Author: AnarchistStudies.Blog

This article takes a personal and reflective view of forms of activism that have come to prominence in recent years in the UK, such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. Nora Ziegler critiques the ways in which unequal distributions of power create barriers to participation, and the limitations of deploying concepts rooted in misanthropy or individualism as a means of overcoming apathy and climate denial. The article is informed by several years as a live-in volunteer at the London Catholic Worker, which operated as a house of hospitality for refugees and migrants, while also hosting activists and engaging in activism.

Herd Mentality, Deathbed Radicalism and Other Things On My Not-To-Do List

Registration for the 7th international Anarchist Studies Network conference is now OPEN! Full programme and abstracts available at the ASN webpage.

REGISTER HERE

Like last time, the conference costs a minimum amount for security reasons. If you would rather not pay, please let us know and we can send you a free ticket code. This time we have also introduced a supporter ticket. Please feel free to choose this option if you can afford it and wish to do so. The funds we gather will be used to fund low-waged participants during the conference or during other ASN projects.

Please send any questions, funding requests, accessibility needs and feedback to asn.conference@protonmail.com

In the meantime, check out the Anarchist Studies blog, the Anarchist Studies journal and the Anarchist Research Group (ARG) on Twitter and YouTube. Please also read our Code of Conduct.

Look forward to seeing you there!

The near-inevitability of error is a perpetual thorn in the side of historians. Of particular interest to anarchists, the Makhnovist movement provides numerous examples of historiographical myth production – a key example is the famous black flag displaying the skull-and-crossbones and the slogan in white Ukrainian lettering, ‘Death to all who stand in the way of freedom for the working people’ [‘Smertʹ vsim, khto na pereshkodi dobut’ia vilʹnosti trudovomu liudu’].

The flag has cycled through a multitude of meanings, from Bolshevik attempts to associate it with anti-Semitic pogroms, to an international source of inspiration for anarchist resistance, to a symbol of regional pride in Makhno’s hometown, and a declaration of defiance against Russian invasion. But, as Sean Patterson explains in this article, despite its near-universal reputation as the primary symbol of Ukrainian anarchism, the flag is not Makhnovist. Even so, the flag and its slogan will surely survive and continue its march through time.

“Death to All Who Stand in the Way of Freedom for the Working People”: Anarchy’s False Flag

The Dispossessed (1974) may be the best-known anarchist fiction of the twentieth century. This essay by Frankie Hines charts a new path around it by looking in depth at the novel’s politics of logistics, revealing a space in which the contradictions of Anarres’ anarchist society are especially pronounced.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s Logistics Revolution – The Dispossessed and the Supply Chain

‘We will do it ourselves, because the government won’t do it for us.

But we must do it together, because we are stronger as a collective than we are as individuals.’

Elise Imray Papineau compares the mutual aid responses to the Covid 19 pandemic in Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines, arguing that the proliferation and consistency of mutual aid initiatives is affected not only by need, but also by the reach of the state and the pervasiveness of political apathy.

Doing-It-Together: Mutual aid and grassroots activism in Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines

‘When most people today think of the Co-op, they probably think of the supermarket …’

Máirtín Ó Catháin argues that the co-operative movement, as a non-state and democratic economic strategy built from the bottom up by workers themselves, is long overdue for recognition as a native manifestation of British anarchism.

‘A nation of shopkeepers’. The real lost history of British anarchism?

Intellectual property, enforced by the State and chiefly benefitting corporate enterprise, is a major obstacle to the universal exchange of knowledge. Against this unethical and exploitative hoarding of information, Luke Ray Di Marco Campbell argues that we must ‘Liberate to Educate!’, highlighting the practice of collective and co-constructed translation as a key circumvention of privileged copyright. In the spirit of Emma:

‘If you’re interested, ask to participate in the research process. If they won’t allow you, ask to access, comment on, critique, share, and further develop the work. If they won’t share it, take it from Sci-Hub or The Anarchist Library and do what you will.’

Intellectual Property is Theft – Towards an Anarchist Culture of Knowledge Sharing & Translation

The British Prime Minister has dubbed the 19th of July as ‘Freedom Day’, with most Covid-19 restrictions in England being removed. But, in this article, Jon Bigger reminds us that Johnson is not a real libertarian, and that having risk foisted upon us by those in power is not ‘freedom’:

‘They are forcing us to live the kind of lives they believe necessary, for an economic system they place among the gods. It couldn’t be more dangerous, it couldn’t be more risky, and it couldn’t be less libertarian.’

Why Boris Johnson still isn’t a libertarian

Manosh Chowdhury’s critical insights reveal that the oft-celebrated ‘autonomy’ of Bangladeshi universities is very limited in practice. Manosh highlights the structural issues underpinning ‘self-censorship’ by academics, and details how this situation is exacerbated by increased surveillance under the Digital Security Act and cyberspace ‘bullying’.

When You Fear Yourself! ‘Freedom’ in Bangladeshi Academia