Labnet: History of Anarchism Sessions: a ESSHC 2008 Conference Report

[labnet at lists.labourhistory.net]

From: Labourhistory.net

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:
www2.iisg.nl/esshc/programme.asp?selyear=9&nw=&find=anarchist 

Bert Altena, altena at fhk.eur.nl 




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