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This issue of CIGE will dispel the myths surrounding anarchism. And we hope that it will show anarchism’s exciting potential as an area of study in the classroom, to stimulate critical and lively discussion about the nature of existing hierarchical power relations in our society – and to encourage the imagination of young people to think about radically different ways of social organisation which might eliminate such relationships. (1990:5)

Issue Summary Box Number 8 Anarchism and Geography

Date: Spring n.d estimated 1990 Volume 3:2 Number of Pages 168 Theme Editor: Ian Cook and David Pepper

Printed by ACD Page Size: A5

Production Format: A5

Contributor Institution / affiliation (if any/known)

Ian Cook Principal Lecturer in Geography, Liverpool

Polytechnic

Janis Newman Liverpool Polytechnic

Dennis Hardy Head of geography Department, Middlesex

Polytechnic

Andrew Ward Lecturer in Peace studies, Bradford University

Colin Ward Former editor, Bulletin of Environmental Education, Freedom, and writer on anarchism

Myrna Breitbart Professor of Geography and Environmental

Education, Hampshire College, Amherst.

Michael Duane Teacher and writer on anarchism, former Head

teacher, Risinghill Comprehensive School.

Penny Newsome Writer and Campaigner, Oxford Green Party.

Nickie Hallam Part-time lecturer in Geography, Oxford Polytechnic and postgraduate student in Peace Studies, Bradford University.

Jackie Lewis Geography teacher, King David’s School, Liverpool.

David Pepper Principal Lecturer in Geography, Oxford Polytechnic

The ‘Anarchism and Geography’ issue was the final production of the journal series, and served as both a labour of love and a swansong to CIGE. It was theme-edited by Cook (Liverpool Polytechnic / subsequently Liverpool John Moore) and, newly appointed to the co-editing of the CIGE journal series, David Pepper (Oxford Polytechnic /subsequently Oxford Brookes). Very much behind schedule, the envisaged publication schedule for this issue was 1988. Certainly, iterations of at least one article in this issue (by Pepper) appeared in the anarchist journal The Raven as early as March 1988, which indicates that co-theme editor Pepper had been preparing work for this theme issue at least two years prior to its

73 _{I am in possession of two different versions of this issue, one with blank pages and the other without, suggesting} a problematic processing of printed copy.

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CIGE/ACD publication74_{. It is likely to have finally been compiled and published in the} autumn of 1989/early-1990 given references that Cook makes in the Editorial to events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

Figure 5.43: Issue 3.2: front cover

The front cover of the issue (Figure 5.43) shows a striking red colour and a copy from the front of a nineteenth-century anarchist brochure announcing ‘the new order’ in black and white. The title of the publication, ‘Anarchism and Geography’, is typeset around the illustration. The final issue of the journal series is motivated to dispel not just popular confusions about terminology and understanding regarding anarchism as a political ideology, but also introduces and encourages reader engagement with anarchistic traditions which have been present on the margins of (historiographies of) academic geography in Europe and North America; and to explore the potentials for introducing and engaging with the geographies of anarchist ideas ideologically, pedagogically and ontologically. As the editorial states, one of the central aims of the issue is to inspire geography teachers with teaching about non-capitalist modes of envisaging ways of living, and to equip educators with case study materials to introduce students to the positives of anarchist ideology and practices. Contributors to the issue (Figure 5.44) reveal an impressive range of anarchist writers, including prominent academic geographers who had written about anarchism (Dennis Hardy, Myrna Breitbart) and anarchists with specific interests in anarchist and geography education (Andrew Rigby, Colin Ward, Michael Duane). Those who contributed educational materials and reviewed pieces show a geographical shift northwards, away from ILEA and Gill’s London-based networks, and were sourced either through Cook’s contacts, geographically based in and around Liverpool Polytechnic (Jackie Lewis, Janis Newman), or Pepper’s contacts at Oxford Polytechnic (Nickie Hallam, Penny Newsome) and the Association’s

74 _{This is underscored at the end of the draft version of Pepper’s article which is first published in The Raven. The} end statement of this article, ‘The geography of an anarchist Britain’, reads:

‘[This is] A draft version of an article in a forthcoming issue devoted to Geography and Anarchism of the Teacher’s journal Contemporary Issues in Geography and Education (published by the Association for Curriculum Development, c/o 29 Barratt’s Grove, London N16’ (Pepper 1988:350).

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connections with Peace Studies at Bradford University (Andrew Ward).

The accompanying list of Editorial Board/Group members at this stage in the production’s life (Figure 5.45) similarly reveal a greater number of active members involved in academic geography research or higher education teaching, based in university departments or further education colleges or university departments, or set in advisory educational contexts rather than ‘chalk face’ school teaching. Only Brenda Spandler (listed under her marital surname of Tucker) and Neil Larkin are listed as school teachers. Gill’s name is on the Editorial Board, but by 1990 she had taken a post at the Open University and her involvement in the practical work of the journal had reduced drastically from its launch issues. This reduction might also go some way to explaining why there is an addition to the coordinating editors of this final issue, with Pepper added to take on the work that Gill once undertook, but with Gill’s name being retained for continuity and in her capacity as overseer of the ACD (in which she was now more heavily involved). New Editorial Board members included Whatmore, by then a lecturer at Bristol University, and Jackson, in his role as Lecturer in Geography Department at University College London. Agyeman is also listed as Editorial Group member for his work in environmental education at the London Borough of Lambeth.

Figure 5.44: Issue 3.2: list of contributors and contents

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The structure of this issue mirrors previous issues of the journal, with an editorial essay similar to that of Huckle’s ‘Ecological Crisis’ issue and the WGSG ‘Gender and Geography’ issue, expanding ideas, introducing conceptual terms and the contents of the issue. Beginning by reflecting on news reports of the 1989 students uprising in Tiananmen Square, Peking (now Beijing), the editorial considers the misuse of the term ‘anarchy’ and popular misconceptions of ‘anarchism’. These confusions then form to motivating focus for the issue, stating:

This issue of CIGE will dispel the myths surrounding anarchism. And we hope it will show anarchism’s exciting potential as an area of study in the classroom, to stimulate critical and lively discussion about the nature of existing hierarchical power relationships in our society – and to encourage the imagination of young people to think about radically different ways of social organisation which might eliminate such relationships. (1990:5)

Thus the issue collects together a range of articles and papers, the majority of which are defined as Discussion papers, variously reflecting on the meaning, practice, histories and utopic envisioning of anarchisms, as well as considering the different roles of various anarchistic approaches in the underpinning of the academic discipline, and in educating and informing people living life more generally. The editorial introduces each contribution, reading, unlike previous editorials, more like the introduction from an edited book containing a collection of submissions.

The first Discussion article comes from Cook, and is entitled Anarchistic alternatives: an

introduction. In this, Cook begins with a preamble, reflecting in autobiographical style on his

discussion with a student (Rachel Dixey75_{) who had written an essay extolling the merits of} anarchism. He recalls his detailed critique of her idealism and her correction of his dismissiveness, arguing thereby a need for greater understanding of what is understood to be ‘anarchistic’ by popular media versus a need in education for students and teachers to know of the different approaches and ideologies themselves. Hence, what follows is an introductory account, written by Cook but taking inspiration from Dixey’s arguments, in which he draws on the academic writings of anarchist historian and academic George Woodcock76_{. Through} this, Cook introduces briefly the varieties of anarchism, considering individualist anarchism (right-libertarianism, ‘everyone for themselves’), through to mutualism (stressing mutuality and social cooperation), collectivism, anarchist communism, anarcho-syndicalism and pacifist anarchism. Cook argues that, however different in their ideologies, all left-leaning forms of anarchism oppose seven general concepts of:

1, capitalism, 2, giantism, 3, hierarchy, 4, centralism, 5, urbanism, 6, specialism, 7, competitiveness.

(1990:14)

Without going into any critical description or discussion of the terms that he defines, Cook surmises that such a dislike of the seven listed concepts delineates right-wing libertarians from the left- wing libertarians, and it is the left which would, in Cook’s opinion, serve to facilitate

75 _{The same Rachel Dixey (whose name is spelt differently between issues) who contributed the essay on} gendered geographies of leisure for the WGSG issue of CIGE (3.1).

76 _{Specifically, drawing upon Woodcock’s book Anarchism (1975), a Woodcock edited book The Anarchist Reader} (1977), and Woodcock’s biography of Kropotkin The Anarchist Prince (with I Avakumovic: 1971).

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a truly egalitarian existence. While Cook highlights the spatial consequences of giantism citing motorway construction and monolithic tower blocks, he draws on previous discussions in the journal series to illustrate a consistency of ideological perspective:

In this journal, we have consistently highlighted the dangers in this remoteness and the need for the powerless to act to overcome this problem (Gill and Cook, 1984, Sinclair and Simpson, 1984). (1990:15)

Cook then declares what anarchism stands for and what left-leaning anarchism favours (as the inverse of the seven previously-mentioned detested concepts):

Those features of social life which anarchists favour include: 1, individualism or collectivism; 2, egalitarianism; 3, voluntarism; 4, federalism; 5, decentralism; 6 ruralism; 7 altruism/mutual aid (1990: 15-16)

He summarises the benefits and envisages the ways in which spaces would be altered, with cities being dismantled and becoming a ‘federation of neighbourhoods’ (1990:xx) rather than only a minority having the power to manage resources and spaces. Cook concludes his paper by highlighting the ‘strengths and weaknesses’ of anarchism, discussing briefly the ideas of a range of anarchists and citing William Morris, Joseph Proudhorn, Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, and charting their various attempts at setting up communities. While many of these communities were deemed to have ‘failed’, Cook argues that anarchism still remains popular because of the appeal that it holds to those who are disenfranchised and remote from decision-making spaces of power; and adds that, while the media would no doubt continue to vilify and misuse the term anarchism, it would nevertheless hold interest while inequalities existed in society.

Drawing on the writings by geographers about the radical traditions of geography’s history, Cook cites Breitbart’s chapter on Kropotkin from David Stoddart’s edited book Geography,

Ideology and Social Concern (1981)77_{, as well as writings by Peet (1975) from Antipode. While} there is a to-be-expected reference to quotations by and the life of anarchist geographer Kropotkin, there are other, more obscure textual sources and anarchists consulted by Cook in his editorial. Cook cites Tony Fielding’s 1983 research paper from the geography department in the University of Sussex ‘What Geographers Ought to do: the relationship between thought and action in the life and works of P. Kropotkin’, and also Dennis Hardy’s monograph Alternative Communities in Nineteenth-Century England (1979). Some of these authors contributed articles to the issue, as can be seen from the range of names in the list of contributors (Figure 5.44).

The next Discussion paper is entitled Portraits of some anarchists and is a collectedly written piece, beginning with Cook’s summary of the life and work of ‘Kropotkin: Prince of Geographers’. Janis Newman’s Discussion articles follows, consisting of a brief biography of one of the few

77 _{This chapter is also referenced in the writings of Ward in his 1990 essay ‘Four easy pieces and a hard one’ in}

The Raven, where he encourages readers interested in Kropotkin and Reclus to ‘… consult the excellent essays by Myrna Breitbart on Kropotkin and G. S. Dunbar on Reclus in Geography, Ideology, and Social Concern, edited by D.R. Stoddart (Blackwell 1981)’ (Ward 1990: 157-158).

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anarchist women ever discussed in the historiographies of anarchism78_{, Emma Goldman. In} her short discussion paper, Emma Goldman; Anarchist Feminist 1869-1940, Newman attempts to highlight the gender imbalance in published biography concerning not simply a female anarchist, but also ideas that formed the beginnings of anarcha-feminism79_{. Ward’s article The}

anarchist lifestyle is the next Discussion paper; and, mirroring autobiographical accounts

published in previous issues of the journal series80_{, Ward offers a succinct autobiographical} summary of why he is an anarchist81_{. He ruminates on the interconnectivity of personal} politics as a living anarchist and his life as a writer and DiY publisher with the Freedom Press82 _{and then doing subsequent paid work in the 1970s writing for BEE. Ward reflects:}

I am a typical anarchist in that I have had a life-long interest in printing, and consequently in publishing … and I am typical in that I drifted into a series of interesting (and conceivably socially useful) jobs, each of them a ‘learning experience’ … I am regarded as an authority on topics like architecture, housing and planning with not the slightest qualification in these fields, simply because I insist on looking at them through anarchist eyes, and observing that the emperor hasn’t actually got any clothes. And needless to say, like everyone else, I have opinions about schooling. My last employed work was as director of the School’s Council curriculum development project ‘Art and the built environment’, which was concerned with the role of art as a school subject in environmental education, and which brought some fruitful links between art and geography teachers.83 _(1990:32) The Discussion section of the issue continues with the writing of one-time Ward collaborator84_, the geographer Dennis Hardy. In Hardy’s article The anarchistic alternative: a history of community

experiments in Britain, he considers the different experiments in utopic communal living based

on anarchist ideologies, borrowing historical moments from Gerard Winstanley’s Diggers community at St George’s Hill, Surrey, and the inspiration such an experiment had with colonies setting up across England. He cites the influence of Kropotkin’s observations and influences as he observed life and recorded his ideas in ‘fields, factories and workshops’. Hardy then goes on to consider communities which set themselves up in the late-19th _century in England as an alternative to excessive urbanisation and industrialisation, giving examples such as that of Clousden Hill Free communist and co-operative colony at Forest Hall, Newcastle, and following influences from the writings of Tolstoy, spiritualist communes establishing themselves as colonies (such as the Purleigh, Ashington, and Wickford colonies

78 _{There are many anarchist women throughout the history of anarchism who rarely get acknowledged, such as} Charlotte Wilson, Louise Michel, Marie-Louise Baneri and Voltairine De Cleyre. Many more are mentioned through the pages of Goldman’s two volume autobiography ‘Living my life’ and her writings (in Shulman 1972). Many many more radical leftist women activists have existed in the history of creating spaces of left-libertarian education, writing and pamphleteering. Writers such as Sheila Rowbotham (2010) touch on some of these women in their writings, but too often they are omitted from accounts. It is equally telling that in this issue of CIGE few references are made to women anarchists or indeed any explicit exploration offered of their activities, yet there are repetitive refrains and commentaries about Kropotkin. The Open Space feature in this issue could be debated very much for attempting to begin such a discussion as a final piece in the issue, and conflating feminist anarchism and ecology could be further critiqued by anarcha-feminists (see Dark Star Collective 2002).

79 _{Further details about anarcha-feminism can be read in publications such as Dark Star Collective (2002).} 80 _{Such as by Warren and Fung from issue CIGE 1.2.}

81 _{Ward’s autobiographical reflections on his life and work as a British anarchist involved in urban planning,} education and writing are illuminated further in a DVD interview by Roger Deakin entitled ‘Personally speaking: Colin Ward in Conversation with Roger Deakin’ (2009).

82 _{Established in the 1870s by Charlotte Wilson, Freedom Press was the first anarchist press, based in Angel} Alley, Whitechapel, London, through which anarchist writers such as Kropotkin contributed (Walter 2000). 83 _{See Fyson and Ward (1973); also see Adams and Ward (1982).}

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in the county of Essex), Brotherhood workshop in Leeds and, in particular, the Whiteways community in the Cotswolds. Hardy considers the flow of commune members between communes/ colonies, highlighting how newer groups formed when experiments resulted in attempts by other commune members to subjugate other members. Hardy cites Whiteways as being more successful than others due to its consideration of women in the communities – something less explored by the Russian anarchists in their ideologies of anarchist living – and put into practice when Nellie Shaw, one of the founding members of Whiteways, implemented what could be considered feminist practices in order that the women of the community be treated as equals, and to work as equals, to their male anarchist counterparts. Hardy considers the legacy of such communities and concludes by suggesting ways in which geography teachers could use and explore such utopic visions and utopic endeavours, providing short biographies of key anarchists and communities with additional notes and references for further reading.

Following Hardy’s article is a paper by the author of Alternative Realities (1974), Andrew Rigby. In his paper Lessons from anarchistic communes, Rigby sets out the practical problems encountered when people attempt to establish their own utopic community, asking how one goes about practising participatory decision-making. He takes seriously people as individuals within these experiments and is alert to how people interact socially as ‘new spaces’ confront every social relationship: from how lovers negotiate their personal relationships, through to familial relationships and roles of fathers and mothers. Rigby stresses the tensions and problems with sexual jealousy and the debilitating fallout in a community when people are working through notions of sexual norms, tracing how this fallout is then played out across the broader community and its day-to-day running and interactions. Rigby continues to recognise problems with ideas of personal space and personal privacy, personal property and the ‘free-riders’, but, more importantly, the problems encountered in negotiating ‘everyday life’. In this latter respect, he concludes that there are always problems in everyday life, but that in the creation of one’s own community, these appear to be more real because one is having to face up to these as active decisions everyday with no societal structures at play to hide behind. Looking to the life of William Morris, Rigby recommends that an open and honest relationship and kinship needs to be constructed though a space in which one has already looked critically at oneself:

None of us enjoy being criticised, enjoined to mend our ways, and confronted with the harsh truth about ourselves – it is a painful and fundamentally threatening experience. But we can cope with it if we are confident in our belief that our critics are, despite occasional appearances to the contrary, fundamentally ‘for’ us. What this means is that each member of a commune recognizes themselves in each other, feels a part of each other, recognises the deep affinity that exists between them. What I am trying to describe is a sense of kinship, an experience of friendship – a bonding that goes beyond ties