Without Borders or Limits Without Borders or Limits: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Anarchist Studies Edited by Jorell A. Meléndez Badillo and Nathan J. Jun Without Borders or Limits: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Anarchist Studies, Edited by Jorell A. Meléndez Badillo and Nathan J. Jun This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Jorell A. Meléndez Badillo and Nathan J. Jun and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4768-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4768-1 CONTENTS Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... ix Preface ........................................................................................................ xi Anarchist Studies After NAASN-III: Where Are We Going? Jesse Cohn Introduction ............................................................................................. xvii Nathan Jun and Jorell Meléndez Part One: Theory and Philosophy Chapter One ................................................................................................. 3 A Society in Revolt or Under Analysis? Investigating the Dialogue between Nineteenth-Century Anarchists and Sociologists Dana Williams Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 37 Kropotkin: Mutual Aid, Sustainability, and the Prospects of Freedom Jon Bekken Part Two: Historical Analyses, Methodologies, and Perspectives Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 45 ‘We’ is for Anarchism: Construction and Use of Collective Identity in the Anarchist Press of Fin-de-Siécle Switzerland Nino Kühnis Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 57 Interpreting, De-constructing, and Deciphering Ideograms of Rebellion: An Approach to the History of Reading Inside Anarchist Groups in Puerto Rico at the Start of the Twentieth Century Jorell Meléndez vi Contents Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 75 Methods for Tracing Radical Networks: Mapping the Print Culture and Propagandists of the Sovversivi Andrew Hoyt Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 107 Anarchist Culture on the Cusp of the Twentieth Century Dana Ward Part Three: Anarchist Manifestations in the Arts, Media, and Culture Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 125 Guerrilla Communications: Poster Response to the Coup of 1936 Hillary Gordon Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 141 Across Cardew/Caliban: Towards an Anarchic Assembling of Revolutionary Phenomena Eduardo Rosario Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 153 Anarchist Media and the Crisis of Communication Jon Bekken Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 161 Copyrights Must Be Amended Brett Díaz Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 165 From Potsherds to Smartphones: Anarchism, Archeology, and the Material World James Birmingham Part Four: Religion, Ethics, and Spirituality Chapter Twelve ........................................................................................ 177 Luisa Capetillo, Anarchist and Spiritualist: A Synthesis of the Irreconcilable Carmen Romeu-Toro Without Borders or Limits vii Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 185 Anarchism and Christianity Abner Roldán Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 189 Anarchism and Spiritualist Philosophy in Puerto Rico Daniel Márquez Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 191 Ethics as an Anarcho-Social Practice Reynaldo Padilla Teruel Part Five: Praxis and Contemporary Struggles Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 197 Bullhorns, Balaclavas, and… Negotiations with Vivisectors? It’s Just Anarchists in Neoliberal Drag Jennifer D. Grubbs Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 209 Anthropocentric Tyranny Gazir Sued Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 213 Queering (Animal) Liberation and (Queers) Victimhood: The Reappropiation of Intersectionality and Violence Michael Loadenthal Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 241 Dawn of the Dead: A Student Narrative on Collective Classrooms Fernando Janer Chapter Twenty ........................................................................................ 259 Utopia is Possible: The Presence of the Libertarian Ideal in the Revolutionary Theory of the Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores (MST) Raúl Báez viii Contents Chapter Twenty One ................................................................................ 275 Anti-colonial Anarchism, Or Anarchistic Anti-Colonialism: The Similarities in the Revolutionary Theories of Frantz Fanon and Mikhail Bakunin Ryan Knight Editors ..................................................................................................... 285 Contributors ............................................................................................. 287 Index ........................................................................................................ 293 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The essays in this volume are adapted from papers presented at the Third Annual North American Anarchist Studies Conference (San Juan, Puerto Rico, January 2012). The editors are grateful to those who organized and participated in this conference. We are also grateful to Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and especially our editor, Carol Koulikourdi, for helping to make this volume possible. Chapter 1 was originally published in Critical Sociology 39:2 (2012) and is reprinted here with permission. Chapters 3, 4, 7, 10, 19, and 21 were originally published in Theory in Action 5:4 (October 2012) and are reprinted here with permission. Chapter 18 was originally published in the Journal of Critical Animal Studies, Inquiries and Interventions: Queer Theory and Anti-Speciesist Praxis 10:3 (2012) under the title “Operation Splash Back!: Queering Animal Liberation Through the Contributions of Neo-Insurrectionist Queers.” It is reprinted here with permission. PREFACE ANARCHIST STUDIES AFTER NAASN-III: WHERE ARE WE GOING? JESSE COHN Driving to the Canadian border in January 2011, headed for Toronto and NAASN-II with my friends Daniel and Susan, I was asked the purpose of our visit. “To attend an academic conference,” I said, perhaps a little too briskly, because the guard in the booth pressed us: “On what subject?” “On anarchism,” I said, affecting a casual tone. We were asked to pull over, and while the car was searched, a customs agent started grilling us: how did we know each other? Where were we staying? What were we going to be doing? Finally, I pulled out the conference program and showed him: “Look, I want to go to this guy’s presentation—he’s going to be talking about his dissertation...” It was like a magic spell, that word: dissertation. The agent relaxed visibly. “Oh, I see— you’re just studying anarchism! You’re not talking about being anarchists.” “No,” I lied, smiling, as if at a small, private joke. We were let through. There are many, of course, for whom the very idea of an “anarchist conference” or “anarchist studies” is a joke (fig. 1), or an oxymoron at best. Probably most of these have never heard of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo or Peoples’ Global Action. Some who have never picked up a copy of David Graeber’s Debt or Peter Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution may think of anarchism as anti-intellectual, as pure action (but not as cognitive or social activity). Some of us, for whom anarchism is, among other things, a way of thinking otherwise, are nonetheless skeptical about the notion of an “anarchist conference” or “anarchist studies” for quite other reasons. “Anarchist studies” can indeed sound like just another item in a long list of topics for dissertations—urban studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, disability studies, science and technology studies, etc.—which begs the question: are we, in fact, studying it or doing it? xii Preface Fig. 1: Steve Lambert, Emma Goldman Institute for AAnarchist Studies, 2005 (wood, inkjet print on adhesive vinyl; 7' x 10'). See http://visitsteve.com/ made/emma/. Of course, it is entirely possible to study and to do at the same time, to engage in a self-critical practice, but it is hard not to think with discomfort of the ways in which some