Abstractos

North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference

2012

Abner J. Roldan

Anarquismo y Cristianismo
El cristianismo y el anarquismo parecen filosofas y estilos de vida que no tienen nada en comn, y ms an, se podran tildar de contradictorias. Sin embargo, Jess fue un gran crtico del estado, la iglesia y sus prcticas coercitivas y opresivas. La iglesia moderna es un orden jerrquico creado por el hombre para decirles a los creyentes cmo pensar y qu pensar, prctica muy similar a la que realiza el estado. En esta ponencia hablar sobre los cristianos primitivos, sus comunidades y grupos decentralizados, y las similitudes con el anarquismo.

Accio Augusto

Libertao e liberaes: anarquismos contemporneo, poltica e antipoltica na sociedade de controle.

A superao da emancipao poltica pela emancipao humana, colocada pelas lutas socialistas que emergem no sculo XIX, aponta para a possibilidade de libertar a sociedade da opresso do Estado, como realizao de fato, dos ideais de liberdade, igualdade e fraternidade, trazidos pela Revoluo Francesa, no final do sculo XVIII. Os anarquistas, desde Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, levaram essa luta por libertao ao limite radical por meio da ao direta e de revoltas como experimentaes de liberdades em suas associaes federadas. No mesmo momento em que essas lutas ganhavam fora entre operrios da Europa (dcada de 1840), emerge o nico livro de Max Stirner problematizando o interesse em reformar a sociedade. Ressaltava a insurreio como potncia de liberdade diante do projeto reformador das revolues e afirmava o nico como atitude ativa em deixar a sociedade morrer. Nesse incio de sculo XXI, busca-se problematizar as prticas de libertao quando a biopoltica controle das populaes como investimento na preservao do corpo-espcie , desdobra-se, acopla e se metamorfoseia em ecopoltica controle do corpo-planeta , fazendo da participao democrtica uma maneira de capturar e neutralizar resistncias. Para tal, parte-se da contempornea expanso do conservadorismo moderado e de uma certa atualizao da busca pela emancipao humana presente na produo dos anarquismos, na atualidade, aproximando-se dos escritos de Michel Foucault e de Gilles Deleuze com Felix Guattari. As sugestes de Michel Foucault apontam para as resistncias nas relaes de poder; indicam que as metamorfoses das tecnologias de poder se efetivam no agonismo irredutvel das relaes de poder e resistncias. Como perceber as prticas liberadoras no presente como heterotopias, liberadas da utopia da emancipao humana?

Alex Prichard

Anarchist Ontology: The Social Theory of Groups

This paper explores an anarchist political ontology. The paper begins by setting out Proudhon's relational theory of 'natural groups', their genesis, political subjectivity and transformative capacity. What I show is that anarchist social theory sits between the bifurcation of the social between class or individualist ontologies, providing a more nuanced and sophisticated social theory more akin to contemporary critical realist social theory. The paper then explores the value of this social ontology in three contemporary domains: international relations, political theory and revolutionary politics. Thinking in relation to groups in IR tends to be limited to the 'state group', while in political theory groups gain their legitimacy from being 'state facing'. In revolutionary politics, class politics has been expanded to include gender, race and sexuality, but the argument remains that only through broad-based coalitions can collective group agency be politically efficacious. In each case, I argue, starting from the standpoint of an anarchist theory of natural groups, gives us a more realistic, non-reductionist and emancipatory grounding for analysis and political transformation.

Andrew Hoyt
Methods for Tracing Radical Networks: Mapping the Print Culture and Propagandists of the Italian Anarchists
In this paper I examine several pieces of Italian language anarchist print culture in order to discover connections between the people and groups involved in the production of radical propaganda. By working outward from pamphlets and newspapers to the individuals and collectives responsible for their production, I hope to show a way to map and diagram the nodes and clusters of radical networks. The paper is meant to demonstrate a methodology by providing a preliminary if still limited and incomplete snap-shot of the New England-based Galleanisti branch of the Italian anarchists, in the year 1913. Ideally, many network-maps, sketched in the manner I describe below, can be drawn, linked and analyzed over time. As the network is mapped and then historiographically contextualized, future scholars should be able to better analyze the way various bonds functioned and supported the community. Thus, this work will speak to not only researchers interested in the Galleanisti, the anarchists or the Italian sovversivi but to readers concerned with how radical social movements, in general, sustain themselves and define themselves over time and in the face of frightful and overwhelming odds.

Beatriz Scigliano Carneiro

O anarquismo em Hlio Oiticica

Dentre as vertentes libertrias do sculo XIX, a especificidade anarquista reside na importncia da atitude individual como uma fora de enfrentamento s autoridades centralizadas, tanto do Estado, quanto de outras instncias sociais, impulsionada pela vivncia das situaes compartilhadas coletivamente. No sculo XX, a ao estatal e das organizaes partidrias, mesmo as de emancipao de trabalhadores, colocou os anarquistas margem dos confrontos em torno das decises polticas para a sociedade. A resistncia anarquista permanece porm, por prticas de liberao, nas quais interessa a construo de modos de existncia tica para que autoridade e hierarquia no ressurjam ou ao menos se desestabilizem. Simultaneamente, pensadores questionavam o humanismo, o assujeitamento e a universalidade de projetos emancipatrios, desafiando os anarquismos a se fazerem novos, especialmente durante a atmosfera libertria dos anos 1960. O ponto chave de resistncia ao poder poltico estaria na relao verdadeira de si para consigo, na constituio de uma tica e uma esttica da existncia (Foucault). A trajetria da vida e arte de Hlio Oiticica (1937-1980), neto do anarquista brasileiro Jos Oiticica (1882-1957), mostra a inveno de uma tica individual anarquista expandindo-se ao coletivo em prticas de liberdade.

Brett Daz

Copyrights must end

The author explains how copyright laws contradict ideas commonly believed by most people, using specific examples seen on YouTube, such as the history of the Amen Break to demonstrate his points. His examples contradict such truisms as "intellectual property" and copyright infringement. Diaz uses logical arguments to support his ideas, and refers to previous works on poetry and philosophy to support his argument: the article is his personal opinion.

Brian Lovato

The Johnson-Forest Tendency, Libertarian Marxism, and Anarchism

!The relationship between Marxism (even in its most libertarian varieties) and anarchism has long been a contentious one. This paper turns to one particular libertarian Marxist grouping, the Johnson-Forest Tendency, in hopes of drawing out those threads of thought found within this tradition that might be of most use for anarchist theory and practice. Drawing primarily one the work of C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya on radical democracy, anti-bureaucratism, Hegelianism, and revolutionary subjectivity, this paper will attempt to construct an image of revolutionary theory that rejects the authoritarianism and mechanical world view often associated with Marxism, ironically enough, rooted in Marxian literature. Furthermore, the individualism of classical liberal thought

and the quietism and relativism sometimes associated with post-structuralism will also be challenged. All of this is done in the spirit of diversifying the ideological and intellectual heritage of the anarchist tradition and strengthening it through critical engagements from the outside.

Carmen Romeu-Toro
Luisa Capetillo: Anarquista, Espiritista, Sintesis de lo que parecera irreconciliable.
Mi tema de estudio es el Espiritismo en Puerto Rico y he trabajado desde hace tiempo la figura de Luisa Capetillo (Arecibo, Puerto Rico 1878-1924) y su pensamiento espiritista dentro de su actividad y desarrollo como lder obrera, defensora de los derechos de la mujer, anarquista. Su capacidad de sintetizar estas ideas y sus acciones reales (como usar pantalones en pblico en un momento en que era un escndalo) la hacen excepcional en nuestra historia y cultura.

Damin Hernndez Marrero

Reflexiones filosficas sobre el anarquismo y las luchas nacionales en un pas colonial

Se pretende por medio de una pregunta moral teorizar, haciendo uso de las ideas anarquistas, sobre la situacin que afecta a los pases coloniales, en especial Puerto Rico, y los problemas que se enfrentan los anarquistas que viven en tales pases. Reflexionar sobre el internacionalismo como idea gestora del pensar libertario versus la emancipacin nacional de los pueblos colonizados como accin necesaria en la transformacin social. La conferencia tiene un matiz de autocrtica, con el cual podemos reflexionar sobre las posturas anarquistas en el s. XXI. Usando las teoras clsicas de Bakunin y Kropotkin, se ve como los anarquistas en los pases coloniales pueden colaborar en las luchas nacionales sin transgredir la finalidad libertaria: la organizacin del comunismo libertario como el sistema socioeconmico de la nueva sociedad.

Dana Ward

Anarchist Culture on the Cusp of the 20th Century, at the P.R. meeting.
Always adopting a skeptical stance toward political paths to change, anarchists politicized every other aspect of social life. Economics, education, sex, diet, publishing, music, architecture, the arts, and much else were subjected not simply to intellectual critique, but also faced concrete challenges posed by the developing anarchist aesthetic to the reigning orthodoxy in each field. Anarchists saw themselves as culture builders creating alternative spaces for free expression, autonomy, and horizontal social relations. The Arts, broadly

understood, provided both medium and message for the anarchist vision to proliferate. Both the form of artistic communication and its content were seen as ways to challenge hierarchical, inegalitarian institutions and to socialize a new generation into a set of values that promised to upend the established authorities and bring "high" culture down to the earth inhabited by ordinary workers. By the cusp of the 20th Century anarchists had developed a rich participatory culture that permeated the everyday life of the movement's participants. This paper seeks to describe the evolution of this anarchist aesthetic during the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. Attention will be paid to the spaces and the content of the culture anarchists created in those spaces.

Dana Williams
Radicals, Intellectuals, and Radical-Intellectuals: A Social History of Nineteenth Century Anarchists and Sociologists
Nineteenth century anarchists and sociologists are both heirs of the Enlightenment Age and they share a common focus on society. Yet the two groups diverge in their interest in society and their relationship to it. Anarchists served as critics of existing society and activists intent upon the radical transformation of society, while sociologists were analysts and philosophers of society who mainly operated within the academy. Through a review of primary and secondary sources, any mentions by one philosophy/discipline or of their practitioners/thinkers of the other were located and noted. The essential patterns revealed in this study show a number of friendly and supportive relationships between anarchists and sociologists, many instances of close analysis and critique of the each other's perspective, and some strong antagonisms. The central figures of importance in this anarchist-sociologist nexus of nineteenth century thinkers include (but are not limited to) early sociologists Hebert Spencer, Auguste Comte, and Karl Marx (who modern sociologist consider one of their own), and key anarchists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Peter Kropotkin. Anarchists tended to admire the intellectual rigor of sociologists, but thought they were insidersmere reformers at best, reactionaries at worst content to study society, but rarely to act for its improvement. Sociologists viewed the anarchists with an even wider-range of opinion, including considering them principled and admirable revolutionaries, slightly nave utopians, or wild-eyed criminals and chaos-lovers hell-bent on the destruction of social order. Through this diverse arrangement of critiques and relationships we can build a nuanced anarchist-sociology tracing the suitable outlines of overlap, borrowing from each tradition but also acquiring a distinct synthesis

Daniel Mrquez

El Anarquismo y la filosofa Esprita en Puerto Rico

Premisa Cita de Luisa Capetillo: Compaeros de trabajo, hermanos en ideas, tanto socialistas, espiritistas y anarquistas: muchos ignorantes dirn cmo pretendo unir los anarquistas y espiritistas. Qu acaso

los anarquistas no tienen alma o la tendrn constituidas en otra manera? Desearan muchos llamados espiritistas, ser como muchos de los verdaderos anarquistas, que son hombres, amigos leales y mujeres ms justos, equitativos, humanos, amigos leales y seguros compaeros a pesar de las distancias. Por sus ideas conocidos arrastran el peligro de perder sus vidas por el bien de sus hermanos. Enfoques temticos Introduccin general a la doctrina espiritista de Allan Kardec; El pensamiento anarquista segn Luisa Capetillo; Breve historia de sociedades espirita en Puerto Rico; Anarquismo y Espiritismo en la actualidad: antagonismos y similitudes.

Edson Passetti
poder e anarquia. apontamentos libertrios sobre o atual conservadorismo moderado.
Analysis of the historical-political effects of the moderated conservatism under the proliferation of non-enforceable rights. In the presence of the developments of security programs, a problem for the actuality of anarchism is presented, when it affirms the urgency in the abolition of punishment and moral, which sustain the balance of fears and subjections

Eduardo F. Rosario
Crtica al libro Stockhausen Serves Imperialism and Other Articles de Cornelius Cardew
Esta lectura busca a travs de los escritos sobre la interaccin entre esttica y poltica de Herbert Marcuse particularmente su libro La Dimensin Esttica llevar a cabo una crtica al compilado de escritos Stockhausen Serves Imperialism and Other Articles del compositor britnico Cornelius Cardew y sus colegas, la cual sirva de plataforma para la discusin sobre el potencial revolucionario en las artes y lo subversivo en la concepcin de la belleza. Conjuntamente este trabajo se complementa mediante la adopcin simultnea de posturas alternas, incluso contradictorias, que contribuyan no a esbozar teoras finales ni generales, sino a fomentar la anarqua epistemolgica propuesta por Paul Feyerabend; aboliendo proyecciones monopolistas de la belleza que limiten su capacidad de transformacin social, y exaltando la armona espontnea creada a partir de la coexistencia de una infinidad de mundos.

Eliane Knorr

liberao sexual e atualizaes e controle As lutas de mulheres no interior dos movimentos anarquistas marcam a problematizao de aspectos tidos como menores, mais pessoais, cotidianos, e que, no entanto, foram fundamentais para atiar as revolues nos corpos e potencializar as transformaes sociais. Neste sentido, muitas mulheres mostraram que qualquer revoluo comea nas prticas cotidianas, que as relaes de dominao no so um carter somente do Estado, mas que atravessam corpos de homens e mulheres. As Mujeres Libres, na Espanha, inventaram uma revoluo dentro da prpria revoluo. E se no mbito macro a Revoluo espanhola foi abafada pelo regime desptico de Franco, as revolues nos corpos e condutas se alastraram e contagiaram para alm das fronteiras estatais. Ainda que possamos encontrar tal delicadeza no pensamento e prtica de muitos homens anarquistas, talvez tenha sido com as mulheres que questes como o amor livre que traziam a discusso da propriedade no sentido mais stirneriano, a partir do corpo de cada um ganharam fora dentro destes movimentos. O amor livre e a liberao sexual e dos corpos, de modo geral, tomaram uma dimenso irredutvel no final dos anos 1960. Este momento marcou, sem dvida, uma transformao nas prprias relaes de dominao, que j no podiam ser to explcitas. Hoje a liberao ou libertao sexual, no uma questo nem para homens e nem para mulheres, a no ser quando tomadas em casos particulares, mas o fato que no se trata mais de uma impossibilidade social, na medida em que h milhares de espaos para aqueles que procuram prticas tidas como liberadoras no mbito sexual. Essa liberdade sexual, nas sociedades ocidentais, est diretamente relacionada aos direitos das mulheres, j que para os homens talvez com exceo, a partir de um determinado momento, das prticas homossexuais o prprio mercado do sexo se estabeleceu para dar conta da satisfao de seus desejos. Hoje notamos, portanto, que o prprio mercado sexual tem se voltado cada vez mais para a satisfao das mulheres e que acompanha, tambm, a posio das mesmas no que seria o mbito pblico, ocupando altos cargos e com significativo poder de voz. Desta forma, alguns discursos feministas acabam se tornando ultrapassados, j que a mulher parece ter alcanado o poder e, de certa forma, tomado a propriedade de seu corpo para negoci-lo da maneira que bem entender. Mas tomar o poder e negociar o corpo nunca foi uma questo das mulheres anarquistas. A partir deste ponto, procurarei problematizar a questo da liberao e as atualizaes do controle.

Erme Ozyetis

Title: Attempting to bastardize architecture within design professions

Abstract: Contemporary society lacks an objective ground to cling to, instead, there are fragmented pseudo grounds which allow systems to generate dominance. Architecture plays a great role in constructing the environment for the struggle of power, it is on these grounds we locate ourselves as we dwell in

the world. Architecture, therefore, acts as a tool to supply the ground and sustain systems of oppression. Those who problematise this dynamic may end up striving for the governance of the power they once fought against. Marxist and post-Marxist readings have a tendency to problematize built environment design and practice, as in this spatial configuration capitalism thrived and was possible. Suggesting structures of oppression are constructed within the city that sustains the capitalist mode of production and consumption, is a possible reading of all this literature. The same literature tends to seek methods to take hold of architectural design to be able to grasp the possibility of an alternative to capitalism. What can be added to their projects is the argument that acknowledges built environment does not only house capitalism and its tools, but also produces them. Simultaneously, built environment design and practice is part of capitalist mode of production itself. Can a design professional perform any form of resistance against contemporary system of oppressions without relinquishing their title?

Evan Taparata
To Reach the Underlying Thought: Philosophical Anarchism, Free Speech, and US Deportation Policy, 1886 1917
On June 29, 1917, the Bureau of Immigration initiated deportation proceedings against a young Russian immigrant living in Chicago on the grounds that he had been advocating anarchy. Schulim Melameds anarchism, however, was centered on a belief in non-violence and was thus outside of the all-inclusive popular definition ascribed to anarchism as support for the overthrow of government through violence. A closer analysis of the attempt to deport Melamed will demonstrate how varied understandings of anarchism--in the form of both support and prejudice--were paramount in the Bureau's debates about who could or could not be deported under the law's vague anarchist exclusion provisions. I present my research of Melameds deportation hearings within the context of anarchisms effect on American culture and politics at the turn of the century to emphasize how these events contributed to a broad paranoia of allegedly subversive ideas and sub-cultures, culminating with the infamous deportations initiated by Palmer after World War One. To that extent, this essay utilizes archival records of the Immigration and Naturalization service to not only establish the place of Melameds caseand thus, the place of philosophical anarchistsin the early 20th century historiography of anti-radicalism, antiimmigrant nationalism, and individual rights in America, but also to further expose the extent of bureaucratic discretion in interpreting the ambiguous language of immigration statutes. Although my research has thus far been focused on United States migration policy, I hope by presenting this paper I might be able to participate in conversations about the parallels and contrasts of state oppression of immigrant radicalism throughout North America.

Fernando Janer

Dawn of the Dead: A Student Narrative on Collective Classrooms

This discussion will examine the most radical concept of a classroom without a professor. It will alternatively consider the more humble goal of sustained student dialogue, the principles that promote it, and the dynamics through which it is prevented by even well-meaning teachers. The analysis is based on the experiences of the author as a graduate student in Social Work. It is mainly focused on the actual management of participation in the classroom. It also considers, more broadly, participatory models in education and practice. As much as possible references assigned in course syllabi have been used. These serve for a more detailed study of the process of a group of students of community organization evolving into a collectively facilitated seminar. The outcomes of increased attendance, participation, responsibility, and enthusiasm from students, as well as the differing reactions from faculty and institution are assessed. This analysis concludes that the role reserved for students and the models of organization management emphasized in Social Work education are incongruent with core principles and values of the profession. It also suggests that this situation can be mended through decentralized facilitation techniques and vigorous cooperative practice that offers students ample experience with sustained dialogue and engaged decisions in their educational process.

Gazir Sued

Tirana Antropocntrica

Geoffroy de Laforcade

Memories and Temporalities of Anarchist Resistance: The Historic FORA's 1956-57 Battle for the Shipyards of Argentina, "Last Stand" or Bridge to Post-Nationalism?
In Buenos Aires and several other port cities of the Rio de la Plata Region, the world's second largest classical anarchist federation (*Federacin obrera regional argentina* - FORA) embedded itself in the popular culture, rituals of protest and local identities of waterside communities convulsed, from the turn of the 20th century onward, by rapid agro-export growth, urban transformation, migration, class conflict, and the tortuous, conflict-ridden birthing of a modern welfare state. One of the founders of anarchist "resistance societies" in Buenos Aires, Atilio Biondi, a Genoese-born shipyard brazier, epitomizes the journey of the movement through these violent times: for five decades he lived, worked and organized in the cosmopolitan *porteo *neighborhood of La Boca del Riachuelo, where he created the first union of what would become the Argentine Shipyard Workers' Federation (*Federacin obrera en construcciones navales*). He accompanied the larger labor movement through epic mobilizations and fierce crackdowns, embracing the early anarchist federation, testing the anarcho-syndicalism of its rivals in the 1920s,

re-organizing autonomous trade-unionism in the 1930s, spearheading the resistance of maritime workers in general to the first national-popular state in the 1940s, and advising a young generation of FORA-affiliated militants who rekindled, after the fall of Pern in 1955, the flame of classical anarchism in a prolonged shipyard strike and lock-out that attracted headlines, drew new allies, and ended in defeat. This paper will assess the sources and milestones of local anarchist memory, its translation into an idiom of resistance in the thoroughly new political, social and economic context of the late 1950s, the causes of its failure, and the ways in which this largely forgotten episode prefigured the rethinking of the forms as well as ends of autonomous labor and social protest in Argentina and Latin America over the past two decades, during which the model of state formation born of the 1940s and 1950s unraveled.

Hilary Gordon
Civil War Posters and the Re-Imagining of the Spanish Body
The propaganda posters of the Spanish Civil War were a prominent part of the visual landscape during the conflict and are representative of the organizations styles, image goals, and overall missions of the many constituent groups which produced them. Their level of inundation and power as forces of public communication for the Republican side were unprecedented in Spain, and unmatched by the Nationalists, who had far fewer posters of significantly lower quality. Also unprecedented was the level of decentralization of the means of propaganda production and distribution within Republican Spain; as well as, the sheer number and diversity of the groups which produced posters, especially during the first months of the conflict. This was sharply contrasted by the limited, centralized propaganda production and strict message control of the Franquist coalition. Much of their propaganda efforts sought to affirm the importance of the military action itself and to project the image of the powerful martial body, exemplified by their leaders images and in idealized depictions of Nationalist soldiers. The multi-faceted poster production efforts of the Republicans both served to combat this idealized body construction and provided a highly adaptable means of communication and identity contestation. This would win them the propaganda war, if not the overall conflict.

James Birmingham
The Athurmata of Anarchism: Exploring the Material Culture of a Milieux
This presentation will be the explication of a research project I am currently conducting using material culture studies and the archaeology of the contemporary to explore the manufacturing and maintenance of anarchist material culture and how it relates to the construction of political identity and semiotics of the milieux. Athurmata is a term coming from the archaeological lexicon meaning the 'small trade objects' people exchange in the building and upkeep of

social relationships. This project uses archaeological and ethnographic techniques to explore the relationships of the anarchist milieux through the exchange of athurmata.

Jennifer Grubbs
The brains behind the bullhorn: Exaggerating the neoliberal to eradicate the neoliberal
The use of home demonstrations within the animal liberation movement is understudied within the anthropology of social movements. There is a growing literature, however, on the neoliberal reshaping of global capitalism and the nepotistic overlap between government and corporate entities. The decentralization of corporations facilitates a negation of accountability by creating an illusive web of interconnected international entities. With the increasing prevalence of lobby front groups and multinational conglomerates, the task of corporate-mapping and identifying a singular target has become increasingly difficult. Home demonstrations are not merely street theatre of public shaming, but rather they directly challenge the restructuring of global capitalism within the contemporary neoliberal moment. The following paper comes out of my research as a vegan anthropologist who attends home demonstrations organized by animal liberation organizations in the Washington, DC area. These demonstrations utilize the strategic rhetoric of exaggeration and satire that have informed drag performance as a mode of resistance. In this paper, I interrogate the use of home demonstration as a performance intended to exaggerate the neoliberal rhetoric of capitalism. This paper defends the rhetorical significance of this tactic as an effective strategy to expose the fallacies of capitalism, neoliberal agency, and speciesism.

Jesse Cohn

Getting At Anarchist Theory Via Anarchist Practices: Or, "Political Thinking In the Streets
There have been some promising efforts to retrieve the political philosophy, sociology, and even the literary theory of the so-called "classical anarchists," e.g., Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin. However, this approach can carry some unfortunate baggage, e.g., the assumption that theory precedes practice, and that only certain types can be accorded the glory of being "theorists." Instead, scholars are beginning to suggest that via an historical or cultural-studies approach, we can reconstruct the philosophy or theory embodied in modes of anarchist culture, lifestyle, and action. This is what I'll be arguing for, at least as an important counterpart to studies of more canonical anarchist thinkers.

Jon Bekken

Kropotkin: Mutual Aid, Sustainability, and the Prospects for Freedom

As events demonstrate the bankruptcy of so many schools of political theory and economics, the classical anarchist thinkers hold up quite well. Peter Kropotkin published widely on economics, evolution, and the nature of a sustainable world, among other topics. At the time he was often criticized for his excessive optimism -- about human nature, about the possibilities for agricultural production, about the capacity of voluntary cooperation to carry out complex social functions, and the like. But while Kropotkin may have been too optimistic about the trajectory of human freedom within the capitalist state, a century of experience has confirmed his assessment of our capacity to realize abundance and freedom. This presentation will focus on Kropotkin's economic analysis, and its relevance to contemporary issues including the local food movement, the impossibility of realizing human freedom within an economy bounded by money, the need to create sustainable agriculture and industry, and the current manifestations of hope and rebellion that are sweeping the globe.

Jon Bekken

Anarchist Media and the Crisis of Communications

Despite a long history of anarchist media, including daily newspapers in Argentina, Spain and the United States published between 1881 and 1936, there are today no widely circulated anarchist periodicals in North America. Successful political movements have always needed their own media to help develop movement ideas, support movement cohesion, and reach out to broader publics. Newspapers such as the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung played a key role in building as mass anarchist movement in the 1880s, while navigating the challenges of maintaining accountability to the broader movement while providing a voice to disparate currents in the movement. Today, the North American anarchist movement largely relies on the Internet and social media to meet its communication needs, but are these capable of nurturing and sustaining a collective movement and reaching outside the ranks of the already engaged?

Jorell A. Melndez Badillo

Voces libertarias: El discurso econmico, poltico y social del anarquismo puertorriqueo, 1900-1917
Este ensayo pretende arrojar luz sobre los discursos elaborados por los anarquistas de principios de siglo en Puerto Rico. La poca a estudiarse est caracterizada por un cambio acelerado en los modelos de produccin, a raz de la invasin norteamericana, lo cual se materializa en un caleidoscopio de harta

complejidad para la ascendiente clase trabajadora. Es dentro de esta realidad que los anarquistas puertorriqueos intentarn elaborar varias posturas autctonas en referencia a su realidad histrica inmediata desde las afueras de los crculos intelectuales oficiales.

Kirwin Shaffer

Caribbean Anarchy: Anarchist Networks, Anti-imperialism, and Pan-Americanism, 1890s-1920s

In just four years from 1899 to 1903, two new countries had been created in the Caribbean: Cuba from Spanish rule and the Colombian province of Panama. In that same time, the United States created two new territories now owned solely by the US: Puerto Rico and the Panama Canal Zone. Consequently, when anarchist groups in these four locations challenged political authority, they often were challenging United States imperial expansion. This was unique for anarchists in Latin America who (except with the brief example of Mexico and the magonistas) rarely if ever encountered direct US political and military expansion and rule. As a result, Caribbean anarchy developed its own special critique of gringolandia. This included not only challenges to US political and military rule but also analysis of other cultural and social consequences of Americanization such as public education, citizenship, and conditions in the US that migrant workers needed to know about. Caribbean anarchists combined this anti-imperialism stance with their own brand of anarchist PanAmericanisma concept born in Panama (the center of the hemisphere where Simn Bolvar had proposed meeting) and completely in line with anarchist ideas about international solidarity. This talk provides an overview of anarchist anti-imperialism and Pan-Americanism, while also showing how these concepts were shared around the Caribbean through a regional network of newspapers and migrants that linked anarchists in Panama, Puerto Rico and Cuba until the 1920s.

Raul Bez

Influencias libertarias en el Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores

Reynaldo Padilla-Teruel
La tica Como Prctica Social Anrquica
Cuando la moralidad se convierte en regla, en ley, y hay un poder que la representa (Estado, religin, mercado, etc.), algo tan ambiguo como ser moral se convierte en una orden clara y precisa, en un mandato. La construccin de esta universalidad -seguir la ley- nunca ser moral ya que desplaza las elecciones del yo moral a un mero estatuto donde solo finge ser juez de la conducta apropiada o no apropiada, [cumpl o no cumpl]. La existencia de cualquier ley o regla que intente ser universal, adems de ya

estar destinada a desvanecerse por sus falsas formas, crea la ilusin de orden y se hace pasar como necesaria para la vida en comunidad, opacando o casi desapareciendo la voluntad del yo moral de actuar libremente para con los dems. Es bastante popular la creencia que ante la ausencia de leyes la vida sera un completo desorden y un caos. Tal aseveracin se puede interpretar de varias maneras. Ms que pensar en caos o desorden social, pienso en desorden moral o tico. Adems, se puede interpretar de dicha premisa que lo nico que me motiva o me mueve a no hacer el mal es la ley, es que ser castigado por ello. Tal cosa lo que hace es perpetuar la supuesta necesidad del Estado-Nacin para el orden social y la dependencia en un sistema tico- moral rgidamente prefabricado que deje casi moribundo a nuestro yo moral. Este canon moral muchas veces lo internalizamos y es lo que utilizamos para fundamentar o mediar nuestra relacin con los dems; esto es que respondemos a las normas de socializacin impuestas por el Estado ms que a nuestros instintos de sociabilidad como seres destinados a vivir colectivamente. Cuando el individuo social, ya sumergido en este entramado de leyes que l ha digerido como zombi u obedecido como soldado piensa en s mismo y se extraa, siente que ha perdido su individualidad, siente que se ha opacado frente al brillo de la multitud. Se percata por vez primera (o concientiza) que el Otro es su restriccin. A este individuo desolado en un desierto moral que no le pertenece no le queda ms salida que la de boicotear su propia socializacin mediante la inmoralidad. Podemos plantear entonces que esta inmoralidad asumida por el individuo es ms bien un resentimiento que este manifiesta ante la impotencia de poder estar en control de su propia socializacin. En su necesidad de lo que se piensa es su libertad, este individuo intenta liberarse rompiendo con los smbolos que interpreta como opresores. Uno de ellos puede ser la falsa pretensin de solidaridad con algn otro y es por eso que se desiste de la misma. El problema recae en que luego de este distanciamiento no se reformula una nueva relacin con el otro, sino que esta, la relacin con el otro permanece dislocada. De manera que el individuo, mediante su intento de liberacin, de recuperar su individualidad, ve como alternativa casi inmediata el romper los vnculos sociales con su comunidad y su accin participativa, y solo se preocupa por sus propios asuntos; sin cuestionarse el papel del Estado en dicha ruptura con lo social.

Lucy Rodrguez
Cointelpro 101
Present this video documentary which clearly outlines how the FBI conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of the 1st Amendment. Many of those that fought during the 60's and 70's against U.S. imperialism, poverty, racism, colonialism, and the war ended up framed, murdered and/or incarcerated, etc. Here is their stories told by many who lived it As Puerto Rican ex-political prisoners we would like to also present the case of Oscar Lopez Rivera, Puerto Rico's longest held political prisoner. This year marked 30 years that he has been held behind prison bars. For more information

about this documentary go to www.freedomarchives.org

Michael Loadenthal
Operation Splash Back!: Queering Animal Liberation Through the Contributions of Neo-Insurrectionist Queers
The Queer, neo-insurrectionist network known as Bash Back! has contributed to the queering of the animal liberation discourse through the publication of their 2010 communiqu entitled, Bash Back!ers in Support of Autonomous Animal Action Call For Trans-Species Solidarity With Tillikum. The politic developed by the neo-insurrectionist Queer movement, as exemplified by Bash Back!, has served to disrupt anthropocentric notions of human-liberator, animal-captive that form the centerpiece of the animal liberation discourse. Through their appropriation of an attack wherein an orca whale killed its trainer at SeaWorld, Bash Back! problematizes not only the normalized domestication of non-human animals for entertainment, but also the discourse used to critique such enslavement. Through satirical posturing and a liberatory framework, Bash Back! attempts to draw intersectional connection between the systems of domination that enslave both non-human animals and non-heterosexual Queers. Through a queering of this understanding of liberation, Bash Back! serves to shift the animal liberation discourse away from the human centric total liberation framework, and towards an anti-speciest framework proposed herein, termed total solidarity.

Mitchell Verter
Los viajes de Ricardo Flores Magon: el sueno de liberacion transnacional.
Como un "apostol revolucionario", Ricardo Flores Magon no puede quedarse en un lugar por mucho tiempo. Siempre, el debio viajar del Cuidad de Mexico a Texas a Saint Louis a Canada a Los Angeles, y ademas de todas las carceles. Con esta movimiento fisico, las ideas de Flores Magon tambien avanzaron, de una concepcion de una revolucion nacionalista -- de los mexicanos contra varias extranjeros -- a una revolucion por todo la humanidad internacional. Podemos pensar en la vida de Flores Magon como un ejemplo por nuestro lucha de anarchismo transnacional?

Nathan Jun

Rethinking Romanticism: Tradition, Sacrifice, and Heroism in

Italian Anarchism
Several paradigmatic tropes of Romanticism -- traditionalism, hero worship, the self-sacrificing artist-lover-revolutionary-saint -- are explicit in the theory and practice of "classical" anarchism in general and late 19th/early 20th century Italian anarchism in particular. It is a mistake, however, to assume that anarchists such as Gori and Fabbri were oblivious to the philosophical difficulties inherent in Romanticism. As dialectical and dialogical thinkers thinkers, Italian anarchists of the fin-de-siecle conceptualize anarchism neither as a total rejection of Romanticism nor as an absolute acceptance of modernism, but as a synthesis which transforms and sublates crucial Romantic concepts--in effect, "anarchizing" them.

Nino Khnis

We is for Anarchism: Construction and Use of Collective Identity in the Anarchist Press of Fin-de-sicle Switzerland
For anarchists in late 19th and the early 20th century life meant a time of constant and intense repression and persecution. These coercive methods did not only pose a threat to anarchists themselves though. Rather, they were inforced by the state, aiming at the eradication of the social movement as a whole. Despite these strong statist and societal headwinds, anarchism persisted. According to its main form of communication, a plethora of weekly, bi-weekly or monthly newspapers, it remained an inviting and attractive movement to engage in. Research for my thesis on self perception, social perception and the collective identity of anarchists in Switzerland at the turn of the century brings to attention, that the permanent (re)constitution of collective identity played an integral part herein. The entelechetic process of constant defining and redefining of the anarchists we through a wide variety of mechanisms on numerous occasions, proved to be extraordinarily efficient. As I shall contend, the collective identitys dualistic character of simultaneous preservation and maintenance on the one hand and of progress and development on the other, was key to the preservation of anarchism as a viable radical voice in the political landscape of fin-de-sicle Switzerland. The results of the analysis of 23 anarchist newspapers published between 1885 and 1914 in Switzerland in French and German shall disclose construction, constitution and embodiment of the collective identity of anarchists. In conclusion, the presentation will shed light on the fact that collective identity can figure as a key motivational factor for social movements, especially when they inherently focus on abstracta rather than realia.

Rubn Dvila Santiago

El derribo de las murallas: orgenes intelectuales del socialismo en Puerto Rico.

El socialismo libertario es la corriente ideolgica predominante en el sector obrero-artesanal de finales de siglo XIX y principios de siglo XX en Puerto Rico. Este trabajo aborda esta experiencia histrica a partir de los centros de lucha libertaria conocidos como centros de estudios sociales obreros de principios del siglo pasado.

Ryan Johnson
Making Enemies of the State: Knowing, Producing, and Censoring Anarchism in the Making of the Modern American Police State, 19031921
After the assassination of US President William McKinley by alleged anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1903, the American government engaged a policy of exclusion, imprisonment, and deportation aimed at curbing the activities of radical anarchists. With unprecedented momentum and purpose, government officials turned to regulatory procedure and policy in order to contain what they viewed as enemy threats to the state, between 1903 and 1921. Historically, these regulatory procedures have been mobilized as technologies of state power in order to ensure victory during times of war. In the early twentieth century, however, the American government increasingly turned to these technologies during times of peace. This essay argues that the United States in the early twentieth century used the presence of anarchists as a justification for increased policing and regulatory political mechanisms otherwise mobilized during a time of peace. In particular, the American government attacked First Amendment rights that theoretically guaranteed the freedom of speech by monitoring, seizing, and censoring anarchist press. This resulted in the dissolve of the individual rights of not only anarchists in the early twentieth century, but all peoples within the borders of the American nation-state.

Ryan Knight

Anarchist Revolution in the Colonial Context

The paper attempts to explore two similar theories of social revolution, one coming directly from the anarchist tradition, Mikhail Bakunin, and one more Marxist in his approach, Franz Fanon. I intend in this paper to shed light on the similarities in their social revolutionary theories, acknowledging the largely different physical settings in which their theories emerged. Specifically, within this essay I hope to explore Franz Fanons theory of colonial overthrow and revolution through the theory of Mikhael Bakunins Social revolution, paying particular interest to the similarities between the two in their focus on peasantry as a revolutionary force, violence as a mode of revolution, and skepticism of post-revolution bourgeois dictatorship. Furthermore, and overall, I would like to shine light on Anarchisms applicability to the colonial context including cultural and racial issues more broadly.

Sandra Jeppesen
Anarchist Media: Principles and Practices

Anarchists have long been wary of mainstream media, preferring to produce our own media, from pamphlets to websites, from flyers to facebook events, from zines to videos, and from radio broadcasts to blogs. What are the principles that drive anarchist media practices? How do activists decide how to organize and structure our media production in the current complex media environment? As part of a bilingual Montreal anarchafeminist research collective, using a participatory action research methodology, we have analyzed interviews with over one hundred self-identified anti-authoritarian feminist and pro-feminist activists, comparing media attitudes, principles and practices among a range of Quebec groups and networks. We would like to present our preliminary findings, followed by facilitation of a participatory discussion of emerging media practices in movements today, providing space to collectively strategize antiauthoritarian participation in social media, new media and old-school residual media, with an eye toward developing radical alternatives for the future.

Scott Nappalos
An Anarchist Theory of Thought and Action: a framework for describing and acting in the world
As a tool for revolutionary organizers, this investigation seeks to broaden our ability to explain in practice our critique, and provide avenues for attacking and obviating dominant power. Anarchism has risen again globally over the past decades to occupy an increasingly central role in the thought and practice around struggles for liberation. Part of the power of this current has been its ability to both explain and act upon powers that were previously ignored or subsumed. While this shift in perspective has successfully contested the scope of alternatives, there has been a poverty of attempts to lay out a more fundamental language or framework for understanding society and revolutionary change based on an anarchist view of power and possibility. Drawing from the world of biology, this presentation will put forward such a theory. This article will attempt to propose a revolutionary method and framework that can both describe society, but also contain within directions and methods for revolutionary change inherent to the theory itself. At the core of this are concepts developed to account for the seemingly chaotic behavior of social and living systems. These systems appear to have emergent behaviors meaning that activities do not appear to be direct causes of the lower level elements that produced them, and yet they have regularity and patterned operations. At different levels of organizations in fact, different properties and rules govern and the higher-level behavior does not appear to correspond directly to the rules on lower levels. Such systems operate non-linearly with apparent disproportionate responses to causes, and a difficulty predicting their activity. Exploring these properties of social systems, a critique of power and capital will be put forward as inherent to social systems.