Anarchist Pedagogy

'Taking our Time’ is an invitation to think critically about our own lived experience of time, while drawing on the rich intellectual tradition of ‘Western’ philosophies of time, both past and present. We will read texts that approach the problem of time from a variety of theoretical angles (Marxist, postcolonial, feminist and queer) and propose alternative forms of understanding, experiencing and measuring time. Even though many of the texts we will consider raise philosophical questions, this is not a philosophy course. We will read these texts attentively and disrespectfully, and bring our own experiences to bear on questions such as: How can time be political? Does time have a gender? How ‘free’ is free time?

Beginning with a historical introduction to how conceptions and representations of time have changed across ‘time’, the course will then be structured thematically and will involve lecture presentations, non-hierarchical group discussions, oral presentations, student-led class facilitation, and – weather permitting – embodied explorations of time while moving in the public space outside DSFL.

Antología de la pedagogía anarquista que pone especial atención en las contribuciones editadas en España y América Latina. Es un trabajo de investigación dirigido a los profesores del presente. Incluye un ensayo preliminar que presenta un mapa sucinto de las discusiones pedagógicas del anarquismo e invita a pensarlas en relación con la problemática del presente. El libro se publicó en 2018 pero se encuentra agotado.

Au fil des dernières années, les chercheurs francophones et internationaux ont redécouvert des figures de géographes et de militants libertaires comme Elisée Reclus et ses amis et collaborateurs Pierre Kropotkine (1842-1921) et Léon Metchnikoff (1838-1888), dont les travaux continuent de faire l’objet de recherches et de nourrir des débats d’actualité. Ce regain d’intérêt prend tout son sens à la lumière du portrait de Reclus que l’on dresse ici.

Joan Puig Elías (Sallent 1898 – Porto Alegre 1972) fue ante todo un maestro.
Afiliado a la CNT desde muy joven, se propuso llevar adelante el proyecto de Ferrer i Guàrdia: en los años 20-30 guió la Escuela Natura en Barcelona que se convirtió en escuela piloto entre las racionalistas.
Consideraba que no hay que educar solo la razón sino también los sentimientos.
Al estallar la revolución en 1936 le fue asignada la presidencia del CENU (Consell de l’Escola Nova Uni cada) y ex tendió la pedagogía libertaria a todas las escuelas de Cataluña. Ocupó varios otros cargos durante la guerra y en 1939 se exilió a Francia y luego a Brasil donde continuó, hasta que le fue posible, su labor pedagógica y política.

I am still on the first stretch of this nomadic exploration, but I think I can begin to answer the question that is guiding this exploration—'how can the Natural-Indigenous Worldview support our understandings of the potential for an anarchist society (i.e. for social order without hierarchical domination)?' The key of Natural-Indigenous Worldview that opens the lock of an anarchist society, of a society without hierarchical domination, comes in the Natural-Indigenous Worldview's spiritual ecology. When we develop the four R's (responsibility, reciprocity, respect, relationships [Young 2015]) through relating to the world in a manner that is facilitated by the spiritual ecology that rises from the Natural-Indigenous Worldview and thus ascribes spirit to all things without regard for the Colonial Modernist Worldview's distinction between 'animate' and 'inanimate', we come to see the world as a single, living, conscious being. The illusion of a discrete distinction between self and other breaks down and we come to see the self (and other selves) as strands in the unified, conscious web of creation. We come to care for all of creation as we would care for our children, for our partners, for our parents and for our self. Transcending the illusion of discrete individuality we develop a lovingly reciprocal, responsible, respectful and relational orientation to the world that begets virtuous thought, feeling, behavior and being without recourse to hierarchical authority (to punishment and fear of punishment). Engaging with the world through the spiritual ecology that rises from the Natural-Indigenous Worldview allows the sprouts of human nature to grow to fruition without recourse to hierarchical domination (i.e. without recourse to attempts to 'help sprouts grow' by pulling on them and the death of the sprouts of human nature portended by such hierarchical folly [Meng Zi 2016, 2A2]).

Since the early 2000s, global, underground networks of insurrectionary anarchists have carried out thousands of acts of political violence. This book is an exploration of the ideas, strategies, and history of these political actors that engage in a confrontation with the oppressive powers of the state and capital. This book challenges the reader to consider the historically ignored articulations put forth by those who communicate through sometimes violent political acts-vandalism, sabotage, arson and occasional use of explosives. These small acts of violence are announced and contextualized through written communiqués, which are posted online, translated, and circulated globally. This book offers the first contemporary history of these digitally-mediated networks, and seeks to locate this tendency within anti-state struggles from the past.

REVIEW ESSAY
Detailing radical attempts & imagining impossible agendas

Out of the ruins: the emergence of radical informal learning spaces, edited by Robert H. Hayworth and John M. Elmore, Oakland, PM Press, 288 pp., £21.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-62963-239-1

To cite this article: Michael James Miller (2018): Detailing radical attempts & imagining impossible agendas, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2018.1457876
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2018.1457876

“…Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write.” (Foucault 1972, p. 17)

This editorial does not cede the ontological battle to the Colonial, Modernist Worldview in accepting the ‘commonsensical’ (from the perspective of the Colonial, Modernist Worldview…) assumption that the visible world of manifest facts—‘the real world out there’—is more real than the invisible, unmanifest world of ideas emotions, forms etc. (Needleman 1975; Nicoll 1989; Herman 2008; Blaser 2013) As such, this editorial explores the ideational continuities and discontinuities (Foucault 1972) of the articles assembled in this issue through an overtly nonlinear, nomadic perspective that is rooted in the Worldviews and associated conceptions of order that articulate the invisible lines of ideational continuity and discontinuity that run through the articles. Though a discrete, linear argument belies the nonlinear orientation of this editorial, there are a few arguments that emerge in the following pages: 1. freedom in the city is dependent upon ontological freedom, which is to say upon the right to assert the order of things in the city; 2. freedom in the academy is dependent upon ontological freedom, which might be best explicated by the assertion that freedom in the many and varied epistemological debates that are being waged within the academy cannot be attained without the freedom to assert the assumptions concerning the nature of reality upon which these epistemological debates are dependent; 3. perceived ‘freedom’ and ‘agency’ that come without the capacity and power to assert the order of things for ones self ought to be understood as the illusion of freedom and agency by which liberal democracy attempts to render hierarchical domination as sustainable rather than actual freedom and agency given that potentials for thought, feeling, behavior and conception of being are expanded and constrained by an individual’s commonsensical assumptions concerning the nature of reality. A true revolution of practice cannot occur without a revolution in the Worldview from which we conceptualize practice, be it in the city or in the academy. (Barnesmoore 2017) As for a more general orientation to contemporary social science, this editorial and its nonlinear lines of exploration seek to inspire increased (and less ephemeral…)  engagement with the burgeoning ontological turn (Horton 2015; Heywood 2017) in our discussions of cities in CITY.

The logic and sincerity of Marxist appeals to unity on the Left are worthy of critical scrutiny. I argue against such pleas, suggesting that the devil is in the details. In practice, 'Left unity' could only result in the co-optation of anarchism under a Marxist leadership. Such vanguardism is one of the fundamental divisions between the two approaches, having long been rejected by anarchists. I further argue that Marxism cannot withstand the anarchist critique, striking fear into the heart of Marxists as it threatens their worldview. It also means that despite appeals to 'fertile collaboration' between the red and black, there is an explicit lack of willingness among some Marxists to actually engage with anarchists in legitimate debate. So be it. Anarchists will continue to raise hell all the same.