarchism that wasbrewing among radical geographers working at that time. The Minnesota group and theefforts of Antipode were important moments of reflection, and indicate a sense of opti-mism towards the potential of anarchist ideas to reinvigorate a collective geographicalpractice that was increasingly turning its attention towards social justice. Unfortunatelythese progressive encounters between early radical geographers and anarchism were short-lived, quickly eclipsed by the voluminous efforts of those working within the Marxistand feminist schools of critique.

The 1980s saw significantly fewer anarchist writings within geography. If one were tospeculate on the reasons for this, the muted optimism and decline of the New Left thatcoincided with the rise of Thatcherism in the United Kingdom and Reaganomics in theUnited States stands out as a likely explanation. Nonetheless, the decade where neoliber-alism really began to rear its ugly head did see the publication of Bookchin’s (1982 ⁄2005)magisterial The Ecology of Freedom where he sought to unite what he viewed as the domi-nation of nature with social hierarchy, weaving political, anthropological, psychological,



scientific, and geographical themes into a single narrative. With globalization making itsway into vernacular to arguably become the buzzword of the decade, the political hap-penings of the 1980s gave rise to some introspective reflection within geography. Impor-tant geographers from the past, such as Halford Mackinder, Ellen Churchill Semple,Ellsworth Huntington, Isaiah Bowman and Thomas Holdich, were not spared by MacLaughlin (1986), who argued that their work had contributed to a persistent ethnocen-trism and state-centricity within geography, where Kropotkin and Reclus were onceagain invoked in exhorting geographers to abandon the inherited prejudices of the disci-pline and begin exploring alternatives to the state. The 1990s faired little better in termsof the number of geographers. Actively exploring the potential of anarchist geographiesCook and Pepper (1990) offered a notable exception, having organized a special issue ofthe short-lived journal Contemporary Issues in Geography and Education, where the legacy ofKropotkin was once again uncovered (Cook 1990; Pepper 1990). But so too was Gold-man’s relevance treated to a geographical reading (Newman 1990), while the spatialitiesof anarchist communes and community experiences were explored (Hardy 1990; Rigby1990), and even Ward (1990) and Breitbart (1990) contributed papers on the potentiali-ties of anarchism within urban life. Elsewhere, Routledge’s (1998, 245) concept of ‘anti-geopolitics’ started to fill in the anarchist gap in the geographical literature in late 1990s,where although he never explicitly connected this concept to anarchism, a focus oncounter-hegemonic struggle and the ‘‘assertion of permanent independence from thestate’’ resonated strongly with anarchist ideas.

The New Anarchist Geographies

In the spirit of seeking new forms of organization, anarchist geographies have been revi-talized as of late, emphasizing a ‘do-it-yourself’ (DIY) ethos of autonomy, direct action,radical democracy, and non-commodification. Attending to the radical potential of DIYculture, Halfacree (1999) argued that such an outlook serves as an important case inthinking through how theory and practice should be considered complementary, wherehe uses the occupation of derelict land to illustrate these connections. The Trapese Col-lective (2007) has similarly argued from an anarchistic perspective on the importance of aDIY approach to everyday geographies in transforming our lives. Elsewhere, Chatterton(2002) has argued in favor of squatting as a legitimate spatial practice of taking control ofone’s own life. Within these accounts is a decidedly autonomous focus, which clearlydraws inspiration from anarchist thought and particularly Bey’s (1991) account of ‘tempo-rary autonomous zones’, which are impermanent spaces that arise in response to sociopo-litical action that eludes formal structures of hierarchical control. Pickerill and Chatterton(2006) adopted a similar approach when they advanced what they dubbed ‘autonomousgeographies’ in attempting to think through how spectacular protest and everyday lifemight be productively combined to enable alternatives to capitalism. Autonomous geog-raphies were conceived in a decidedly anarchistic sense, insofar as they are considered asspaces wherein a desire to constitute collectivist, non-capitalist, and anti-normative formsof solidarity and affinity come to the fore. The resonance with Routledge’s (2003, 2009)work should not go unnoticed, as his notion of convergence space as a conceptual aid inappreciating how grassroots networks and activists come together through multiscalarpolitical action to produce a relational ethics of struggle is also inspired by a broadly anar-chistic outlook.

Within these accounts the explicitly anarchist tactic of direct action is either explic-itly advocated or implied. Other geographers have similarly attended to direct action,



appreciating the overtly geographical implications of this form of political activism(Anderson 2004; Heynen 2010), while anthropologist David Graeber’s (2009) recent eth-nography of direct action has many resonances with contemporary geographical theoryand its increasing tendency to liberate epistemological and ontological views from theillusion of disinterested objectivity. Direct action as method involves an impassionedpolitical commitment to our area of study, an affective embrace of those actors who arestruggling against domination, and a willingness to resist alongside them (The Autono-mous Geographies Collective 2010). The geography of direct action itself typically playsitself out in public space, and in critiquing the punitive and technocratic circumscriptionsthat neoliberal policy reforms place on non-hierarchical and non-institutional forms ofpolitical engagement, Springer (2011) has used an anarchist approach in calling for a morecomprehensive radicalization of democracy. Similar concerns for public space are high-lighted in the works of anarchists like Jeff Ferrell (2001) and Randal Amster (2008), whoboth embrace nonviolent activism in their respective accounts of resisting the revanchismof urban order and the ongoing criminalization of the homeless. An appeal to non-mone-tization frames much of this recent work, which is openly adopted by Carlsson (2008;Carlsson and Manning 2010) through the concept of ‘Nowtopia’, which signifies thepotential utopia of the present moment that comes when one abandons capitalism in theireveryday lives. While such radical critiques are novel in the current conjuncture wherecapitalism represents a powerful conceptual prison that attempts to ‘lock-in’ a singularway of being in the world, recent work by Springer (2013a) demonstrates historical andcontemporary precedents in drawing parallels between anarchist views on non-commodi-fication and the traditional landholding practices of rural and indigenous peoples, particu-larly Cambodians. In critiquing forced evictions as a particularly malevolent form ofongoing primitive accumulation in Cambodia, Springer (2013b) employs a Proudhon-inspired reading of property that positions anarchism as the only meaningful form ofpost-colonialism insofar as it recognizes the authority, hierarchies and violence of themodern state as tantamount to the colonial state.

Inspired by the ongoing analytic power and transformative potential of anarchist theo-ries and practices, two new special issues on anarchist geographies have recently emergedin Antipode (Springer et al. 2012a) and ACME (Clough and Blumberg forthcoming).The issues bring together a diverse range of anarchist perspectives, theoretical concernsand practical approaches, while the latter also includes attempts to bridge anarchist andautonomist Marxist geographies (Mudu forthcoming). Other themes that emerge in theissues are territoriality and how an anarchist perspective offers a more emancipatory con-ceptualization through re-imagining space via a prefigurative politics (Ince 2012); a cri-tique of the oppositional practice of dumpster diving and the ways in which it remainsat least partially entangled with capitalism (Crane forthcoming); and a reinterpretation ofexisting economic landscapes, where mutual aid can be read as integral to our currentmodes of organization demonstrating how anarchist geographies actually inform everydaypatterns of human activity (White and Williams 2012). Ferrell (2012) develops a geo-graphical theory of ‘drift’, wherein those groups set adrift by neoliberalism in a sea ofalienation, political expulsion, forced removal and marginalization might use anarchisttactics to drift closer together and therein undo the prescribed spatio-political order.Heynen and Rhodes (forthcoming) address the influence of civil rights era organizingon the formation of ‘Black Anarchism’ and how both contributed to anti-authoritarianpolitics and possibilities. Considering indigenous and anarchist geographies as both har-monizing and dissonant, Barker and Pickerill (2012) encourage activists to complementrather than attempt to replicate Indigenous relationships to place, therein allowing for



stronger alliances. Clough (2012) focuses on the actual practice of anarchist organizing,examining the ‘affective structures’ of the radical politics, wherein social struggle isengaged through both direct action and the emotional organizing principle of affinity, afield of interaction that itself becomes the focus of contestation. Rouhani’s (forthcoming,2012b) has papers in both issues where he outlines how pedagogical approaches withingeography could potentially engage with anarchist ideas in reimagining the educationlandscape and offers a mapping of the connections between anarchist and queer geogra-phies. Purcell (forthcoming) critiques Day’s (2005) contention that anarchism has notbeen taken seriously enough in radical scholarship by arguing that at least as far as radicalgeography is concerned, the influence of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari has fostered astrong ‘anarchistic’ sensibility, even if it is not immediately recognized as anarchist. TheAntipode issue also includes Springer’s (2012b) manifesto for anarchist geographies, wherehe urges geographers to confront the current moment of neoliberal hegemony byexploring the enduring potential of anarchist praxis within geography through not onlyrevisiting the discipline’s radical roots in Kropotkin and Reclus, but by actively injectinganarchist critiques into new and emergent domains of geographical inquiry. The obviousimplication of these two special issues is that anarchist geographies are once again on theupswing.

Conclusion

As a testament to the lasting legacy of Elisee Reclus and Peter Kropotkin, both menreceived entries in the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Clark 2009; Kearns2009), while their visions of freedom continue to be raised by contemporary geographers.For example, in employing Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid, Huston (1997) used anexplicitly geographical approach to bring the importance of a spatial focus to the attentionof anarchists in the journal Anarchist Studies. Hewitt (2001) brought some much neededmainstream recognition to the work of Kropotkin, delivering a keynote address to theCanadian Association of Geographers that explored the salience of his commitment tothe vulnerable in the context of ongoing state violence and human rights violations.Kearns (2004, 337) examines how the progressive geographical imagination of Kropotkincontrasted sharply with the colonial vision of Halford Mackinder suggesting that anar-chism and imperialism ‘‘were the political pivot around which contesting geographieswere organized’’ at the end of the 19th-century. Even more recently Ferretti (2011) alertsus to the enormous collection of correspondence between Reclus and Kropotkin that isheld by the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and the significance of these lettersin aiding contemporary historical geographers to better understand the relationshipsbetween geography, politics and public education, and the role of heterodox geographersin the construction of geographical knowledge. Such renewed attention to these historicalfigures is of course to be welcomed as the implications of their work continues to reso-nate within geography over a century after their deaths. Yet what is needed now is notsimply a view towards the past, but a view towards the future, wherein a sustained focuson developing theory in relation to anarchist geographies and ongoing investigations ofactually existing geographies of anarchism in practice may breathe new life into the profoundcontributions anarchism might yet make to geography and vice versa. While this work isalready underway, and the recent special issue on anarchist geographies in Antipode andACME are welcome indications that anarchism is still a relevant political theory and aviable approach to thinking about and practicing geography (Clough and Blumberg 2012;Springer et al. 2012a), there is much more work yet to be done.



A range of contemporary issues–from the overt uprisings of the Arab Spring and theOccupy Wall Street Movement; to the spectacle of street theater, Critical Mass rides, rad-ical samba, and Reclaim the Streets parties; to the subversive resistance of monkeywren-ching, tree-sitting, rooftop occupations, and culture jamming; to lifestyle choices ofdumpster diving, unschooling, and squatting; to the mutual aid activities of child-mindingco-ops, community kitchens and gardens, building coalitions, and freecycling; to theorganizing capabilities of microradio, Infoshops, book fairs, and Indymedia – all havedecidedly spatial implications and each would accordingly stand to benefit from analysesthat employ an explicitly anarcho-geographical perspective. Similarly, on the more theo-retical side of things, anarchism has much to contribute to enhancing geographicalknowledge, where themes such as state theory and sovereignty; capital accumulation, landrights, and property relations; gentrification, homelessness, and housing; environmentaljustice and sustainability; industrial restructuring and labor geographies; policing, fear ofcrime, and critical legal geographies; agrarian transformation and landlessness; urbandesign and aesthetics; critical geopolitics and anti-geopolitics; more-than-human geogra-phies and non-representational theory; activism and social justice; geographies of debt andeconomic crisis; community, belonging and the politics of place; geographies of war andpeace; community planning and participation; informal economy, livelihoods, and vulner-ability; cultural imperialism and identity politics; biopolitics and governmentality; postco-lonial and postdevelopment geographies; situated knowledges and alternativeepistemologies; and the manifold implications of society-space relations all seem particu-larly well suited to a more overt infusion of anarchist ideas, where new research insightsand agendas might productively arise. One of the potentially most fruitful directions for areinvigoration of anarchism within geographical theory would be for geographers tobegin working with some of the progressive developments that have been occurring inwhat has been called ‘postanarchism’ (see May 1994; Newman 2010; Rousselle and Evren2012) and its attempted merger of poststructuralist and anarchist thought. Springer(2012b, 2013b) has begun employing postanarchist ideas from a geographical, but there issignificant scope for more geographers to weigh in.

The sheer diversity of the topics that geographers could potentially engage from ananarchist perspective speaks to the notion that the discipline of geography is highly undis-ciplined. Historically, this has been a reason for a lot of second-guessing and an inferiorsense of self among some geographers, spawning movements like the quantitative revolu-tion, which was an attempt to ‘rein geography in’ so that it would conform more to theprevalent scientific order of things (Barnes 2009). Yet in the current moment, as Marxist,feminist, and poststructuralist critiques have gained a firm foothold in contemporary geo-graphical theory, many geographers increasingly recognize that such openness and varia-tion should be embraced as one of geography’s great strengths. As an undergraduate itwas the unrestricted versatility of the discipline that first attracted me to geography.Employing a geographical approach to me always meant that I was free to explore what-ever my interests were, without having to conform to a particular way of doing things.My experiences as a student left me with a real sense that geography was not so muchabout re-inscribing borders, reinforcing territories, and reifying demarcations, as it wasabout critically interrogating the limits of our geographical imaginations so that we mightbe liberated from the spatial circumscriptions of our own collective making. So while the‘geography of freedom’ was at the center of anarchist theory in the past (Fleming 1996),in the present it is the ‘freedom of geography’ that positions the discipline as an ideallocation from which to explore the ongoing relevance and potential of anarchist thoughtand practice.



Aknowledgements

Thanks to Jo Sharp for the invitation to contribute this article to the journal, as well asto Anthony Ince for suggesting me in his stead. Although Ant is quite capable of writingon the subject, he was busy doing the much more important task of traveling the world,including spending time knee-deep in mud in Turkey. James Sidaway offered importantcriticisms prior to submission, and also revealed that both he and Trevor Barnes are bigSex Pistols fans. With ‘‘Anarchy in the UK’’ being a favorite song of his, James sloga-neered ‘‘Punk is not dead’’! I hope this is a sign that we will see him at a future AAGmeeting wearing a ripped shirt held together by safety pins and a pink Mohawk tomatch.

Short Biography

Simon Springer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the Univer-sity of Victoria, Canada. Prior to this he worked at the University of Otago and theNational University of Singapore. Simon’s research agenda explores the political, social,and geographical exclusions that neoliberalization has engendered in post-transitionalCambodia, emphasizing the spatialities of violence and power. He cultivates a cuttingedge approach to human geography through a theoretical edifice that foregrounds bothpoststructuralist critique and a radical revival of anarchist philosophy in advancing a pos-tanarchist positionality. In a relatively short period of time since being awarded his PhDfrom the University of British Columbia in 2009, Simon has published extensively in anumber of top-ranking geography journals including, Transactions of the Institute of BritishGeographers, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Environment and Planning D:Society and Space, Political Geography, Area, Environment and Planning A, Geoforum, andAntipode. He is also the author of Cambodia’s Neoliberal Order: Violence, Authoritarianism,and the Contestation of Public Space (Springer, 2010). Most importantly Simon is the proudfather of daughter Solina, and sons Odin and Tyr.

Note

Correspondence address: Simon Springer, Department of Geography, University of Victoria, PO Box 3060 STNCSC, Victoria, BC V8W 3R4, Canada. E-mail: [email protected].

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