“Anarchism,” comments Erich Mühsam (1932), “is the teaching of freedom as the foundation of human society. Anarchy (in English: without rule, without authority, without state) thereby denotes the condition of social order aspired to by the anarchists, namely the freedom of each individual through the general freedom.” Being largely anti-doctrinaire, there is no single definition of what anarchism is. Rather, it is akin to “a broad river” with “a number of distinct currents” that have grown more or less pronounced in different historical and geographical contexts (Marshall 2009, 6). As Mühsam suggests, freedom from domination is one of these currents.
Given the fluid nature of anarchism, it is essential to contextualize its conceptual threads, to locate them in relation to other fronts of struggle and forms of radical thought. Michael Freeden’s (2003) morphological approach provides a useful framework for doing so. Following this model, freedom from domination (rooted in hierarchical power relations) is identifiable as one of the “core” characteristics of anarchism. Implicit as it may be, it is critical to note that this specifically refers to freedom for all and from all forms of domination rather than more limited applications of eliminating certain top-down, dominant-subjugated relations or seeking liberty for select individuals or groups. For this reason, it is arguable that an “adjacent” or clarifying concept is that of the universality of anarchism’s emancipatory aspirations. Yet, while contemporary anarchism continues to call for each person’s individual liberation – and even perceives this to be a necessary pre-condition for any degree of social emancipation – it has moved away from this concept of universality.
Freeden’s schema helps elucidate why this has occurred and what the implications are by asking – how has anarchism’s understanding of “freedom for all” been influenced by other ideas or altered in different contexts? Addressing this question points to how, for recent anarchist thinkers, “freedom” has taken on new meanings, and how perceptions of how power operates, who constitutes oppressed subjects, shape what steps are necessary to liberate all peoples. It also suggests that there has been an important shift from conceptualizations of freedom in terms of “universality” to that of an interlocking understanding of oppression – i.e., the idea that anarchism must better account for the diverse instantiations of oppression, while still recognizing the interdependence of systems of domination such as white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, ableism, colonialism, and capitalism. This change has critical ramifications for current anarchist praxis, particularly in terms of engagement with other liberatory struggles.
As will be explored in this chapter, the conceptual shift is largely due to the influence of post-structuralist rejection of universals on anarchism and, in turn, the resonance this has had with Black feminist intersectionality as well as other radical currents, including queer theory and decolonial thought. In short, to use Freeden’s terminology, “proximity” to and “permeability” with these theories and their corresponding political efforts have led to a more nuanced and deepened approach to the “priority” of freedom for all – one that reflects a more inclusive, interdependent anarchist vision of a free society and a greater spirit of solidarity in collective struggle.
In order to understand why freedom from domination has featured as one of the key facets of anarchism, it is necessary to trace it back to the roots of classical anarchism.1 In so many words, classical anarchism – tied to Western philosophical traditions coupled with a smattering of insurrectionary action and revolutionary trade unionism – emerged through a confluence of the rise of Industrial capitalism and the Enlightenment. Informed by the Enlightenment’s concern for individual liberty and freedom, nineteenth-century anarchist thinkers such as Mikhail Bakunin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, and Peter Kropotkin sought to make sense of the rapidly changed social landscape in the wake of industrialization. More specifically, they endeavored to resolve how to respond to new forms of inequality and coercion that now derived less from feudal or manorial rule than from an increasingly centralized State and the conditions of labor under capitalism (Marshall 2009; Runkle 1972; Woodcock 1962).
Unlike their Marxist contemporaries (for whom the primary concern was exploitation of the newly emergent working class), anarchists thought that the real goal was ensuring freedom from domination in all its forms. Long before Mühsam’s comments on anarchism and freedom, Proudhon (2005, 79) expressed this succinctly by noting that: “We seek unbounded freedom for man and the citizen, as long as he respects the liberty of his neighbor: Freedom of association. Freedom of assembly. Freedom of religion. Freedom of the press. Freedom of thought and of speech. Freedom of labor, trade and industry. Freedom of education. In short, absolute freedom.” Echoing this, Lucy Parsons (2004) explained that “anarchism has one infallible, unchangeable motto, ‘Freedom’: Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully.” Perhaps one of the best summaries of this is by Alexander Berkman (1977 [1929], 2):
Anarchism means that you should be free; that no one should enslave you, boss you, rob you, or impose upon you. It means that you should be free to do the things you want to do; and that you should not be compelled to do what you don’t want to do. It means that you should have a chance to choose the kind of a life you want to live, and live it without anybody interfering. It means that the next fellow should have the same freedom as you, that every one should have the same rights and liberties. … In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where all men and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life.
Furthermore, it was not simply that the early anarchists sought to attain universal emancipation, but that, by extension, every individual’s liberty was dependent on that of the others. In other words, all forms of oppression were inextricably bound together (Bakunin 1867). Yet, like the other facets of anarchism, this idea of the universality of freedom is not static. It has changed in response to anarchism’s contact with other political currents and historical contexts. While classical anarchists were concerned with eliminating all hierarchies and coercive relations, for the most part, their attention focused on State-citizen dynamics. To be sure, if to a lesser degree, they also addressed equality among the sexes. Consider, for example, another of Bakunin’s (2005, 151) remarks: “I am truly free only when all human beings around me, men and women alike, are equally free.” And, certainly, there is also a long tradition of feminist-informed anarchist thought dating back to the late nineteenth century. Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Parsons, Mother Jones, Helen Keller, Louise Michel, and “thousands of other historical figures and contemporary feminist anarchists” helped to advance the critical perspective that “true equality can never be achieved within the capitalist system … [and] we need to be clear that when feminist gains are won, it is in the name of true equality for all people” (Dunbar-Ortiz 2012, 11; Revolutionary Anarcha-Feminist Group Dublin 2012, 14).
Furthermore, as Uri Gordon (2015) has shown in his essay on anarchism and multiculturalism, “anarchists were early and consistent opponents of racism and imperialism, both in advanced capitalist countries and in the colonial and post-colonial world …” Some anarchists including Joseph Déjacque, James F. Morton, Henry Lloyd Garrison, and even Kropotkin were vocal opponents of segregation and slavery. Others supported anti-colonial, national liberation efforts, including actively engaging in struggles such as the Algerian resistance to French colonialism. Even so, as Gordon (2015, 68) points out, this solidarity with struggles for racial and sexual emancipation was largely “grounded in a universalist ethics of humanism and rationalism.”
This is where much of contemporary anarchism diverges from classical anarchist thought. Although current anarchism remains committed to supporting these movements and acting in solidarity with other struggles, it speaks less to humanitarian concern with universal freedom and more to an inclusive, interlocking framework as the vital starting point for revolutionary struggle. This change is attributable to the complementary overlap between post-structuralist anarchist theory and other influential radical currents such as Black feminist intersectionality, queer theory, and decolonial thought.
Post-anarchism – a blend of post-modernism and post-structuralism with more traditional anarchist principles – first emerged in the last decades of the twentieth century. Coined by Hakim Bey (1987), the term was meant to denote a call for a move beyond classical philosophical anarchism towards more practicable, grounded forms of anarchist theory. Along with being centered on the idea that transformative radical change necessitates an epistemological move away from State-centric conceptions of power, it also calls into question essentialist notions of human nature and society. Both conceptual shifts were critical for helping to move anarchism away from the “universal” perception of freedom.
Informed by the post-structuralist repudiation of essentialism, post-anarchists challenge the Enlightenment thinking of many classical anarchists. Saul Newman (2007, 13), for instance, explains that classical thinkers such as Bakunin and Kropotkin based their understandings of liberation in a “rational logic” that was only “intelligible through” science. Kropotkin employed a kind of anti-Darwinian analysis to argue for a mutual aid-based society based on his observations of cooperation in the natural world. Bakunin, meanwhile, appealed to the concept of “progress” and belief in an “immutable” natural law regarding revolutionary processes and possibilities. Post-anarchists, however, abjure any “natural” rationale for revolutionary resistance. Instead, they subscribe to the position that “the socio-political field does not bear some objective, rational truth that science can reveal; rather it is characterized by multiple layers of articulation, antagonism and ideological dissimulation” (Newman 2007, 14).
Related to this, post-anarchists reject the viewpoint that human nature is inherently “benign or cooperative” or that there is a teleological march towards “the social revolution and the creation of a free society [which] would allow man’s immanent humanity and rationality to finally be realized” (Newman 2007, 13). As Todd May comments, “one does not solve the ethical problem by positing a good human nature and then saying that it should be allowed to flourish. There is too much evidence against the idea of an essentially good (or essentially bad) human nature for that claim to be made” (Perspectives Editorial Collective 2000, 6). In lieu of appealing to a priori universals about humanity, post-anarchists instead perceive reality to be the result of socially constructed meanings.
Given this, post-anarchist ethics depends on careful interrogation of how social structures and systems of power are co-created and maintained. Based on this analysis, political power is diverse, complex, and subtle. Mounting any substantive challenge to power requires equally diverse, complex, and subtle tactics and analysis. For this reason, the core underpinning of post-anarchism “should be seen as a critique of domination, rather than as a critique of the state” (May 2007, 21). Viewing anarchism this way dovetails with (or to use Freeden’s terms, reflects permeability across) post-structuralist – Foucauldian – notions of power as diffused throughout the capillaries of society.
Already, then, it is possible to see how these perspectives contributed to expanding the anarchist project from simply focusing on the State to multiple locations. In so doing, by encouraging anarchist thinkers to shift away from essentialist and totalizing worldviews, it created space for a better fit with other schools of thought, including Black feminist, queer theorist, and indigenous critiques of the idea of universal experience. Moreover, post-anarchists (and contemporary anarchists more broadly) understand that universalism cannot “provide adequate grounding for political action in a situation where dominant values masquerade as everyone’s values and where opposing identities (and the values and practices associated with them) are necessarily multiple, fragmented, and at best provisional” (Ackelsberg 1996, 93).
Necessarily, this more nuanced analysis of power is a critical step for anarchist understanding of – and participation in – solidarity efforts. Yet, it is also important to note, that contemporary anarchism’s overlap with other radical currents is not simply a result of proximity between anarchist and poststructuralist thought. The relationship is more complicated than that. Hakim Bey’s original essay, in fact, was in part a response to the observation that anarchism neither appealed to nor supported communities of color and other marginalized people. In it, Bey (1987) commented:
The anarchist “movement” today contains virtually no Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans or children … even tho in theory such genuinely oppressed groups stand to gain the most from any anti-authoritarian revolt. Might it be that anarchism offers no concrete program whereby the truly deprived might fulfill (or at least struggle realistically to fulfill) real needs & desires?
Furthermore, May and others have argued that post-anarchism was itself informed by “the lessons of the struggles against racism, misogyny, prejudice against gays and lesbians, etc.” – “that power and oppression are not reducible to a single site or a single operation” and that anarchists “need to understand power as it operates not only at the level of the state and capitalism, but in the practices through which we conduct our lives” (Perspectives Editorial Collective 2000, 6). Consequently, the interactions across these theories and struggles must be understood as both dynamic and multi-directional.
Of contemporary radical currents, it is arguable that Black feminism has had the greatest overlap with anarchism. In part, this reflects the prominence of Black feminism – and specifically, intersectional theory – in contemporary American and Western activist thought. Hence, there have been greater opportunities for linkages. This relationship also speaks to an obvious permeability between the anarchist aspiration towards freedom and a theory of interlocking oppressions – a more nuanced form of Black feminist intersectional analysis – which underscores interdependent connections across all systems of domination. Related to this, Black feminism has also sparked important debates among anarchist thinkers about how to understand the relationship between identity and power, what solidarity looks like, and how anarchists should participate in other struggles.
Black feminism, or third wave feminism, developed in response to the colorblind perspectives of second wave feminism. Challenging notions of a universal womanhood, these theorists sought to highlight previously ignored power dynamics within the women’s movement and feminist discourse that better captured the messiness and conceptual complexity of the overlapping, interactive nature of differing forms of oppression. One of the earliest and most influential articulations of this was Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1991) concept of “intersectionality.”
Based on her experience as a legal scholar, Crenshaw argues that there has been a systematic erasure of the experiences of women of color, poor, and other oppressed groups under the law. This erasure reflects a broader social tendency to only think along “singular axes of identity,” which misses how someone may experience multiple forms of discriminatory oppression at once. To illustrate this, she suggests that domination should instead be thought of as analogous to a four-way traffic intersection in which injury can come from any direction. Although clearly an important intervention into second wave white feminist thought, Crenshaw’s intersectionality (along with identity politics and privilege theory, for which it serves as a conceptual underpinning) has been heavily critiqued for having an “additive” quality – i.e., the more marginal categories under which an individual may fall, the greater their experience of oppression. Necessarily, this flattens otherwise more complex dynamics of power, including the ways in which an individual may be in a position of privilege in some instances and oppressed in others.
Along with other critics, this has led many anarchists to question its merit as a theoretical tool. For example, Jen Rogue and Abbey Volcano (2012) highlight the importance of adopting an intersectional lens while warning against its potential reductionist framework. For them, we must avoid “simply listing [race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.] as though they all operate in similar fashions” and instead understand them “as mutually-constituting processes … categories [that] do not exist independently from one another … overlapping, complex, interacting, intersecting, and often contradictory” (Rogue and Volcano 2012, 45–46). Similarly, in his critique of identity politics, Lupus Dragonowl (2015) argues that while intersectionality and “the recognition of multiple forms or axes of oppression, with complex interacting effects” should be considered “an effective theoretical response to the problems of Identity Politics,” there are difficulties putting them into practice as some people “who claim to be intersectional end up treating one or two oppressions as primary.”
Certainly, intersectional analysis is not the only theory that endeavors to explain the dynamic relationship between categories of oppression. There have been numerous other metaphors or concepts used to illustrate the complex nature of multiple oppressions, each of which offers a slightly different perspective on how to disentangle these relationships. Of them, however, interlocking theory resonates most with anarchism as it suggests that the interconnectedness of oppressions necessitates elimination of all systems of domination.2 Above all, this is because unlike Crenshaw’s intersectionality (at least as it is interpreted by contemporary activists and scholars), given its interdependent perspective, interlocking oppression theory avoids the problematic additive approach.
The notion of interlocking oppressions was first expressed by the Combahee River Collective – primarily a Black lesbian group – more than a decade prior to Crenshaw’s coining of the term “intersectionality.” Writing in 1977, they asserted that:
the most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.
(Combahee River Collective 1983, 210)
As they argue, it would be impossible to address only a single issue at a time – true liberation required addressing the simultaneously occurring and inseparable experiences of oppression. Hence, their insistence that “we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions …. If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression” (Combahee River Collective 1983, 214–215).
Since the Combahee first issued their Statement, Black feminists and other activists have taken on this language of interlocking oppression. Patricia Hill Collins (1990; 2000), for instance, underscores interlocking notions of oppression in her concept of the “matrix of domination.” According to her, “By embracing a paradigm of race, class, and gender as interlocking systems of oppression, Black feminist thought re-conceptualizes the social relations of domination and resistance” (Collins 2000, 273). As she explains, looking at the multiple axes of oppression such as race, class, and gender and their situational relationships elucidates the ways in which they share “ideological ground.” This common ground is “a belief in domination, and a belief in the notions of superior and inferior, which are components of all of those systems …. [It]’s like a house, they share the foundation, but the foundation is the ideological beliefs around which notions of domination are constructed” (Collins 1990). As bell hooks (1984) elucidates:
Feminism is a struggle to end sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self- development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires.
(24)
Given these principles, it is easy enough to see the complementarity of interlocking oppression theory and anarchism’s core emphasis on freedom from domination. Importantly, the rejection of universal womanhood dovetails with a rejection of essentialism and post-anarchism’s understanding of oppressive power. The concept of interdependence implicit in this framework also fits well with other anarchist concepts. For example, mutual aid – i.e., collaboration as the basis for human relations – can be considered a kind of interdependence. Interlocking theory also resonates with Murray Bookchin’s (1964) social ecological perspective of “unity in diversity” – the idea that social harmony would flow from allowing the diversity of humanity to flourish and from recognizing the interconnectivity between humans and the natural world. It is no surprise that, as anarchists came into contact with Black feminist thought, they embraced a more inclusive and nuanced analysis of interactions between systems of oppression.
Chris Crass, founder of the Catalyst Project,3 speaks directly to this including the historical context that helped to encourage these influential links. According to him, “the anarchism taken up and developed in the 1990s was a product of the movement experiences of the preceding four decades,” during which the “Black Freedom movement, the women’s liberation movement, and other liberation movements … [were] challenging multiple forms of oppression” (Crass 2013, 3). In fact, Crass (2013, 5) notes that anarchists in the 1990s increasingly employed the “integrated analysis” of oppression originated by the Combahee River Collective – an analysis which “suggests that systems of racism, capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and ableism operate with and through each other” in interconnected ways.
No doubt this greater attentiveness to an interlocking politics is also due to critical interventions from within the anarchist movement including a collection of essays put out by the Anarchist People of Color (2004). This dialogue remains ongoing as anarchists of color continue to call for a more nuanced and inclusive approach to contesting hierarchical domination. As explained in a zine written by Oakland-based Anarchist People of Color (2015):
Racism, classism, and this gendered system are overlapping social systems of oppression constructed to serve the elite white men that divided and conquered the population … If we are serious about fighting white supremacy, patriarchy needs to be fought with the same energy, at the same time.
In other words, while discrimination and prejudice have far from been eliminated within contemporary anarchist spaces, this more inclusive and interdependent approach has at the very least encouraged a greater priority on an interlocking politics and attention to developing an analysis of solidarity with those marginalized groups who have traditionally received less attention in anarchist theory and practice.
The anarchist understanding of solidarity, in fact, has shifted in recent years to better reflect this perspective. The concept of allyship, for example, has come under heavy critique both for being too liberal and meaningless in practice. In recent years, there has been a discursive shift from the term “ally” to “accomplice” as a way to suggest a more active, collaborative, and mutually dependent emancipation. As explained in a zine offering “an Indigenous perspective & provocation” (Indigenous Action Media 2015, 88), “the risks of an ally who provides support or solidarity (usually on a temporary basis) in a fight are much different than that of an accomplice. When we fight back or forward, together, becoming complicit in a struggle toward liberation, we are accomplices.” Or as the popular activist saying goes, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together” (Watson n.d.).
Without offering an exhaustive account of connections between contemporary anarchism and queer theory and anti-colonialism, a brief look at each may be helpful for understanding the overlapping relationship between interlocking theory and important radical currents within anarchist thought. Indeed, it is partly because of the influence of Black feminist interlocking theory – and, by extension, increased attention to solidarity efforts – that contemporary anarchism has significant linkages with both these movements. To be clear, both have their own historical relationship with anarchism, which includes important theoretical contributions by queer, trans, and indigenous activists. Nor are these the only examples of other political trends that are helping to re-shape the anarchist meaning of universal freedom.4 Yet, like Black feminism, queer theory and anti-colonialism have had an especially high degree of proximity to and permeability with current anarchist theory.
Queer theory emerged in the 1990s out of a confluence of post-structuralism, critical theory, feminism, and gay studies. Building off feminist and post-structuralist critiques of biological essentialism, it suggests that one must consider the ways in which all facets of sex and gender or related normative categorizations are merely constructs to be done away with. In particular, queer theory challenges the notion of binaries and instead posits that sex, gender, and sexuality must all be understood as functioning along a continuum. Additionally, that which is defined as queer (i.e., not normal) must be understood as positional – i.e., based on the fluidity of what is deemed the social norm and what can be construed as deviant (Butler 1990; Halberstam 1998; Halperin 1997; Foucault 1978–86). Queer can be thought of as “whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant” – it “demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normative” (Halperin 1997, 62).
Popularized by theorists such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, these ideas have made their way into anarchist theory and practice. They also reflect a longer historical relationship between anarchism and queer liberation. As Terrence Kissack (2007) shows, queer liberation was salient to some of the prominent early anarchists. There is also, of course, a tradition of anarcha-feminist attention to gender and sexual equality going back to Emma Goldman’s (1911) work on marriage and the turn of the century movement for free love. Given this history, it makes sense that, with the increased visibility of the mainstream LGBT rights movement and more radical queer and trans struggles, anarchist theorists have been calling for a “queering” of anarchist thought.
Anarchist adoption of queer theory has been encouraged by on-the-ground activism. ACT UP and Outrage!, two radical gay activist networks working in the 1980s and 1990s, for example, used the term “queer” as a way to distinguish themselves and their politics from more mainstream, “assimilationist” LGBT movement organizations. Meanwhile, Bash Back (an explicitly anarchist group known for taking direct action to counter homophobia) and the Pink Bloc (a queer counterpoint to the black bloc tactic) are other instances of this. Consequently, calls to “queer” anarchism must be considered an extension of radical queerness that pushes the boundaries of liberal support for gay rights. As Ryan Conrad (2012, 23) puts it: “How do we as radical queer and trans folks, push back against the emerging hegemony of rainbow flavored neoliberalism and the funneling of our energy into narrow campaigns that only reinforce hierarchical systems and institutions we fundamentally oppose?”
Along with Black feminism, queer theory encourages a more nuanced and inclusive articulation of what freedom should mean for anarchists. Rejecting binaries, queer theory helps to expose the complexity of sex, gender, or sexuality by placing identity “under a destabilizing lens.” In so doing, it helps to make visible all who are being defined as deviants within a system of heteropatriarchy. In terms of anarchist theory and politics, along with “adding a needed critical analysis of sex, sexuality, and gender” (Daring et al. 2012, 14), this means “tearing down the normative assumptions that are used to uphold status quo that puts some of us above others in the social order as a result of our sexual and/or gender practices” (Volcano 2012, 33).
In short, queer theory’s repudiation of binary identities resonates with and helps to expand anarchist conceptualizations of freedom. It also suggests that experiences of oppression are interdependent – reinforcing the interlocking (mutual aid-based) framework within anarchism. In her essay on queering heterosexuality, Sandra Jeppesen (2012, 157) writes that “[t]he liberation of one person is predicated upon the liberation of those around them.” For her, this means putting anarchist principles of mutual aid into practice so as to create more caring, sustainable queer communities and networks. It also means doing so with “an anti-statist and anti-capitalist perspective, and bringing anti-racism, anti-colonialism and other intersectional movements and ideas” as a way of “anarchizing queer movements” and “queering anarchist movements” (Jeppesen 2012, 158). Liat Ben-Moshe, Anthony Nocella, and A.J. Withers (2012, 216) similarly emphasize that a core tenet for queer-crips is interdependence, which they define as akin to mutual aid, the “macro-socio-political system to build communities and relationships” that rejects individualist competition in favor of cooperative collaboration. Implicitly, this includes adopting an interlocking approach to solidarity in struggle.
Anti-colonialism has similarly contributed to the shift in anarchist perspectives of freedom. There are several related expressions of decolonial thought and politics – from anti-globalization efforts to indigenous sovereignty. While each of these has their own unique set of problematics to be solved, decolonial theory can be broadly summarized as “a ‘political and epistemic de-linking’ from western dominance and the ways of thinking it imposes – not in order to compete with it in the geopolitical and neoliberal arena, but to assert an ethic of respect for all life and for oppressed peoples’ struggles” (Gordon 2015, 73). For anarchists engaged in anti-colonial resistance, there is also a stress on understanding how neo-imperial projects forge a connection across migrant, colonized, and indigenous peoples while being tied to other hegemonic systems of oppression.
Recognizing “[t]he connections between the rights of immigrants and indigenous peoples both forcibly displaced by the demands of the global economy and militarization of borders” enables us to “recognize, unweave, and replace persistent racism, sexism, and all other related patterns of oppression by which colonial dominion has been justified” (Ramnath 2012, 14–15). In practice, adoption of a decolonial stance has led many anarchists to participate in solidarity work with the occupied territory of Palestine as well as efforts to end to all borders and State-based control of populations (Ramnath 2013; Gordon 2010). Notably, these activists conceive of these struggles as based on interlocking systems of domination. In fact, in her prefigurative account of decolonization, Harsha Walia (2013, 16) explicitly draws on “critical race theory, feminist studies, Marxist analysis, and poststructuralism” for the ways in which it “theorizes and evaluates border imperialism from within intersectional pedagogy.” For her, not only is border imperialism “the nexus of most systems of oppression,” but “[w]e are all … simultaneously separated by and bound together by the violences of border imperialism” as all people are impacted in some way by global capitalism and by processes of border control, displacement, military occupation, and commodification of migrant labor (16). Meanwhile, according to Gordon (2010, 429) in his study of anarchist participation in anti-Apartheid wall efforts, while the focus for activists was on Palestinian liberation, there was also a commitment to “equality for all” implicit in their politics.
In addition, there has been an important “de-centering” that has led to weaving an anti-colonial framework into anarchism, while expanding understandings of anarchism in practice. Rather than accepting the “diffusionist line” that anarchism originated in Europe and spread to the Global South, a “de-centered” approach to anarchism redefines it as “a form of ‘strategic positioning’ and ‘deliberate statelessness’ going back at least two millennia. This is an anarchism … that both preceded and arose out of capitalism, industrialization, and the modern nation-state” (Craib 2015, 4). This extends anarchism beyond the Western thinkers traditionally thought of as foundational anarchists. Instead, there is a much longer and deeper tradition of anarchist thought and sensibility, found outside the boundaries of the west, that dates back as far as many ancient Eastern philosophies (Marshall 2009; Ramnath 2013; Maxwell and Craib 2015).
Beyond granting agency to these actors, de-centering is critical for the creation of a more expansive understanding of anarchism and its importance throughout history. As Silvia Federici (2015) comments:
[A]narchism “as we have known it” is a principle that is present in every age and country, expressing an irrepressible desire for individual and collective self-determination, of which European anarchism is only one embodiment shaped by specific historical conditions …. Once we leave Europe, in fact, we discover that statelessness and the desire for self-government are not eternally receding utopias, but are principles that for millennia have structured communities in every part of the world.
(350–351, original emphasis)
Put otherwise, “the idea and practice of anarchy are not exclusive to self-conscious anarchists” (Bamyeh 2010, 24). Following this logic, it is arguable that anarchist tendencies are traceable to early Eastern philosophies such as Confucianism and Daoism (Marshall 2009, 53–142) or even the nomadic peoples of Zomia described by James C. Scott (2010). And, certainly, Zapatismo – critical for inspiring the resurgence of interest in anarchism during the Global Justice Movement – is reflective of an amalgamation of indigenous cosmology, Catholicism, and peasant praxis rather than “classical,” a.k.a. Western, anarchism (Klein 2015; Reitan 2007; Martinez and Garcia 2004).
In addition, Indigeneity – another element of anti-colonialism that grew out of the Red Power movement and is a core element of movements such as Idle No More in Canada – is helping to cement the notion of interlocking oppression through its own emphasis on interdependent struggle. To be sure, just as there is no single indigenous worldview, there is no single definition of “Indigeneity.” As a base line, it can be thought of as opposing “colonial ways of thinking and acting” by demanding an “Indigenous starting point and an articulation of what decolonization means for Indigenous peoples around the globe” and a shared desire for “Indigenous sovereignty over land and sea, as well as over ideas and epistemologies” (Sium, Desai, and Ritskes 2012, II).
In terms of its connections with anarchism, interdependence of struggle and eliminating domination are core characteristics of indigenous-centered decolonial thought. As one Idle No More activist explains it, as part of its challenge to colonial-capitalist oppression, Indigeneity seeks “an alternative relationship – to the earth, to its resources, and to each other – a relationship based not on domination but on reciprocity.” Furthermore, this perspective advances the idea that “any movement that seeks to create deep, lasting social change – to address not only climate change but endemic racism and social inequality – must confront our colonial identity and, by extension, this broken relationship” (Klein 2013). For indigenous anarchists, there is also an explicit appeal to an interlocking approach. Decolonization is seen as “a gendered and ecological undoing of settler colonial society and the colonial state” with addressing heteropatriarchy as central to this work (Hall 2016, 82).
In some ways, the notion of freedom has gained even greater priority in recent anarchist theory. This is in part due to anarchism’s increased prominence in contemporary movements and its corresponding proximity with other complementary political currents. No doubt, anarchism has served as the guiding praxis for numerous movements throughout history and, consequently, has been influenced by the other strains of radical thought it encountered, such as the fusing of Quaker consensus process, anarchism, feminism, and even pagan spiritualism in American anti-nuclear efforts in the 1970s and more recent anti-globalization organizing (Epstein 1991; Cornell 2011). Yet, perhaps even more so than in the past, late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century social movements bear the stamp of anarchism.
Since this time, we have witnessed “the full-blown revival of a global anarchist movement, possessing a coherent core political practice, on a scale and scope of activity unseen since the 1930s … [as] anarchist forms of resistance and organizing have effectively replaced Marxism as the chief point of reference for radical politics in advanced capitalist countries” (Gordon 2010, 414). Of course, throughout this period, anarchists have not been operating in a vacuum. As anarchism moved from a marginal role to a central one during the Global Justice Movement, it came into contact with other radical political traditions, including Black feminist, indigenous, and queer activism. Within this context, anarchism has had the opportunity to intersect with these struggles and radical schools of thought, which in turn, has impacted its current theory and praxis – including its conceptualization of freedom and how mechanisms of domination operate in society.
In sum, to use Freeden’s terminology, contemporary anarchism’s proximity with complementary, radical currents – which has accelerated since the “anarchist turn” – has led to a more inclusive, interlocking framework for understanding one of its core concepts – freedom. As we have explored, this change is largely due to post-anarchist rejection of universals and the high degree of permeability with the Black feminist concept of interlocking oppression. Moreover, it has deepened the importance that contemporary anarchism places on solidarity and mutuality of struggle in attaining a free society.
Other currents such as anti-colonialism and queer theory, meanwhile, are also contributing to a broadened meaning of what socio-political emancipation looks like, while underscoring the impact of an interlocking framework on anarchism. Queer theory has been critical for drawing relief to the particularities of oppression based on gender and sexuality while contesting binary understandings of power and domination within anarchist thought. And decolonial thought has helped to “de-center” anarchism from its Eurocentric roots – both by giving voice to non-Western anarchists and histories and by infusing anarchist theory with a more nuanced understanding of how colonialism undermines individual and collective autonomy. Indigeneity also advances its own perspective on the interdependence of struggles.
Despite these shifts, if greater priority were given to addressing the simultaneity of various oppressions – white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, ableism, colonialism, capitalism, for starters – it may help to cultivate an even more emancipatory anarchist politics. Furthermore, a more intentional leveraging of the permeability across these currents might encourage deeper, multi-directional intersections across them (Hall 2016). Even so, the understanding of socio-political liberation in twenty-first-century anarchism is, indisputably, far more nuanced, inclusive, and predicated on interconnected struggle than was classical anarchism’s call for universal freedom.
1 An important caveat is that anarchism is not merely a western ideological creation and that many traditions have called for an end to hierarchy as an essential condition for socio-political emancipation.
2 In some cases, intersectionality refers to identifying the “interlocking” nature of oppression, so that the two terms are used synonymously. Yet, for theoretical clarity, it is critical to distinguish interlocking theory from other intersectional analytical frameworks. It should be noted that there is also a strong post-structuralist critique of any form of intersectional analysis – a viewpoint known as post-intersectional theory. The basic argument is that all identity categories are social constructs and, thereby, inherently essentialist. Yet, while many anarchist streams informed by post-structuralism (such as post-anarchists, anarcha-feminists, queer anarchist theorists, etc.), reject universals and are critical of identity politics, they still support interdependent/interlocking frameworks.
3 The Catalyst Project is an activist training organization that focuses on racial justice and workers’ rights.
4 Social ecology and green anarchist perspectives, for instance, maintain that it is essential to end human domination and exploitation of the earth if we are to eliminate all forms of hierarchy. Similarly, animal liberationists – many of whom are anarchists – consider veganism as vital for ending the enslavement of sentient beings. For them, disregard for animal life merely reifies violent hierarchical relations.
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