TURÍSTICO:

This chapter introduces anarchism as a route through which resistance to the politics of security (as an onto-political technology of conceptual and political mastery) might be conceptualised and practiced. More specifically, it mobilises anarchism as a frame through which the ethnographic content of later chapters can be situated, focusing on those features of anarchism which most effectively animate an interpretation with respect to the intersections between resistance and security. Without wishing to marginalise the diversity of ways in which anarchism has been understood and practiced, I outline a particular approach which begins its analysis from the perspective of anti-authoritarian direct action, suggesting that it is from such a viewpoint that the wide range of practices, debates and dissonances which occupy the anarchist signifier might be most productively understood and mobilised in the context of this thesis. As such, and after a discussion about how anarchism has been understood more generally, the chapter begins its substantive analysis by exploring anarchist ideas about prefigurative direct action. The anarchist critique of statist and vanguard politics leads to an understanding that „emancipation‟ cannot be achieved through logics of representation. For anarchists, the preference for prefigurative direct action has thus been at the centre of a theory and practice which seeks to avoid (and resist) the hegemonic ontologies which have plagued much of contemporary radical politics. Particular emphasis is placed on Landauer‟s ideas about prefiguration; anticipating in many ways Foucault‟s governmentality thesis, Landauer provides a lively and important theory of revolution which informs the arguments of the thesis in a variety of ways.

The second half of the chapter looks in detail at a particular series of debates in contemporary anarchist theory as a means by which to further clarify the approach to anarchism taken in the thesis. These debates concern the moves made by some to rethink or reenergise anarchism by bringing it into dialogue with poststructural (or, more broadly, postmodern) theory. As with the introduction of poststructural perspectives into IR theory, this move has been controversial. I tease out some of these controversies, with the intention being to think about how such debates offer resources for exploring the place of authority within anarchist theory. The discussion helps to frame arguments about the politics of subjectivity, authority, perpetual critique, and the theory/practice binary, all of which will be important in situating the ethnographic content of later chapters. Finally the section considers the charge that a „postmodern

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turn‟ for anarchism blunts its capacity to respond to the post-9/11 security situation, taking the opportunity to tie the discussion here to the concerns of the previous chapter. The chapter ends by looking forward to the ethnographic content of the following chapters, discussing in more detail how the particular approach to anarchism offered here functions to frame the forthcoming explorations.

Part One: Introducing Anarchism

There is no established or fixed means by which to conceptualise anarchism. Whilst particular influences, lineages and traditions can be identified, care has been taken to allow borders to remain ambiguous, affinities fluid, differences and contrasts playful. As Tadzio Mueller notes, „[a] look at any flyer written by an anarchist group will usually reveal the coexistence of a variety of conceptual positions, some of which may even be mutually contradictory‟ (2011: 78). The intention here is not to provide a survey of various approaches (of which there are many), but to introduce and explore the particular conception which will be used in this thesis.16 _{Nevertheless it is useful to}

begin with some basic definitions, as a starting point for further discussion.

One influential statement of anarchist principles comes from Peter Kropotkin's article for the 1905 edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica, where he states that

Anarchism...is the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being (2002: 284).

In a similar vein, Noam Chomsky argues that anarchism 'can be conceived as a kind of voluntary socialism', (2005: 133) and Errico Malatesta argues that anarchism refers to 'the condition of a people governing itself without benefit of constituted authority', necessary because the absence of government would imply 'natural order, harmony of

16 _{For surveys of anarchism (as both a theoretical and practical signifier) see Kinna (2005),}

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everyone's needs and interests, utter freedom in solidarity' (Malatesta 2005: 355). These three writers, and others, place emphasis on anarchism as a state of being - a set of imaginations, insights or explorations of a future community (or, in the case of Colin Ward, a form of community already existing in everyday interactions (1982)) in which the absence and/or rejection of authority and domination forms the basis of political life.

Other writers place more importance on anarchism as an attitude towards or philosophy of action and resistance. Uri Gordon, arguing that 'anarchism' signifies a particular political culture, emphasises the 'shared repertoire of political action based on direct action, building grassroots alternatives, community outreach and confrontation' and the '[s]hared political language that emphasises resistance to capitalism, the state, patriarchy and more generally to hierarchy and domination' (2008: 4). On similar territory, Graeber suggests that „Marxism has tended to be a theoretical or analytical discourse about revolutionary strategy; anarchism, an ethical discourse about revolutionary practice‟ (2009: 211).

This conceptual separation between anarchism as a form of political community and a philosophy of action is offered only to suggest different emphases which tend to arise - it is highly likely that all those cited would agree with one another at least to some extent and, as the chapter will go on to discuss, the vision and the philosophy of action are, to some extent, implicated with one another, and both grounded in a deep suspicion of hierarchical forms of organisation. In this vein, Graeber argues that anarchism should be thought of as a 'movement back and forth' between vision, attitude, and set of practices:

It's when the three reinforce each other - when a revulsion against oppression causes people to try to live their lives in a more self-consciously egalitarian fashion, when they draw on those experiences to produce visions of a more just society, when those visions, in turn, cause them to see existing social arrangements as even more illegitimate and obnoxious - that one can begin to talk about anarchism. Hence anarchism is in no sense a doctrine. It's a movement, a relationship, a process of purification, inspiration, and experiment (2009: 215-216, emphasis added).

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This perpetual movement has found its voice through a persistent critique of authority and domination, whether in the guise of the state, capitalism, the vanguard party, organised religion, patriarchy, and so forth.17

The label 'anarchist' is itself a source of some ambiguity. While it might initially be tempting to simply take it to refer to an advocate of 'anarchism', this would be limiting, for a number of reasons. Graeber notes that the founding intellectual figures of anarchism (such as William Godwin, Max Stirner, Bakunin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon) 'did not see themselves as creating some great new theory' and were 'more likely to see themselves as giving a name and voice to a certain kind of insurgent common sense, one they assumed to be as old as history' (2009: 213). In this sense, the label differs from those such as Marxism in its grounding in a spirit which cannot but exceed the boundaries of the signifier. Such a concern also runs in terms of influence; many of the tactics and ideas of current social movements, not least the alter- globalization movement of the early 21st century, have drawn from anarchism (Graeber 2002). A second issue with the 'anarchist' label is raised by Gordon, who cites Not4Prophet‟s refusal to self-identify:

Personally I am not down with any titles, tags, or designations. I've spent most of my adult life trying to find ways to do away with genres and borders and envelopes, so I think we are always better off if we don't label ourselves or allow anyone to label us. Anarchy or anarchism is really something we seek and live and struggle for, so it doesn't matter what we call ourselves (or don't) if we are in the midst of action doing it (2008: 13).

Day expresses both concerns when he differentiates between 'anarchists' (who explicitly self-identify) and 'anarchistic' elements within a group or series of tactics (2005: 20).

Though there is therefore considerable ambiguity attached to the terms anarchism and anarchist, there is also a remarkably resonant affinity performed by and implied in their usage, and strength drawn from their diversity. Figures ranging from Bakunin, Goldman, Proudhon and Kropotkin, to Stirner, Tolstoy, Landauer and Martin Buber have used the term to ground and animate a critique of authority and

17 _{Elsewhere Graeber argues that „[w]e are talking less about a body of theory than about an}

attitude, or perhaps a faith: a rejection of certain types of social relation, a confidence that certain others are a much better ones [sic] on which to build a decent or human society, a faith that it would be possible to do so‟ (2007: 303).

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domination. Whilst their approaches were often widely divergent - Bakunin's libertarian Marxism, Stirner's individualistic egoism and Buber's dialogical spiritualism differ significantly - their shared concerns with respect to the alienation and dispossession produced by authoritarian or oppressive social relations are powerful, as is their commitment to the struggle for a (loosely defined) freedom unconstrained and undetermined by the state, socio-economic inequalities, and so forth. Though there are boundary-producing performances (as the fierce responses to the suggestions that „anarcho-capitalism‟ can seriously be considered a form of anarchism make clear), anarchism has been relatively successful at resisting doctrinalisation.18

Within the context of this diversity, the central axis linking anarchist approaches has been the persistent critique of social relations founded on authority, hierarchy and domination. Most emphatically, this critique has been targeted at the state. Bakunin argued that „[i]f there is a state, then necessarily there is domination and consequently slavery‟ and that „[s]o-called popular representatives and rulers of the state elected by the entire nation on the basis of universal suffrage – the last word of the Marxists, as well as of the democratic school – is a lie behind which the despotism of a ruling minority is concealed, a lie all the more dangerous in that it represents itself as the expression of a sham popular will‟ (2005a: 178). Similarly, in a communiqué against the First World War signed by a number of important anarchists including Malatesta, Goldman and Alexander Berkman, it was stated that „the anarchists‟ role in the current tragedy is to carry on proclaiming that there is but one war of liberation: the one waged in every country by the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter‟ (Malatesta et al. 2005: 389), and the anarchist and pacifist Leo Tolstoy wrote that „[t]o deliver men from the terrible and ever-increasing evils of armaments and war, we want neither congresses nor conferences, nor treaties, nor courts of arbitration, but the destruction of those instruments of violence which are called Governments, and from which humanity‟s greatest evils flow‟ (1990: 86). Echoing Bakunin, Émile Henry emphasised the importance of including Marxist attempts to capture state power within

18 _{Iain McKay‟s contemptuous (and highly detailed) response to the question „Is “anarcho”-}

capitalism a type of anarchism?‟ provides an indicative response. He begins his seventy-page rebuttal by stating that „[a]rguing with fools is seldom rewarded, but to let their foolishness to go unchallenged risks allowing them to deceive those who are new to anarchism…Anarchism has always been anti-capitalist and any “anarchism” that claims otherwise cannot be part of the anarchist tradition‟ (2008: 478).

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such critiques, writing that „essentially, socialism changes the established order not one jot. It retains the authoritarian principle' (Henry 2005a: 396).

Some (post)modern critics, notably Saul Newman, have claimed that anarchism is fundamentally limited in this series of critiques, because it casts 'the state as the essential evil in society, from which other evils are derived' (2007: 47). Whilst this charge will be discussed in more detail below it is important to note that, whilst anarchists have traditionally placed great emphasis on the state, this is because the state and its institutions are seen as 'the most extreme example of the use of authority in society' (Walter 2002: 35); anarchist thought has not necessarily been confined by such terms, and has mobilised critiques of property, patriarchy, morality, religion and more as social relations which entrench authority, conduct and perpetuate domination, and limit the exploration and cultivation of alternatives.

A key component of these critiques of authority has been the move to displace or denaturalise the discursive connection between organisation and authority. As Nicolas Walter argues, 'Anarchists actually want much more organisation, though organisation without authority. The prejudice about anarchism derives from a prejudice about organisation; people cannot see that organisation does not depend on authority, that it actually works best without authority' (2002: 38). He continues:

Without rulers to obey or leaders to follow, we shall all have to make up our own minds. To keep all this going, the multiplicity and complexity of links between individuals will be increased, not reduced. Such organisation may be untidy and inefficient, but it will be much closer to the needs and feelings of the people concerned. If something cannot be done without the old kind of organisation, without authority and compulsion, it probably isn't worth doing and would be better left undone (ibid., 38-39).

Whilst, as will be discussed, it may be more productive to view anarchism as seeking a productive tension between organisation and disorganisation, order and disorder, consensus and dissensus, refusing the fictitious (and depoliticising) closures these terms represent (as Ward notes, „the punitive, interfering lover of order is usually so because of his own unfreedom and insecurity‟ (1982: 31)), Walter powerfully invites a discussion about how order and organisation are conceptualised, particularly with respect to the

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place of authority as a necessary prerequisite for both (rather than as specifying a particular, politicised form).19

One important contemporary exposition of the anarchist position on the critiques noted here, which guides the approach taken in this thesis, comes from Day‟s reading of the logic of and struggle against hegemony in radical thought. In his book

Gramsci is Dead, Day notes the centrality of conceptions and analyses of hegemony for radical political praxis. By the logic of hegemony, he means

…a process through which various factions struggle over meaning, identity and political power. To use the words of Antonio Gramsci, a key thinker in this lineage, a social group which seeks hegemony strives to "dominate antagonistic groups, which it tends to 'liquidate,' or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force", at the same time as it attempts to "lead" kindred and allied groups (Gramsci 1971: 57). Hegemony is a simultaneously coercive and consensual struggle for dominance, seen in nineteenth- and twentieth-century marxisms as limited to the context of a particular nation-state, but increasingly being analysed at a global level (2005: 6-7, emphasis in original).

Day argues that the response to hegemony, in Marxist and liberal theory, and in radical social movements, has traditionally been to seek a counter-hegemony, to 'shift the historical balance back, as much as possible, in favour of the oppressed‟ (ibid.). Significantly he responds to the counter-hegemonic instinct by insisting that „[t]o argue in this way...is to remain within the logic of neoliberalism; it is to accept what I call the

hegemony of hegemony. By this I mean to refer to the assumption that effective social change can only be achieved simultaneously and en mass, across an entire national or supranational space' (ibid., 8, emphasis in original). For Day, counter-hegemonic projects do little to displace the onto-political totalisations which underpin extant hegemonies, and are likely to rely upon and sustain relations of domination.

The previous chapter argued that CSS has, on the whole, remained committed to and complicit in the hegemony of hegemony. It also noted that the logic of security is itself implicated here, its promises dependent upon the impossible but attractive arrival of hegemony, hegemony‟s deferred but always approaching security conditional on the eradication of its perpetual excess. In this context, the mobilisation of a counter-

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hegemony, an alternative regime which promises emancipation and „true‟ security, is only ever a limited challenge, which does not fundamentally displace the legitimation of and impulse towards authority, domination and mastery of its counterpart. An approach which seeks to mobilise anarchism against the politics of security must therefore begin precisely by seeking to resist or displace the logic of hegemony. Day suggests that such a move can be seen in those social movements who reject the hegemony of hegemony and demonstrate what he calls an 'affinity for affinity, that is, for non-universalizing, non- hierarchical, non-coercive relationships based and mutual aid and shared ethical commitments [sic]' (ibid., 9, emphasis in original). He argues that those groups who display an affinity for affinity might help to displace, rather than reify, the hegemony of hegemony.

Tied to his twin reading of hegemony and affinity, Day explores the concepts of the 'politics of demand' and 'politics of the act'. The politics of demand is understood as a 'mode of social action [which] assumes the existence of a dominant nation attached to a monopolistic state, which must be persuaded to give the gifts of recognition and

integration to subordinate identities and communities' (ibid., 14-15, emphasis in original); that is, as a form of social action which proceeds through petition and representation, which fetishizes relations of domination and, in the terms used here, mobilises a hegemonic ontology of agency. This is contrasted with a politics of the act, an alternative form which

…relies upon, and results from, getting over the hope that the state and corporate forms, as structures of domination, exploitation and division, are somehow capable of producing effects of emancipation. By avoiding making demands in the first place, it offers a way out of the cycle through which requests for "freedom" or "rights" are used to justify an intensification of the societies of discipline and control (ibid., 15).

A politics of the act prioritises experimentation, creativity and prefiguration.