Anarchist Essays

In this essay, Christopher Powell examines how sovereign statehood generates an economy of shame that fosters identification with the imagined sovereign.  Achieving anarchy requires a shift in who is shamed and for what, shifting self-worth from ‘higher' ideals to horizontal solidarity. Christopher Powell is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Toronto Metropolitan University. His...

In this essay, Elena Pagani presents theorising and practices of freedom as interpersonal and intersubjective. She does this through the conceptions of agonistic self-creation and agonistic empathy in conversation with empirical findings from a militant research of radical worker co-operatives in Greece. Her presentation invites us to imagine and prefigure an anarchist utopia where the notion of p...

In this essay, Deric Shannon outlines the anarchist analysis and critique of capitalism. He also gives some potential explanations for capitalism's resilience. Deric Shannon is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Emory University's Oxford College. His most recent books are  The State of State Theory: State Projects, Repression, and Multi-sites of Power  and  Interdisciplinary Approaches to Peda...

In this essay, Sonia Hernández describes the central role Mexican women played in the emergence of anarcho-syndicalist organizing during the early 20th century. She examines the emergence of transnational feminism influenced by anarchist ideas in the Gulf of Mexico region - such women's labor activism left an indelible mark on the greater history of the US-Mexican borderlands. Sonia Hernández is a...

In this essay, Benjamin Franks identifies the core principles that lead anarchists to reject participation in democratic elections. It then explores the occasions where anarchists have engaged in different forms of electoral engagement and showing the particular conditions that make some constitutional interventions compatible with anarchist principles. Benjamin Franks is a Senior Lecturer in Soci...

In this essay, Carne explores the spiritual dimension of anarchism, which he once assumed was more a ‘political’ philosophy about how people make decisions and transact business. He concludes that there is indeed a vital spiritual element and moreover that anarchism centres love and human connection at its core. Carne Ross is a writer. His most recent book is ‘ The Leaderless Revolution : how ordi...

In this essay, William Marling asks why there seems to be so much rhetoric in/about anarchism. He digs for an answer in his recent book on Ammon Hennacy, finding an answer in the practice of "parrhesia," or speaking truth to power. William Marling is Professor of American Literature and Film at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. His most recent books are  Christian Anarchist:...

In this essay, Rhiannon Firth reads from an article published in  DOPE Magazine  issue 22, which is part 2 of a 2-part summary of her latest book, Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action, published by Pluto Press last Autumn. In it, she offers a response to the question: Do anarchist approaches to disaster relief have more to offer beyond state-friendly 'social capital', mopping up the fai...

In this essay, Gabriele Montalbano considers the Italian-speaking anarchists of the end of the nineteenth century and their involvement and legacy in trade union movements and strikes in Tunis during the first decade of the twentieth century. This essay demonstrates the connection between diasporas, anarchism, and labour movements, and the place of Tunis in the global radical network. For the Engl...

In this essay, Javier Sethness Castro presents a new, queer reading of Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy's life and art. By referencing homoeroticism in Tolstoy's diaries and comparing the anarchist writer's libidinal and political desires with historical and literary examples of uprisings and revolts, Sethness highlights the liberatory potential of queer anarchism and sexual revolution. Javier Sethne...

In this essay, Ryan Essex considers what anarchy could do for health and healthcare. Drawing on a number of historical and contemporary examples he argues that anarchist thinking and praxis is too often overlooked and has the potential to radically alter how we approach health. Ryan Essex is a Research Fellow at the University of Greenwich. His most recent publications include explorations into th...

In this essay, Clara Vlessing looks at the cultural memory of Louise Michel (1830-1905). The essay compares Michel’s domestic remembrance with her international afterlives to explore how an anarchist individual is adopted, appropriated or taken as the nominal leader for many different causes.  Clara Vlessing  is a lecturer in comparative literature at Utrecht University. Her most recent article “...

In this essay, Robert Leach discusses the gradual awakening of British radicals after the sleepy 1950s, especially some of the festivals that they mounted. Robert Leach is former lecturer at Edinburgh and Birmingham Universities, freelance theatre director, and writer. His most recent works include the two-volume Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance , the biography Sergei Tretyak...

In this essay, Chi Shing LEE discusses the relationship between anarchism and nationalism. He introduces the anarchist thought of Ng Chung-yin, an important anarchist figure in Hong Kong during the early 1970s, and elaborates how his anarchism exposes the contingency of the concept of national origin. Chi Shing LEE is a PhD Candidate at Chinese University of Hong Kong. His most recent publication...

In this essay, adapted from his recently published book, Anarchist Atheist Punk Rock Teacher, DaN McKee reflects on his personal experiences with the inner conflict of being an anarchist teacher working within a school-system built on discipline and control.  He looks back on his misguided attempts to subvert such systems through strict adherence to their absurd rules, and the more successful mome...

In this essay, Pablo Angel Lugo analyzes the involvement of anarchists in assisting illegal immigrants through the production of forged documents, facilitating their lawful settlement in the UK between 2015 and 2019. Pablo Angel Lugo is the sole judicial expert in Public Art in Mexico. His recent publications include "Theft, Plagiarism, and Destruction: Violated Creators and Artists" and "Practice...

In this essay, Richard White encourages us to think about why anarchists should embrace the plight of farmed animals, insects and more than human worlds. If anarchism is a understood as a ‘purity of rebellion’ then how might we reflect this more fully in own praxis? Richard is a Reader in Human Geography at Sheffield Hallam University. Richard’s most recent publications are ‘Critical Animal Studie...

In this essay, Jesse Cohn reconsiders the European anarchist tradition's place in modernity. How might our commitments to modernity's foundations compromise our alliances with peoples whom modernity has marginalized? Can we disentangle anarchism from those assumptions? Jesse Cohn teaches English at Purdue Northwest in Indiana. His most recent publications are his translation of Daniel Colson's  A...

In this essay, Spencer Beswick argues that anarchist infrastructure, values, and tactics played a key role in the development of militant antifascism in the late twentieth century United States. He explores how anarchists in Anti-Racist Action (1987-2013) and Love and Rage (1989-1998) confronted fascists in the streets while also organizing radical movements that sought to address the root causes...

In this essay, Chris Rossdale reflects on the status of rebellion as a political concept. While Extinction Rebellion have been the most prominent advocates of rebellion in recent times, the essay also looks at right-wing mobilisations in order to situate rebellion as entangled with liberal citizenship and bourgeois freedom. Nevertheless the essay closes by arguing that rebellion is essential to an...

Saidiya Hartman asks, “Is love a synonym for abolition?”. bell hooks writes that “true love requires an ongoing commitment to constructive struggle and change”. This essay proposes that anarchism is a practice of honest, dedicated and expansive love that opens our lives and our political societies to the possibility of transformation. Charlotte Lowell is an undergraduate student at Fairhaven Colle...

In this essay, Nora Ziegler critically explores “radical hospitality” as a diversity of tactics that co-construct relationships of mutual aid across differences of power. Her reflections are based on her experience of living and working in the London Catholic Worker’s house of hospitality for migrants with no recourse to public funds. Nora Ziegler is an independent researcher and writer, active in...

In this essay, Kiara Mohamed Amin and Priya Sharma explore the liberatory potential of psychedelic trips, arguing that such practices possess the potential to humanise parts of the self that have been dehumanised by capitalist systems of living.  Kiara Mohamed Amin is a trans, Somali multidisciplinary artist based in Toxteth, Liverpool. His work focuses on what it means to live at the intersection...

In this podcast, Dai and Steve discuss the issues that deaf people and deaf communities face in capitalist society and the ways in which deaf people have traditionally framed their engagement and resistance to these issues. We discuss the issues that anarchists need to consider when reflecting on how anarchist spaces can be more accessible to deaf people. For a video of this talk in British Sign L...

In this essay, Kim Kelly discusses her opinions and experiences with the past and present of leftist gun ownership and armed self-defense.  Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist, and author of  FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor .  This episode of ‘Anarchist Essays’ was supported by a grant from The Lipman-Miliband Trust . Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Anarch...