Anarchist Essays

In this essay, Chantelle Gray talks about algorithmic governance - a new art of governing and government that treats individuals as data and the social world as a problem of big data sets - and the effects this is having on politics. Drawing on Tiqqun's The Cybernetic Hypothesis (2020), she thinks about anarchist responses to one of the most pressing issues of our time, namely how to prefigure social consistency in such a way that it produces conditions counter to algorithmic governmentality. Chantelle Gray is an Associate Professor in Philosophy. Her most recent publications are "Fabulation in a Time of Algorithmic Ecology: Making the Future Possible" (with Aragorn Eloff) in Technology, Urban Space and the Networked Community (edited by Saswat Samay Das and Ananya Roy Pratihar) and Anarchism after Deleuze and Guattari: Fabulating Futures. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Michael A. Denner explores anarchism’s aesthetic attitude towards reality: What does anarchism "look like" in art? Using examples drawn from texts by two Russian thinkers, Leo Tolstoy and Viktor Shklovsky, Denner tries to answer the question:  Why is art so important to the politics of anarchism? Michael Denner is devourer of universes at Stetson University, DeLand Florida (that's the USA... not far from Disney!) His most recent research is in film studies (What do cowboys eat?). He makes boots and raises bees. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Anthony Ince explores how a state-centric understanding of the world, how it fits together, and our place in it, limits both popular and academic ideas of what forms of societal organisation are possible or desirable. Taking the geographical concept of territory as an example, the essay considers what could be done to reimagine the space of our world, to undermine the hegemonic grip of the state and imagine alternatives that operate against and beyond it. Anthony Ince is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Cardiff University. His research cuts across geography and political/social theory through an interest in how grassroots forms of collective power interact with large-scale social processes, including recent publications on anti-fascist spatial strategy and neighbourhood-scale legacies of urban riots. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Eric Laursen discusses the roots of the climate change crisis in the forces driving the modern State. He lays out an analysis that locates overreliance on fossil fuels in the State's partnership with capital and their mutual focus on promoting rapid economic growth at any cost.  Eric Laursen is an independent scholar, journalist, and longtime anarchist activist, based in Massachusetts. He is the author, most recently, of The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the State (AK Press, 2021), and The Duty to Stand Aside: Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Wartime Quarrel of George Orwell and Alex Comfort (AK Press, 2018). Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Jeff Ferrell discusses his lifelong practice of ‘dumpster diving’ (trash picking, skip diving) as a form of anarchist direct action. He argues that dumpster diving constitutes a direct intervention into consumer waste, environmental harm, and economic inequality, while also helping to shape networks of anarchist mutual aid. Jeff Ferrell is a retired professor of criminology and sociology. His latest books are Drift: Illicit Mobility and Uncertain Knowledge, published by University of California Press, and the forthcoming Last Picture, a collection of dumpster dived photographs, published by Atopia Projects. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Hayyim Rothman discusses religious Jewish anarchism. Beginning with a survey of its historical and some of its theological foundations, he proceeds to highlight central themes in the work of one of its proponents, Rabba Avraham Heyn (1878-1957). Hayyim Rothman is an independent scholar of modern Jewish thought; his most recent publications include No Masters but God: Portraits of Anarcho-Judaism, and Knesset Yisrael ve-Milhamot ha-Goyim. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Adam Barker discusses recurrent problems around non-Indigenous anarchists involved in land reclamation actions, along with Audra, a Kanonsionni'on:we (Ga-noon-soon-knee-on-way) resident of the Six Nations of the Grand River, and Delee, a Wet’suwet’en activist who has been involved in ongoing struggles in several communities. Audra and Delee's experiences and encounters with anarchists seeking to work in solidarity with Indigenous land reclamation struggles reveal patterns of patriarchal aggressions, disruptions of community relationships and internal dynamics, and poor reputation among Indigenous communities, but with suggestions for how some groups have done better solidarity work that can inform anarchist activists. Adam Barker is a Research Assistant in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield. Adam's most recent publication is Making and Breaking Settler Space: Five Centuries of Colonization in North America, with UBC Press. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Iwona Janicka talks about one of the possible ways to understand contemporary anarchism in practice, that is, through the concept of ‘solidarity with singularity’ in a mimetic framework. This philosophical approach is able to account for the anarchist concerns not only with humans in need of solidarity but also with the nonhumans (plants, animals, the environment). Iwona Janicka is Assistant Professor and EU Maria Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Denmark. She is the author of Theorizing Contemporary Anarchism. Solidarity, Mimesis and Radical Social Change (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017). Currently she is working on the question of world-building in contemporary continental philosophy. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. For more information on the ARG, visit www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/politics-international-studies/research/arg/ . You can follow us on Twitter @arglboro Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Laney Lenox discusses working as an anarchist anthropologist and the practical implications of designing methodological tools to reflect this political ethos. Through prioritizing process over outcomes, Lenox describes how research methods become political action. Laney Lenox, PhD Researcher in School of Applied Policy and Social Sciences, Ulster University, Northern Ireland. Lenox´s most recent publications are "Everyday Anarchism: Temporal Impermanence and Liberation in Everyday Action" and "Slow Journalism." Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. For more information on the ARG, visit www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/politics-international-studies/research/arg/ . You can follow us on Twitter @arglboro Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations

In this essay, Vittorio Frigerio explores the often-fraught relationship between anarchism and the literary milieu in France, starting with a discussion of Proudhon’s opinions on literature and the place given to serialized novels in his newspapers, and presenting some of the many publications where writers and militants crossed paths, up until the Second World War.   Vittorio Frigerio is Emeritus Professor of French at Dalhousie University (Halifax, N.S., Canada). He is the author of the recent book Nous nous reverrons aux barricades. Les feuilletons des journaux de Proudhon (1848-1850) (Grenoble : UGA, 2021), as well as of several others on anarchism and literary creation, including La littérature de l’anarchisme. Anarchistes de lettres et lettrés face à l’anarchie (Grenoble : ELLUG, 2014). Click here for more information on his activities.    Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. For more information on the ARG, visit www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/politics-international-studies/research/arg/ . You can follow us on Twitter @arglboro Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365 Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations