It?s a strange anomaly that anarchism is so marginal an idea in academia despite it being
a major influence on contemporary social movement praxis, as well as having been the
dominant proletarian ideology worldwide for decades leading up to the Russian Revolution.
-- As a framework for radical theorising, it is far less common than both Marxism and
oppositional postmodernism (two traditions whose strong points anarchist-communism has the
potential to synthesise quite well, by the way). However, there are many signs this is
changing. This last decade has seen an explosion in anarchist academic work and the
creation of anarchist studies networks based in North America and Britain. One such
grouping, the ASN, held a three-day conference this summer in Loughborough, England, that
two of the editorial collective were able to attend. There were roughly around 200 people
in attendance, mostly from Europe and North America.
The Anarchist Studies Network should be commended for generously subsidising the costs and
fees of unemployed and student attendees. At times the programme had up to seven sessions
were running simultaneously, so our short feedback here is obviously quite partial, based
as it is on what we attended and the general feeling we got from others we spoke with.
Also, the scope of the programme was pretty eclectic, with streams themed under anarchism
and education, religion, disability, non-domination, anarchism in different national
contexts, post- qnarchism and art, and bodily anarchy, to name a few.
One highlight was a roundtable discussion with members of various Industrial Workers of
the World branches, in particular hearing about recent organising successes by Pizza Hut
workers in Sheffield. Two of the best sessions made use of an open slot allocated for
spontaneous discussions, workshops and so on. Gabriel Kuhn called a session that has
resulted in the creation of an Independent Anarchist Scholars Network. It has started as
an email list but it is hoped to grow to be a vibrant network of mutual support for
anarchist scholarly work outside of the university.
A much warranted session on feminism (with possibly the highest attendance we witnessed of
any billing in the programme) created space to look at the lack of concrete sessions on
feminism in the conference programme, and also to discuss the dynamics of the conference
overall in terms of what and who was lacking in terms of representation.
There were other related criticisms of the balance of content within the programme ?
possibly reflective of the general focus of many anarchist academics. While Occupy was
discussed a lot, we didn?t see many papers relating to the current European austerity
agenda, the broader global capitalist crisis and the fight against them. Perhaps it is
reflective of a strong post- structuralist influence on contemporary anarchist theorising
that the big picture analyses were so rare. With some exceptions, the format of the
sessions was of a conventional academic nature, not particularly participatory or
inclusive, with the little time given to discussion often thus dominated by those who are
more familiar and comfortable in such settings.
While it could be tempting to suggest that the increasing prevalence of anarchist theory
and research within academia is something of an inevitability, we shouldn't take it that
its course is mapped out by any means. We would hope that such a development would not
reproduce some of the pitfalls of academic theorising in its detachment from wider society
and general depoliticisation, but would build on the many existing links that are there,
in and outside of universities, with real social movements. Overall, we saw much potential
in this event to strengthen such links (and met a bunch of great people).
WORDS: CATHAL LARKIN AND LIAM HOUGH
This article appeared in the
Irish Anarchist Review No 6 October 2012
Topics: Education
Geography: International
Source: Magazine
Type: Review
Author: Liam Hough, Cathal
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