Anarchism and Geography

This chapter addresses the relations between anarchism and geography following three main directions. First, I discuss the historical and material links existing between the very foundations of both geographical and anarchist thought, through the common work of scholars and activists who are considered founding figures for both, such as Elisée Reclus, Peter Kropotkin and their collaborators. Importantly, this correspondence was not occasional, as early anarchist geographers elaborated notions that intersected with their political and scholarly spheres. This was the case with their commonly-elaborated ideas on communalism; federalism/decentralisation and mutual aid; their critique of maps as instruments of state power; and their anticolonial understanding of geography as a discipline challenging frontiers, racism and Eurocentrism to foster worldwide fraternity. Second, I expose the plural waves of rediscovery of anarchist geographers and geographies that took place in different countries and linguistic areas in the last 50 years or so, highlighting the links between activism and scholarship that variously characterise the renewed interest in anarchism which is currently affecting international geographical scholarship. Third, I discuss further applications of anarchist-inspired geographies and geographical approaches to anarchism in debates on decoloniality, the pluriverse, intersectionality and ‘anti-policing’ stances as proposed by recent literature. I conclude by arguing that the connection between anarchism and geography still offers relevant instruments to tackle urgent challenges. The anarchist tradition brings insights to potentially enrich all these fields, including the coherence between theory and praxis, the connection between social and spatial freedom and a voluntarist drive to social transformation, countering all possible authoritarian, academic and liberal distortions of the related struggles.