The Anarchist Roots of Geography: Toward Spatial Emancipation by Simon Springer (review)

The big take away from Simon Springer’s excellent book, The Anarchist Roots of Geography, is that anarchist thought is long overdue a serious embrace within radical/critical geography. Springer does well to trace the history of anarchism and to link it directly to geography, focusing particularly on the 19^th century thinkers Peter Kropotkin and Élisée Reclus who were academic geographers as well as anarchist activists. Yet when modern geography took a radical turn in the early 1970’s, this anarchist tradition largely fell by the wayside. For Springer, this neglect is linked directly with the dominance of Marxist thinking within geography, and particularly with the immense influence of David Harvey. Springer thus makes an impassioned case for anarchism by not only debunking some popular myths surrounding the concept, but also by relating anarchist thought to many of the theorists that are currently very popular within geography.

Springer makes a big point of challenging the misconceived view that anarchism is focused purely on the dismantling of the state and the consequent charge that it is a bedfellow of neo-liberalism. Springer highlights the close communications between Karl Marx and the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon; both thinkers essentially agreed in their analysis of capitalism, but they split direction when it came to what a post-capitalist society would look like. While Marx preferred a “temporary” proletarian dictatorship, Proudhon emphasized the need to overcome the centralized power of the state. Yet this rejection of the state does not mean that anarchism then falls victim to chaos and violence, as is its popular caricaturization. Instead anarchism is about creating social arrangements and interactions that are free of any forms of domination, whether state based or otherwise. It is this fundamental commitment to egalitarianism in the public sphere that also prevents anarchism from being able to honestly embrace violence as a means to an end, since proactive violence must be recognized as simply a means to dominate.

Springer’s book really shines when he focuses on specific differences between anarchist and Marxist positions. To begin, contemporary anarchists, as their post-structural counterparts, do not hold that all forms of domination are ultimately rooted in economic structures. Racism and sexism, for instance, are acknowledged to have their own sources of emergence. Anarchists also roundly reject the teleological historical materialism that is the basis of a Marxist theory of revolution. Decades come and go, and while capitalism mutates and adapts, Marxists stubbornly wait for the historical laws to unfold in which the internal contradictions of capitalism will bring about its own demise. Anarchists, in turn, do not espouse a particular, let alone inevitable, outcome. Rather than have a master plan, Springer at one point characterizes anarchism as a state of mind, one that is constantly critical and resistant to all forms of domination while seeking to foster voluntary associations of mutual benefit, or what Kropotkin had termed “mutual aid”.

As opposed to the Marxists then, the anarchist political struggle, following Springer, is very much about the here and now. In this sense the usurpation of the current capitalist system will not happen in a sudden and potentially violent overthrow of the elites, as the Marxists have it, but rather the next system is already alive and growing from within the current one. Basic anarchist forms of behavior and organization, i.e. the creation of inclusive autonomous spaces, are thus presented as being all around us. Springer offers a helpful list: “intentional communities, black bloc tactics, credit and trade unions, peer-to-peer file sharing, DIY activities, housing squats, childcare co-ops, wikis, tenant’s associations, migrant support networks, open source software, and every time you have your friend over for dinner” (172).

Beyond presenting anarchism as ubiquitous and alive, however, Simon also manages to create many important linkages to contemporary geographical and social theory. Hence the idea that alternative forms of economic activity are pervasive and existing outside an...