Anarchism and Geography

Early Anarchist Geographers

Élisée Reclus (1830–1905) was a French geographer who participated in the Paris Commune of 1871, when Parisian workers seized control of the city government. He was imprisoned and then exiled to Switzerland, where he wrote several volumes of geographic works that were thoroughly interlaced with anarchist thought. Reclus proposed an equitable distribution of the world's resources, arguing that decisions about production and distribution should be made by local communities. This was a direct response to imperialist claims on the resources of the global South; he argued that existing social inequalities were the result of authoritarian social and political organization rather than productive capabilities or overpopulation. Reclus was also an early advocator for environmental preservation.

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) was a Russian prince, high-ranking military officer, and physical geographer, who credited fieldwork in Siberia with readying him to become an anarchist. His theory of mutual aid analyzed cooperation among animals, using examples in the natural world as a scientific basis for collaborative human organization. This was a response to the Social Darwinists of the time, who were proponents of competition. Kropotkin's essay “What Geography Ought to Be” proposed educational reform and emphasized shared humanity across international borders, an important argument that weakens the legitimacy of the state.

Their background in geographic scholarship influenced both men, engendering a distinctive understanding of humanity in different cultural and economic contexts and a broader comprehension of possible social and economic structures.

Anarchism and Radical Geography: The 1960s and 1970s

During the late 1960s and 1970s, a number of geographers drew from anarchist thought in attempts to reinvigorate and rethink aspects of the discipline, especially to inject practical and socially useful practices into research and teaching methodologies. In a special issue of the journal Antipode, meant to stimulate new interest in anarchist ideas, Richard Peet criticized geographical scholarship and challenged his colleagues to use anarchist principles as transformative tools. He wrote that geography, as a descriptive discipline, had become an instrument for the scientific justification of existing inequalities rather than an active challenger of the status quo.

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