Radicalizing pedagogy: Geography and libertarian education between the 19th and the 20th century

This paper analyses the role played by anarchist geographers like Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) and Pëtr Kropotkin (1842-1921) in the movement of libertarian pedagogy, popular schools and university extensions between the 19th and the 20th century, as well as in the debates of that time on the foundation of the systems of public and secular education. During their exile in Switzerland, these scholars worked in network with other militants and scientists like Charles Perron (1837-1909), founder of the Geneva Cartographic Museum and protagonist of the debates on popular education, and kept international relations with educators like Francisco Ferrer y Guardia (1859-1909), Paul Robin (1837-1912) and Henri Roorda van Eysinga (1870-1925). The movement of libertarian pedagogy, which founded at that time “modern schools” in countries like Spain, France, Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy, United States, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, is considered to have influenced the following experiences of pedagogic activism and “liberation pedagogies”, as well as authors like Céléstin Freinet or Paulo Freire. If many historiographical works exist on this movement, the role of geographers in it is still little studied. To understand it, it is necessary to deal with two other scholars, James Guillaume (1842-1916) and Ferdinand Buisson (1841-1932), protagonists of the transmission of secular and popular education among different nations and different political milieus, who contributed to build the French public school by works like their mammoth Dictionary of Pedagogy, with the collaboration of geographers like Franz Schrader and Reclus, and anarchist educators like Paul Robin. In this paper, I argue that anarchist geographers had a primary role in the theoretical and practical definition of libertarian pedagogy, and that some anarchist educators (thanks also to the scientific prestige of figures like Reclus, Kropotkin and Guillaume) gave a still little-known contribution to establish the systems of public and secular schools in several countries. I discuss my hypotheses dealing with the works and archives of the cited authors, with the aid of the existing literature on geography and anarchism.