«Acronia. Studies in the history of anarchism and radical movements»
https://mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/acronia/index
Decolonizing the History of Anarchism and Radical Movements
Deadline for submission of the abstract (not more than 1,000-1,500 words and a short bio of the author): February 15th, 2025.
The ongoing debates and controversies surrounding the cultural and hegemonic legacies of colonization have emphasized the necessity of re-evaluating the history of labor movements from perspectives that challenge the West's centrality. In recent years, a growing body of scholarship - stimulated by the transnational turn and driven by decolonization and Indigenous movements - has begun to critique and revise the Eurocentric paradigm that has long shaped the historical narrative of anarchism. This research has opened new and promising avenues of inquiry, prompting a reconceptualization of anarchism and the broader libertarian movement, traditionally viewed as an intrinsically Western phenomenon rooted in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. An expanding body of research focusing on the Global South (among the others those by Benedict Anderson, Maia Ramnath, Ciccariello-Maher, Ole Laursen, Lucien van der Walt, Steven J Hirsch) has provided alternative perspectives to the dominant view that anarchism in these regions was simply an "imported" ideology from the West, passively adopted by local populations. In contrast, these recent studies highlight the originality of anarchist movements beyond Europe, while simultaneously exposing some contradictions within the Western anarchist movements, particularly their occasional alignments with colonialist attitudes and hegemonic cultural frameworks in their interactions with native populations.
A decolonial perspective, therefore, holds the potential to challenge established paradigms and offer a fundamental re-interpretation of the history of anarchist and radical movements on a global scale, while simultaneously raising critical theoretical, methodological, and empirical questions.
The editorial board of Acronia: History of Anarchism and Radical Movements is pleased to announce a call for submissions for its upcoming issue on the theme: Decolonizing the History of the Anarchist and radical movements. Contributions are invited in Italian and/or English and may explore any aspect of decolonizing anarchist and radical movements . Submissions may engage with theoretical debates, historiographical analyses, reconstructions of specific historical experiences, or examinations of cultural productions.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- The experiences of anarchist and radical movements in the Global South
- Theoretical reinterpretations of anarchism from a decolonial perspective
- Anarchy and Indigenous movements
- Interactions between European anarchist refugees and local populations
- The role of anarchists within or in relation to national independence and decolonization movements
- Anarchists as carriers of colonizing cultural ideas and practices
- The intersections of anarchism and racial issues
- Anarchism and Orientalis
- Critique and opposition (or complicity?) of Western anarchisms toward the colonialism of their respective countries.
The editorial board welcomes submissions that contribute to broadening and diversifying the understanding of anarchist history through innovative and critical approaches.
Editor
Pietro Di Paola (University of Lincoln, UK)
For any inquiries, please contact the following address: acronia@mimesis-group.com