History of Anarchism Sessions

A ESSHC 2008 Conference Report

History of Anarchism Sessions: a ESSHC 2008 Conference Report

Last week the European Social Science History Conference was held in Lisbon. 1700 Scholars from all over the world could attend sessions on almost every conceivable aspect of historical research. Amongst the overwhelming number of sessions on offer two were devoted to anarchism, whilst Jose Moya presented a paper on female anarchists in Buenos Aires in a session on feminism and transnationalism. The two anarchism-sessions were very lively. The first focussed on anarchist networks in port cities and compared some Latin-American cases (Cuba and Peru) to cases in Africa (Egypt and Cape Town). Kirk Shaffer presented a very lucid paper on the role the Cuban newspaper /Tierra/ (1903-1915) played in keeping together anarchist networks of anarchists in the Caribbean and Florida. Steve Hirsch showed that there existed two extended networks in Peru, a northern and a southern one, and that of these the southern one succeeded in crossing ethnic borders to reach indigenous Peruvians. Tony Gorman presented the Egyptian case, where anarchism arrived together with Italian workers during the 1860s. After that a lively movement came into existence which comprised next to Italians, Greeks and French but hardly any native Egyptian. As you might expect and as Lucien VanderWalt showed in great detail, in Cape Town for the anarchists race barriers were very difficult to cross as well. All in all and with the exception of the Peruvian case the papers sustained the verdict Jose Moya made in the second session: anarchists outside their native countries in Europe hardly ever managed to reach beyond their own emigre circles. Another characteristic of these non-European anarchisms is that they mostly arrived on the waves of Western imperialism and of the great 19th century migration. Even the spread of anarchism in the Caribbean followed the expansion of American military power and imperialism.

In the second session the focus was more on methods. In a rather long and detailed paper Bert Altena analysed anarchism as a social movement and asked what the use of social movement theory could be, when studying anarchism from this angle. Tom Goyens focused on anarchism and the question of space. What did their space mean to anarchists, how did they perceive their beerhalls in New York or their picnic sites? How important is space for the study of anarchism. Carl Levy presented a paper on his own project of writing a history of anarchism on a world scale. He dealt with the vicissitudes of periodisation and of the relation between the history of anarchism in Europe and those elsewhere. As to methods he argued that every aspect of anarchist activity needed its own methods. Davide Turcato in a very thoughtful paper focused on the question of rationality in anarchist reasoning and behaviour and pleaded for the principle of charity when dealing with them. In the last paper Eduardo Romanos related the history of Spanish anarchism under Franco. Inspired by authors like Sidney Tarrow, Donatella Dellaporta and others he focused on the changing political opportunity structure in Francoist Spain and on the framing of their situation and goals by the anarchists in Spain and in exile. Between these to groups a clear distinction can be discerned: whereas the anarchists in exile more or less froze their opinions, the comrades in Spain tried to develop new visions especially in two short periods of relaxation of the dictatorship. In general, however, severe and sustained repression made maintenance of the movement almost impossible. Both sessions were well-attended and well-received. For those of you who would like to read most of the papers presented: [url]http://www2.iisg.nl/esshc/programme.asp?selyear=9&nw=&find=anarchist[/u…]

Bert Altena, [mailto]altena@fhk.eur.nl[/mailto]