Reanimating anarchist geographies: A new burst of colour

Reanimating Anarchist Geographies: A New Burst of Colour Simon Springer Department of Geography, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada; [email protected] Anthony Ince School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK Jenny Pickerill, Gavin Brown and Adam J. Barker Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK Abstract: The late nineteenth century saw a burgeoning of geographical writings from influential anarchist thinkers like Peter Kropotkin and Élisée Reclus. Yet despite the vigorous intellectual debate sparked by the works of these two individuals, following their deaths anarchist ideas within geography faded. It was not until the 1970s that anarchism was once again given serious consideration by academic geographers who, in laying the groundwork for what is today known as “radical geography”, attempted to reintroduce anarchism as a legitimate political philosophy. Unfortunately, quiet followed once more, and although numerous contemporary radical geographers employ a sense of theory and practice that shares many affinities with anarchism, direct engagement with anarchist ideas among academic geographers have been limited. As contemporary global challenges push anarchist theory and practice back into widespread currency, geographers need to rise to this occasion and begin (re)mapping the possibilities of what anarchist perspectives might yet contribute to the discipline. Keywords: anarchism, anarchist geographies, direct action, everyday life, mutual aid, radical geography In the late 1970s Antipode published issues on the environment and anarchism which, in retrospect, were the last bursts of colour in the fall of its 1960s-style radicalism (Richard Peet and Nigel Thrift 1989:6). The relationship between anarchism and the academic discipline of geography has a long and disjointed history. The late nineteenth century saw a burgeoning of geographical writings from influential anarchist thinkers like Peter Kropotkin (Morris 2003) and Élisée Reclus (Fleming 1996). Yet in spite of the vigorous intellectual debate sparked by the works of these two individuals, following their deaths in the early twentieth century, anarchist ideas within geography faded. It was not until the 1970s that anarchism was once again given serious consideration by academic geographers who, in laying the groundwork for what is today known as “radical geography”, attempted to reintroduce anarchism as a legitimate political philosophy. Unfortunately, quiet followed once more, and although numerous contemporary radical geographers employ a sense of theory and practice that shares Antipode Vol. 44 No. 5 2012 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 1591–1604  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.01038.x Antipode 1592 many affinities with anarchism, direct engagement with anarchist ideas among geographers have been limited and largely overshadowed by the popularity of Marxist, feminist, and more recently poststructuralist critiques. This special issue proceeds from the perspective that as contemporary global challenges—such as the most recent financial crisis and the ensuing Occupy Movement—push anarchist theory and practice back into widespread currency, geographers need to rise to this occasion and begin (re)mapping the possibilities of what anarchist perspectives might yet contribute to the discipline. In this light, we have sought to develop an exploratory volume, where explicitly and unashamedly anarchist approaches to human geography can be allowed to blossom in all their wonderful plurality. Accommodating a diversity of positionalities demands an unconstrained and eclectic embrace, and accordingly we understand the potentialities of anarchist praxis as protean and manifold. Through the unfolding and variegated approach that this special issue maintains, we seek to expose readers to a variety of epistemological, ontological, and methodological interpretations of anarchism, unencumbered by the strict disciplining frameworks that characterize other political philosophies, and purposefully open to contradiction and critique. The world we inhabit has changed significantly since 1978 when the last Antipode special issue on anarchism was published (see Breitbart 1978b). To suggest that human societies have undergone intense social, economic, cultural, and political transformations in the interim is a profound understatement. The emergence of neoliberal ideology and its consolidation as the dominant economic system has radically reshaped the globe, intensifying already existing uneven geographies and resulting in a new level of complexity as established political structures, modes of governmentality, identity categories, economic matrixes, subjectivities, institutional frameworks, juridical processes, and epistemological positions are all being remade. The apparent victory of laissez-faire neoliberalism and the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s shattered the assumed centrality of the state in the practice of political economy and governance, yet it also gave succor to new and sometimes terrifying modes of state control. Likewise, whereas the cheerleaders of capitalism’s apparent victory over so-called communism initially declared the end of history (Fukuyama 1992), we have instead seen capitalism morph and flex over the years, creating new and unforeseen constellations of exploitation and struggle. Despite such acute political economic and sociocultural transformations, the possibilities that anarchist geographies might hold for geographical scholarship and broader strategies of political action are, to us, as relevant and potent as ever. The selective memories of humanity’s past, the impoverished dialogues of the present, and the static visions of a supposedly predetermined future that pervade both academic and popular discourses are a testament to the paucity of the political imagination in the current conjuncture. While neoliberal apostles of the post-political consensus imagine that our world is best served by the achievement of an integrated global village (M. Friedman 2002 [1962]; T. Friedman 1999; Hayek 2001 [1944]), and geographers have responded with a variety of critiques (Brenner and Theodore 2003; Castree et al 2010; England and Ward 2007; Gibson-Graham 1996; Hart 2008; Harvey 2005; Peck 2010; Smith, Stenning and Willis 2008; Springer 2010; Swyngedouw 2011), we are  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Reanimating Anarchist Geographies 1593 left with a sense of disappointment that our discipline, as of late, has not been even more radical in its response. While it is true that most critical geographers are willing to go further than simply repackaging neoliberalism with a smiling face, much of the socialist left appears bereft of ideas beyond a state-regulated capitalism. Social transformation is, of course, necessarily a spatial project, and a spatial dimension to the effective critique of existing structures is an important element of imagining and forging spaces for new ones. Accordingly, we remain deeply cynical of those ostensibly “radical” views that leave the prescriptions and authority of the state firmly intact. Without appreciating the infinite possibilities that actually exist if we only had the collective courage and freedom to explore them, we are left with an all too limited vision of the geographical horizons of human organization. We must similarly remain attentive to the idea that adaptations and abuses of state power are intrinsic not only to neoliberalism and capitalism more generally (Peck 2001), but also to Marxism in its traditional sense. In the face of the sheer enormity of the bloodshed that came with communist projects in the former Soviet Union, Maoist China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and the conflict, othering, and violence that is facilitated by a Westphalian system of sovereign rule, we long for and are actively committed to procuring alternative socio-spatial arrangements wherein people are liberated from all forms of domination and are free to collectively make of themselves what they will. While we are keen to critique Marxist-Leninism in all its various guises, we acknowledge that there are heterodox Marxists working with more autonomist and libertarian ideas that share similar concerns and are far less antithetical to anarchist approaches. At the same time, we recognize that it is incorrect to suggest— as post-left anarchists like Fredy Perlman (1983) have argued—that if we simply choose to act differently then society will magically transform into a post-capitalist, post-statist world. Anarchist thinkers have long interrogated complex matrices of control and surveillance, highlighting the ways in which the agents of state and capital converge to produce powerful regimes of containment or straightforward obliteration of their political opponents (Graham 2005, 2009; Guérin 2005; Marshall 1992; Woodcock 2004). Indeed, Daniel Guérin’s (2010 [1936]) careful tracing of the synergies between the rise of European fascism in the 1930s and the organizational and disciplinary logic of the capitalist state can be read as a powerful warning from history in the current context of recession, unrest, and the re-emergence of the far right. Thus, anarchist approaches to understanding and acting in society operate in a tension between an assertion of peoples’ agency to collectively self-manage their affairs on the one hand, and the everyday matrices of power that constrain autonomy, solidarity and equality on the other. However, anarchism is also a philosophy that is healthily sceptical of analysis for its own sake, and combines its powerful critique of capital and authority with a creative and decentralized mode of praxis. So while we recognize the importance of utopian thought, we are not content to dwell exclusively in the realm of ideas, and advocate for the importance of direct action in changing for the better the material conditions of our own lives as well as the lives of others (Graeber 2009). Notwithstanding the now-clichéd refrain that anarchists were at the creative centre of the movements  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Antipode 1594 against neoliberal globalisation around the turn of the twenty-first century, anarchist thought and action has profoundly influenced contemporary society in a much more long-term and subcutaneous sense. The proliferation of wikis, peer-to-peer file-sharing and open-source software; the continued popularity of the co-operative movement, tenants’ associations and trade and credit unions; and a host of smallscale mutual aid groups, networks and initiatives—these have, all to varying extents, been pioneered, inspired or run by anarchists. Our perception of anarchism’s role in the world is, however, in direct proportion to our understanding of what anarchism is and where (or how) it takes place. Although at times it may appear that anarchism is chiefly (or solely) manifested in occasional spectacular riots on the streets of Athens, Prague, London and Seattle, papers in this special issue indicate that anarchism is a philosophy of everyday life, ingrained in its practitioners as a tool for survival, wellbeing and social change. It is worth noting that, perhaps precisely due to the legacy of Reclus and Kropotkin, anarchist geographers have tended to shy away from engaging with the more insurrectionary approaches to anarchism, where instead anarchism has been understood as a living breathing process that is acutely implicated in our shared histories, our present circumstances, and our collective futures. In this special issue, a broad understanding of anarchism is deployed to demonstrate how it—much like other political philosophies—is a multi-vocal and developing terrain, contested both from within and without. We draw two particular exceptions to our conceptualization of anarchism precisely because they rest upon confusions of ideology. First, we reject the crude rhetoric that failed states are somehow representative of “anarchy”. Anarchism is not synonymous with chaos and collapse, but is instead about “enacting horizontal networks instead of top-down structures like states, parties, or corporations; networks based on principles of decentralized, non-hierarchical consensus democracy” (Graeber 2002:70). The “failed state as anarchy” narrative is particularly misleading when we consider James Sidaway’s (2003) contention that the failure of certain states may be regarded as arising not from an absence of sovereign authority, but rather as an excess of this exact logic. Second, we also reject the efforts of so-called “anarcho-capitalists” and “right-libertarians” to appropriate anarchism, since the political system that they propose, while calling for a reduction in or removal of the workings of the state, is nonetheless premised upon a twisted neo-Social Darwinism that promotes an atomistic “survival of the fittest” approach to social life. “Free market anarchism” is an ideology entrenched in the very system of dominance and exploitation that anarchists have been fighting to overturn; it is capitalism in its most quintessential form, and thus, if we are to appreciate the historical trajectory and philosophical basis of anarchism as a variant of socialist thought, “anarcho-capitalism” is a misnomer that represents the exact opposite of what anarchism is all about. Instead, we understand anarchism as a branch of political thought and action that promotes the collective, egalitarian, and democratic self-management of everyday life. For anarchists, this necessarily requires the dismantling of unequal power relations in all their forms, and is manifested through practices of voluntary cooperation, reciprocal altruism, and mutual aid.  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Reanimating Anarchist Geographies 1595 A Whirlwind Tour of Anarchist Geographies Given the implicit geographical framework laid down for anarchism by early anarchists like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (2008 [1840]) and Mikhail Bakunin (1990 [1873]) with their respective critiques of property and the state, it is perhaps somewhat unsurprising that two of anarchism’s most celebrated thinkers, Élisée Reclus and Peter Kropotkin, were also geographers. Reclus’s (1876–1894) primary contribution was his emancipatory vision outlined in The Earth and its Inhabitants: The Universal Geography where he imagined a merger between humanity and the Earth itself. In seeking to assist humanity to discover deeper emotional meaning by recognizing itself as but one historical being in the flowering of a greater planetary consciousness, he bravely sought to abolish all forms of domination, which were to be replaced with practices of engaged love and active compassion among all animals, both human and non-human (Clark and Martin 2004). Although he considered Reclus as a mentor, Kropotkin (2008 [1902]) is today the more famous of the two “classical” anarchist geographers, having published the highly influential Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution, which is regarded as a landmark in the development of anarchism’s political philosophy. Kropotkin’s views were at least partially a response to the Social Darwinism of his time, where he sought to provide a scientific basis to the idea that a more harmonious way of life rooted in cooperation as opposed to competition was not only possible, but that this was in fact the natural order of things. His ideas were explicitly geographical, and differed greatly from the industrial imagination of Marxists, as Kropotkin placed his emphasis on decentralized organization, rural life, agriculture, and local production, which he maintained would remove any need for a central government and would allow for self-sufficiency. While anarchism remained a vibrant philosophical vehicle for radical politics into the twentieth century, its intersections with geographical thought became less overt. Emma Goldman (1969 [1917]), while not a geographer, nonetheless brought anarchist geographies in a new direction, focusing on institutional structures of domination beyond the state itself by injecting an embodied focus into her critique in advocating free love, criticizing marriage, and admonishing homophobia. Throughout the 1960s, having been strongly influenced by the ethical naturalism of Reclus, Murray Bookchin (2004 [1971]) popularized his ecological and libertarian ideas among the New Left and counterculture movements through a series of innovative essays that were later compiled in Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Colin Ward (1982 [1973]) was also increasingly active around this time, publishing a number of books that once again brought anarchism into conversation with geography, including his well known book Anarchy in Action. Most of Ward’s work focused on issues of housing and planning laws, where the solutions he proposed were clearly influenced by Kropotkin, including recommendations to rescind authoritarian methods of socio-spatial organization in favour of non-hierarchical forms of solidarity (White and Wilbert 2011). By the early 1970s some geographers had begun to notice the wider anarchist currents happening outside of academic geography. Richard Peet (1975) is not only responsible for getting this very journal off the ground, he also used its pages  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Antipode 1596 to argue that the newly emerging “radical geography” should take Kropotkin’s version of anarchism as its new beginning. Myrna Brietbart (1975) similarly looked to Kropotkin, while also drawing on Proudhon, to contend that the organization of human landscapes should be based upon principles that benefit everyone living upon them and not just a privileged few. A year later, Bob Galois (1976) did much the same, invoking anarchism to make a claim for deeper radicalization in geography by rethinking its past and particularly the influence of Kropotkin. He argued that the linear and cumulative stories that had been passed down right through to the positivist revolution were but one single account in a multitude of possibilities, and that by restricting our view of geography’s history we limited contemporary methods of enquiry and predetermined what questions were even worthwhile asking. Radicalizing geography thus meant digging deeper into our collective past and interrogating our inherited beliefs and traditions without prejudice, so that something altogether new and emancipatory might evolve. Encouraged by these exhortations, Breitbart (1978b) brought anarchist geographies centre stage within the pages of Antipode, organizing a series of papers that cumulatively illustrated the enduring contribution that anarchist thought and practice had on geography, and vice versa. The issue lived up to Galois’s (1976) call for the exploration of our shared geo-histories, and included commentaries on collectivization among workers and the disruptive spatial practices of the Spanish Revolution circa the 1930s (Amsden 1978; Breitbart 1978a; Garcia-Ramon 1978), the profundity of Élisée Reclus and his geographically inspired version of anarchism (Dunbar 1978), the inner workings of an anarchist community within Paterson, New Jersey around 1900 (Carey 1978), the implications of Kropotkin’s anarchist ideas on the spatial possibilities of cities (Horner 1978), libertarianism within contemporary Spanish politics (Golden 1978), and a brilliant piece by Peet (1978) on the geography of human liberation, which once again unpacked the creativity and ethics of Kropotkin’s anarcho-geography in staking a claim for the socio-spatiality of decentralization as a means to achieve freedom. Bookchin’s (1978 [1965]) essay “Ecology and revolutionary thought” and Kropotkin’s (1978 [1885]) “What geography ought to be” were also reprinted as part of this special issue to demonstrate Antipode’s commitment to a radical tradition and the continuing significance of these two thinkers on the radical geographical thought that was emerging at the time. The early promise of the Kropotkin-inspired anarcho-communism of the 1970s gave way to a decade that saw only one publication on anarchism in the pages of Antipode. Jim Mac Laughlin (1986) critiqued the state-centricity of both geographers and the social sciences more generally, lamenting the influence that ethnocentrism had on the discipline of geography and its enduring prevalence thanks to the influential writings of leading historical figures such as Halford Mackinder, Ellen Churchill Semple, Ellsworth Huntington, Thomas Holdich, and Isaiah Bowman. In once again invoking Kropotkin and Reclus, Mac Laughlin called upon geographers to abandon the nationalistic historiography and statist imaginations that they had inherited to explore antithetical alternatives. Within these pages the 1990s similarly represented a dry spell with regard to anarchist geographies. Only a single paper by Peter Taylor (1991:214–215) gives any sustained attention to anarchism, where he  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Reanimating Anarchist Geographies 1597 suggests that while he is “broadly sympathetic to the anarchist ‘political’ position”, he is careful to indicate that his inquiry was “not another attempt to justify and hence revive some variant of anarchism”, but instead sought “to locate anarchism within a broader radical critique”. Into the 2000s, we have a very brief intervention from a direct action media collective called SchNEWS (2000), who outline some of their activities in relation to geographical concerns. A few papers followed in the early 2000s, with Paul Chatterton’s (2002) exploration of squatting, Pierpaolo Mudu’s (2004) account of Italian social centres in resisting neoliberalism, Jill Fenton’s (2004) examination of surrealism and anti-capitalism in Paris, and Jon Anderson’s (2004) advocation of environmental direct action. The Free Association (2010) has critiqued Black Bloc tactics in championing love as a potential exodus from the antagonism of neoliberalism, while Chris Carlsson and Francesca Manning (2010) also assess the potential of exodus, in their case with respect to wage labour and the promise of Nowtopia in reinventing work against the logic of capital. Chatterton (2006, 2010) has continued to carry the flag of activism and autonomy from a broadly anarchist perspective, and now serves as an editor of Antipode alongside Nik Heynen (2010; Heynen and Rhodes forthcoming) who has also explored the radical potential of activism and civil disobedience in relation to direct action and Black Anarchism outside of these pages. The assembled guest editors of this special issue have also had much to say about the productive relationship between geography and anarchism (see Barker 2010; Brown 2007; Ince 2010; Pickerill and Chatterton 2006; Springer 2011, 2012b), and were motivated by this shared interest to further explore the ongoing relevance of anarchist approaches within geographical praxis. This brief genealogy of anarchist geographies brings us up to the present, where in 2011 the Antipode Editorial Collective (2011:185) re-confirmed their support for “political and intellectual traditions that some scholars might feel uncomfortable using or those that are relatively infrequently seen in geographical journals”, explicitly calling for more anarchism in the pages of this journal. We are pleased to present this special issue as a response to this appeal. Outline of the Issue Following this introduction, the special issue begins with Simon Springer’s (2012a) manifesto for anarchist geographies, which he situates as “kaleidoscopic spatialities” that enable non-hierarchical relations of affinity between entities that maintain autonomous positionalities. Springer exhorts geographers to rise to the challenge of the contemporary neoliberal moment by exploring the untapped potential of anarchist praxis. He begins by tracing the historical and contemporary intersections between geographical scholarship and anarchism, attending to the early promise of a radical geography with strong anarchistic tendencies and lamenting its eventual eclipse in favour of both Marxist and feminist approaches. This discussion leads into a critique of Marxism on the basis of its utilitarianism as well as its tendency to be framed within nationalist discourses. Drawing an analogy between colonialism and the state-making projects that Marxist positions have broadly supported, he positions anarchism as a much more substantively “post-colonial” imperative. From  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Antipode 1598 here Springer begins to unpack the question of alternatives to the state, but rather than provide a prescriptive set of guidelines or principles through which the future should evolve, he purposefully draws back to an anarchist position that envisions space–time as a perpetual unfolding to be determined not by the dictates or desires of a single academic, politician, or otherwise, but through the continuous dialogue and protean innovations of our shared collective will. Through such a processual understanding, Springer positions his contribution not as a call for revolution, which he critiques on the basis of its implicit politics of waiting, but as an appeal that locates the immediacy of the here and now as the dimension with the most emancipatory potential precisely because it is the space–time in which our lives continually unfold. In the next paper, Richard J. White and Collin Williams (2012) present us with a reinterpretation of the economic landscapes that are so often claimed as capitalist, providing a detailed analysis of non-commodified practices of co-operation, reciprocity, and mutual aid that comprise a significant component of our collective lived experience. In arguing that non-capitalist economic relations represent a significant and overlooked component of production, consumption, and exchange, they demonstrate how anarchistic organization can be understood as a grounded material practice of the present. While their argument may be met with a certain degree of cynicism by those who would ask what exactly about their observations of existing economic practice actually constitute “anarchism”, parallels can be drawn to J.K. Gibson-Graham’s (1996) productive critique of capitalism, and particularly the swell of discursive production that perpetuates, reifies, and continually privileges capitalist relations. To White and Williams such a line of questioning would actually be welcomed, as their purpose is precisely to show how the everyday, mundane, and quotidian patterns of human interaction actually intersect significantly with anarchist philosophies. In this regard, they contend that rather than perpetuating a capitalist interpretation of the world, an anarchistic heterodoxy can be understood to have a certain degree of pervasiveness if we care to look again at what we think we know about existing economic geographies. Such a realization leads them to argue that a “post-neoliberal” anarchist future is much more than a utopian dream, and can instead be appreciated as a viable alternative to the contemporary orthodoxy, where unfolding spatial patterns of autonomous organization and mutualism may productively guide the way. Anthony Ince (2012) offers a new theorization of territoriality by applying an anarchist approach that critiques the limited spatial imagination of contemporary geographic inquiry and in particular its failure to interrogate how both capitalism and authority are replicated, expanded, and reinforced through the space-making practices of states. Ince aligns his critical appraisal to the anarchist concept of prefiguration, which attempts to embed in the present the very modes of social organization that are envisioned as part of a more egalitarian future. Through the application of anarchist practice and thought, he contends that territory should be viewed as a signifier for the contested processes of social relations. Drawing from research conducted with a number of anarchist-inspired groups, Ince attempts to think through how territorialization and bordering might be re-made in a more productive and emancipatory sense by deploying the notion of prefigurative politics as part of a re-imagining of space.  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Reanimating Anarchist Geographies 1599 Turning our attention to the motivations of anarchists, Nathan Clough (2012) outlines what he calls “affective structures”, a term he utilizes to account for the relations between affect, emotion, and radical politics. In arguing that anarchist organizing operates through an imagined connection between the affective capacities of direct action and the emotions of anarchists, Clough draws our attention to the ways in which sites of affinity, or the convergence spaces suggested by Routledge (2003), are actually troubled by the state insofar as the same affective content that makes anarchist organizing and action viable, also renders it penetrable by police and open to social control. In plugging his argument into geography’s “affective turn” (Anderson and Harrison 2010), Clough’s interpretation goes beyond the simple notion that social movements require emotional content to function effectively. He extends this approach by arguing that social struggle is pursued through the reciprocating relationship between the emotional organizing principle of affinity and the energy and capacity of direct action, which actually becomes the field of contestation itself. The infiltrations made by state operatives attest to the central importance of emotional space, as creating friction and sowing discord within this domain is a key tactical method of sabotaging the activities of anarchist groups. What Clough persuasively suggests then is not only that emotions matter, but that the affective-emotional linkages that are fostered by social movements require the attention of geographers precisely because the spatialities of radical politics and state control function as much in the embodied geographies of the emotional terrain of the imagination as they do in the material spaces of the city. Next up is Jeff Ferrell’s (2012) theorization of “drift”, which he considers an emergent form of epistemology, community, and spatial politics in the face of the current conjuncture of consumerist economics, urban policing, and constrained public spaces. To escape the regulatory framework of intensive urban governance, Ferrell examines how groups seeking greater democratic control and accountability utilize anarchic tactics and direct action to contravene the prescribed spatial order. In its capacity to unravel rather than supplant everyday arrangements of power and control, drift becomes the analytic focus of Ferrell’s argument, where he considers it as a trajectory of interplay between anarchism and authority. Drift is at once both the result of strategies of spatial control and a possibility of disorganization wherein a new politics might be born. So while the social forces of our current political economic climate cast people and populations adrift in a sea of alienation, political expulsion, mass migration, forced removal and marginalization, such disorientation can be embraced by drifters as a moment for progressive possibilities in remaking cultures and communities by drifting closer together rather than further apart. It thus becomes entirely possible to turn the contemporary politics of disarticulation into a revitalized politics of mutual aid and collective self-help. Adam J. Barker and Jenny Pickerill (2012) also address issues related to communities of difference converging. Delving into the complicated, place-based collisions of anarchist activism and Indigenous resurgence in the United States and Canada, anarchist and Indigenous geographies are positioned as similarly radical but not necessarily complementary. While acknowledging the difficulties faced by anarchist activists seeking to act as allies to Indigenous communities, the burden is here  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Antipode 1600 placed on anarchists to bridge a longstanding gap in spatial understanding. Barker and Pickerill note that there is a subtle but vital difference between anti-colonial action concerned with power and hierarchy, and more fundamental decolonization inherently linked to place. This distinction is often overlooked, in part because of common assumptions about place and space that tend to obscure the needs of Indigenous communities with respect to their lands. As a tool to assist in unpacking the subtle differences in these conceptual geographical frameworks, anarchists are urged to adopt an understanding of settler colonialism. Indigenous networks of place-based relationships are the ongoing focus of settler colonization, a broad and long-running dynamic of oppression that can sweep up even radical anarchist movements. To counter this, Barker and Pickerill exhort would-be allies to find their own roles in efforts to revitalize Indigenous-place networks by striving for understanding across difference. Activists are asked to compliment rather than replicate Indigenous relationships to place, and to change their thinking about the nature of power in place. In the final paper of the issue, Farhang Rouhani (2012) draws our attention to the positive implications that anarchist practice and thought could potentially bring to our pedagogical approaches in human geography. This is an engaging piece that productively works through the contributions that geography and anarchism have to make to each other. Anarchism has a long tradition of evoking radical experimentation with teaching, while geography on the other hand seems particularly well suited to a critical examination of education. Kropotkin (1978 [1885]) recognized this reciprocating potential over a century ago, and in tracing his own ongoing attempts to bring anarchism into the spaces of a higher education liberal arts context in the contemporary United States, Rouhani picks up the pieces. He urges us to think critically about how anarchism sheds the bondage of commodified forms of knowledge production by fostering creative and non-coercive learning opportunities both inside and outside of the classroom. In this respect his essay sits well alongside recent works by Judith Suissa (2006) and Robert H. Haworth (2012) in advocating the embrace of an explicitly anarchist ethos in our educational approach, but Rouhani appropriately highlights how geography might productively take centre stage in such efforts. Ultimately, we are presented with a powerful lesson in how a combined anarchist-geographic pedagogical approach can lead to alternative models of education that think outside of the top-down modalities that dominate the contemporary education landscape by placing student-led liberation and learning at the forefront of a critical pedagogy. The issue you now (perhaps virtually) hold in your hands is the result of an immanently rewarding process and there are many to thank along the way. We are grateful to The Antipode Editorial Collective for their support, patience, and hard work in seeing this special issue through to completion. Wendy Larner has applied her sharp editorial oversight to all of the papers, which has increased the quality of the manuscripts considerably as she asked tough questions of the assembled authors and expected well thought out responses. Andrew Kent has slugged it out in the trenches of administrative duty, keeping this project on time and moving ever forward. Nik Heynen and Paul Chatterton have been vocal supporters of this initiative, and while we stop short of holding them accountable for any of the content found  C 2012 The Authors. Antipode  C 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Reanimating Anarchist Geographies 1601 herein, their scholarship and activism have been inspiring. James Sidaway has been a source of encouragement and critical feedback throughout this process, while the anonymous referees have similarly played a vital role. Uri Gordon (2012) has graciously agreed to write an afterword to this special issue, and as a contemporary anarchist theorist whose work has numerous synergies with those working within the general framework of radical geography, we are excited to bring him into direct conversation with geographical scholarship and hope that his work will be more widely read among human geographers as a result. As over 30 years have passed since Myrna Breitbart (1978b) previously assembled the first special issue on anarchist geographies in these pages, we are tremendously excited about this issue seeing the light of day and feel that it is long overdue. We are honoured that Myrna has written a foreword that reflects on her original foray into anarchist philosophies and contemplates the challenges and potential that come with exploring anarchist geographies from within and importantly beyond the academy (Brietbart 2012). With the torch now passed along to us, our biggest collective hope is that it is not another 30 years before our call is answered. We are optimistic that this special issue will motivate other radical geographers to begin exploring the fertile intellectual soils that anarchist geographies have to offer. While the assembled essays cover significant breadth in cultivating our understandings of what anarchism might yet add to geographical theory and vice versa, we recognize our collective contribution as inherently partial and incomplete. There is a great deal of work to be done and much more to be said as anarchist geographies continue to evolve in various contexts, stretching the limits of our geographical imaginations and inspiring a wealth of innovative spatial practices. Let this special issue serve a mere starting point in the flourishing of a new bust of colour. References Amsden J (1978) Industrial collectivization under workers’ control: Catalonia, 1936–1939. Antipode 10(3):99–113 Anderson B and Harrison P (2010) Taking-Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography. London: Ashgate Anderson J (2004) Spatial politics in practice: The style and substance of environmental direct action. Antipode 36(1):106–125 Antipode Editorial Collective (2011) Antipode in an antithetical era. Antipode 43(2):181–189 Bakunin M A (1990 [1873]) Statism and Anarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Barker A J (2010) From adversaries to allies: Forging respectful alliances between Indigenous and Settler Peoples. 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