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Anarchy and Society Studies in Critical Social Sciences

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Anarchy and Society Studies in Critical Social Sciences Anarchy and Society Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series Editor David Fasenfest Wayne State University Editorial Board Chris Chase-Dunn, University of California-Riverside G. William Domhofff, University of California-Santa Cruz Colette Fagan, Manchester University Martha Gimenez, University of Colorado, Boulder Heidi Gottfried, Wayne State University Karin Gottschall, University of Bremen Bob Jessop, Lancaster University Rhonda Levine, Colgate University Jacqueline O’Reilly, University of Brighton Mary Romero, Arizona State University Chizuko Ueno, University of Tokyo VOLUME 55 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/scss Anarchy and Society Reflections on Anarchist Sociology By Jeff Shantz Dana M. Williams LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Cover illustration: Cover art made by Jeff Shantz. Index: PJ Lilley Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shantz, Jeff. Anarchy and society : reflections on anarchist sociology / by Jeff Shantz, Dana M. Williams. pages cm. -- (Studies in critical social sciences, 1573-4234 ; volume 55) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9789004214 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Anarchism. 2. Sociology. I. Williams, Dana M. II. Title. HX833.S4474 2013 335'.83--dc23 2013033844 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1573-4234 ISBN 978-90-04-21496-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25299-8 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. <UN> <UN> CONTENTS Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................vii Preface: Plain Words: An Introduction to Anarchy and a Challenge to Society ................................................................................................................ix 1 Defining an Anarchist Sociology: A Long Anticipated Marriage .............1 2 Rethinking Community, Anarchy, and Sociology..................................... 22 3 Colin Ward’s Sociological Anarchy ............................................................... 40 4 The Personal is Political: Emma Goldman and Feminist Sociology .............................................................................................................. 51 5 Proudhon and Criminology ............................................................................ 70 6 An Anarchist View of Stratification, Inequality, and Domination .....100 7 Violating Norms, Re-socializing Society ....................................................131 8 Problems of Research on Radicals (or Anarchist Movement Epistemology) ...................................................................................................158 Postscript: Anarchists in the Academy ...........................................................175 Bibliography ...........................................................................................................191 Index.........................................................................................................................199 <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to extend our earnest gratitude to the following people who offered helpful thoughts and critiques: Brian Martin, Mark George, Jamie Heckert, Nathan Jun, Matthew Lee, and Jonathan Purkis. We also would like to express our appreciation to the editors and anonymous reviewers of Contemporary Justice Review, Theory in Action, and Race, Gender & Class, in which earlier drafts of some of these chapters appeared. Jeff: Thanks also to Dr. Heidi Rimke for many lively conversations on the nature of sociology and of anarchism. Special thanks must go to my youngest comrades Saoirse Shantz and Molly Shantz as well as P.J. Lilley (who also indexed this work). My work on this project was supported by a Minor Research Grant from the Office of Research and Scholarship at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Dana: An unfathomable debt is owed to my closest and dearest friend and partner, Suzanne Slusser. <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> PREFACE PLAIN WORDS: AN INTRODUCTION TO ANARCHY AND A CHALLENGE TO SOCIETY We, the authors, have endured long, circular meetings with professional activists, obnoxious riot police, and the presentation of boring academic papers at conferences. We have also enjoyed and relished the occasional political victory, or moment when our students “get it” and a metaphorical light-bulb flashes on. Such monotony and excitement compose the essence of social existence. The challenge is to determine how best to understand these experiences. Do such experiences better explain the worlds we straddle or do they just confuse us? This book aims to address a few key questions: Can we create social structures—which provide regularity, pattern—that decrease the fre- quency of debilitation and depression, and increase the chances of inspi- ration and empowerment? In other words, can we—perhaps as, if the label fits, anarchist-sociologists—critique the social order around us, noting what we like and dislike, what lives up to our values, and then develop strategies for moving towards a better future? It is in this respect that anarchism and sociology have both been “progressive” and part of the Enlightenment tradition, seeking to improve upon past victories and move society towards greater equality, justice, and liberty. The main dif- ference we see between the two traditions is that sociologists have tended to have a more reformist orientation towards the question of progress and the anarchists a more radical orientation. To Whom it May Concern… Writing a book like this has been fraught with challenge. First, the audi- ence is nebulous. Will sociologists read this book? Will anarchists want to? Will both find it too distant from their core interests? We hope not. Second, what book can possibly accomplish all that different readers may want it to? Some will want this book to be more theoretical, or historical, or methodological, or empirically-based, or more introductory, of higher- order, or simpler, or deeper. Alas. In an inclusive effort to accommodate the potential trajectories of an anarchist-sociology, we offer the first <UN> <UN> x preface chapter as a tentative declaration of what anarchist-sociology might already be and what it could be. We wonder if many anarchists who read sociology books, and more do than imagined, might see themselves and their perspectives in this book. They might even express some bemusement: “Yeah, okay, what’s the big deal? Sounds like Emma Goldman to me…” Certainly such a sense would mark them as distinct from most sociologists who have overlooked anar- chism (even while reading authors inspired by or engaged with anarchy). Curiously, there are also some sociologists—honestly, a surprising num- ber of them—who do not immediately discount anarchism when it is mentioned. There seems to be a genuine tolerance for the perspective, at least amongst sociologists who have bothered to explore anarchist ideas. Thus, it could be that the boundaries between anarchism and sociology overlap for many people, or perhaps that there may be no boundaries. This book is for these very people, and the familiarity, the intuition, the resemblances between anarchism and sociology that they perceive are not accidental or random. There’s a reason why some anarchism and some sociology resonates so well together. The following pages draw stronger lines of connection between the two traditions and fill-in more detail than has been previously attempted. But, this book is also for people who either like sociology or who identify with anarchism, but cannot imagine how the other perspective would be relevant. While not all is rel- evant to the other, some is, and a sampling of these areas of intersection are included herein. Finally, still others might not know anything about anarchism or about sociology, and might not even care about them. But, taken together, as an “anarchist-sociology,” these two separate, but inter- twined traditions might make more sense and might even be attractive ideas to pursue. Seize the Moment (and the Imagination) We have felt the deficit of a book like this for a long time and have found ourselves doing the next best thing for interested persons: recommending Colin Ward’s Anarchy in Action as a premiere example of a sociological take on anarchism, written by Britain’s most famous 20th century anar- chist. In a sense, our book is an extension to Ward’s excellent book. Then again, Ward admitted that his book was simply a “footnote” of Peter Kropotkin’s work (Ward 1996). And Kropotkin, perhaps more than most classic age anarchists, mined history’s wide ocean for evidence of <UN>
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