Anarchist Studies

Volume 13, 2005 No.2

Cover illustration: Art and Revolution, 'Hands Off Street Youth' Puppet, Active Resistance Anarchist Gathering, Toronto, 1998. © Susan Simensky, 1998

Power: some anthropological perspectives

Harold B. Barclay
Anthropology,University of Alberta

Discussions concerning power and authority by anarchist writers are often marked by confusion. This essay reviews some key analyses of power, and puts forward an anthropologically-informed anarchist analysis concerning the inevitability of forms of power relationships. One cannot dispense with all forms of power and still maintain social relations.

Israeli Anarchism - Being Young, Queer and Radical in the Promised Land: an interview with Yossi

Aaron Lakoff

Aaron Lakoff is a member of the International Solidarity Movement, and a journalist with CKUT community radio in Montreal. He has recently travelled and worked throughout Palestine. This interview was conducted on 9 February 2005. Yossi is a young resident of Jerusalem and a member of the International Solidarity Movement. He is part of many social movements in Israel and Palestine, including Anarchists Against the Wall and Black Laundry, a radical queer group. Yossi is currently working at the Alternative Information Centre. Here he speaks about anarchism in Israel and its relationship to the Palestinian struggle, and radical anarchist and queer culture.

Paradigm Crash, Paradigm Shift

Thomas S. Martin
Sinclair Community College, Ohio

Anarchism, if it is to play a major role in a post-Western society (and it must!), needs to reconsider some of the fundamental scientific, psychological and biological assumptions that underlie its theory and praxis. Much of our ideology rests on ideas that have been discredited, and anarchism has not kept up with the changes, allowing the reactionary right to capture the high ground of debate. Anarchism's superstructure can survive and even grow if we make some necessary changes in its substructure.

Political Violence and Morality in Anarchist Theory and Practice: Luigi Galleani and Peter Kropotkin in Comparative Perspective

Niall Whelehan
EUI, Florence

This article investigates the substantial differences that occurred in the theory and practice of anarchist 'propaganda by the deed' at the turn of the twentieth century. In particular, the thought and actions of exiled anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Luigi Galleani are analysed. The apparent congruency in their theoretical versions of anarchist-communism shielded sharp divisions in their views on the limitations of anarchist propaganda. Through using the comparative themes of political violence, morality and individualism Kropotkin's inconsistency on the subject of 'propaganda of the deed' is examined along with Galleani's open embrace of militant tactics and 'anti-organisationist' approach. Furthermore, the ambiguous influence of Max Stirner on anarchist theories of morality is weighed in light of his significance for the thought of both men. This approach aims to help the disentanglement of the variety of perspectives on 'propaganda of the deed' that characterised anarchism previous to WWI and to add clarity to the role of morality in anarchist thought.