Federico Ferretti

Situated Knowledge and Visual Education: Patrick Geddes and Reclus's Geography (1886–1932)

Abstract This article addresses Patrick Geddess relationship with geography and visual education by focusing on his collaboration with the network of the anarchist geographers Élie, Élisée, and Paul Reclus. Drawing on empirical archival research, it contributes to the current debates on geographies of anarchist education and on geographic teaching. The main argument is that the collaboration between Geddes and the Recluses inaugurated specific strategies of multisensorial geographic education that were not limited to the sight, and that questioned and relativized the uniqueness of the observers standpoint through devices like the Hollow Globe. Focusing on apparatuses like the Outlook Towers geographic exposition and the Valley Section, it shows in which ways Geddes engaged with Élisée Recluss critique of representation and geography as a visual discipline.

Evolution and Revolution: Anarchist Geographies, Modernity and Poststructuralism

This paper addresses the recent rediscovery of anarchist geographies and its implications in current debates on the ‘foundations’ of science and knowledge. By interrogating both recent works and original texts by early anarchist geographers who have greater influence on present-day literature such as Elisée Reclus (1830–1905) and Pyotr Kropotkin (1842–1921), I discuss the possible uses of a poststructuralist critique for this line of research by first challenging ‘postanarchist’ claims that so-called ‘classical anarchism’, allegedly biased by essentialist naturalism, should be entirely dismissed by contemporary scholarship. My main argument is that early anarchist geographers used the intellectual tools available in their day to build a completely different ‘discourse’, criticising the ways in which science and knowledge were constructed. As they openly contested ideas of linear progress, racism and European supremacy, as well as anthropocentrism and dichotomised definitions of ‘man’ and ‘nature’, it is hard to make them fit simplistic definitions. The body of work I address stresses their possible contributions to critical, anarchist and radical scholarship through their idea of knowledge, not limited to what is now called ‘discourse analysis’, but engaging with social movements in order to transform society.

The spatiality of geography teaching and cultures of alternative education: the ‘intuitive geographies’ of the anarchist school in Cempuis (1880–1894)

As part of current studies focusing on geographies of education and spatiality of teaching and learning, this article addresses the didactic experiences of historical anarchist schools, which opened in several countries at the end of the 19th century. The article deals especially with the example of the Cempuis School (1880–1894) in France, which was run by the anarchist activist and teacher Paul Robin. The aim here is twofold. First, the article clarifies the function of space and spatiality in the teaching and learning practices of the anarchist schools, at least according to the available sources; second, it reconstructs the international cultural transfer, still little known, of the geographical knowledge produced by scholars like Reclus and Kropotkin in the field of educational practices. Finally, the article hopes to contribute to the understanding of spatial educational practices in current alternative, democratic and radical schools.

‘The murderous civilisation’: anarchist geographies, ethnography and cultural differences in the works of Élie Reclus

This article, based on primary sources, addresses the early anarchist ethnography of Élie Reclus (brother of the more famous French geographer Élisée Reclus), placing it in the context of anarchist geographers’ elaboration of the theory of mutual aid, as well as in the construction of a scientific discourse opposed to racism, colonialism and Eurocentrism recently addressed by international literature on this group. Drawing on the double critical frame of present-day anarchist anthropologies and cultural geographies addressing the debates on otherness, postcolonialism and differences, this article analyses an early but radical attempt to build a scientific discourse on empathy and understanding of different cultural standpoints in the political context of an explicit denunciation of colonial crimes by all nations of European culture, as well as scientists’ complicity therein. I argue that European science at the time of imperialism and evolutionism was not a homogeneous field but a battlefield where heterodox and nonconformist thinkers tried to develop different discourses in order to build cultures of solidarity linked to a consistent political action.

Organisation and formal activism: insights from the anarchist tradition

Elisee Reclus (1830-1905) argued that ‘anarchy is the highest expression of order’. This assertion, clashing with the bourgeois interpretation of anarchy as chaos, perfectly captured the theories that were being elaborated by Reclus and other anarchist geographers including Petr Kropotkin (1842-1921). At the centre of these theories lay the conviction that societies organised around mutual aid and cooperation would be infinitely more rational and empowered than societies organised under the State and capitalism. Then, militants like Errico Malatesta (1853-1932) and Luigi Fabbri (1877-1935) advocated the need for formal anarchist organisation - to put in practice the principles of a horizontal and federalist society in daily life - and prepare the grounds for revolution. Acknowledging the importance of better understanding the past to inform the present, this paper first shows the link (generally overlooked by anarchist historiography) between Reclus’s and Kropotkin’s idea of order and Malatesta’s and Fabbri’s idea of organisation; then, it presents the model of anarchist organisation as a possible resource for present-day social movements, which often act as spontaneous networks of activism without a deep reflexion on organisational issues. According to the tradition of organisational communist anarchism, represented today by the International of Anarchist Federations, organisation is a key point, being not only a necessity, but the method for social transformation: without clarity on this, social struggles are likely to fall either in reformism either in Jacobinism. Finally, I show how present-day anarchist geographies can contribute to these points through their effort to prefigure new spaces for new societies.

A New Map of the Franco-Brazilian Border Dispute (1900)

Abstract In the Reclus-Perron cartographical collection held in the Public Library of Geneva, a recently discovered map by the explorer Henri Coudreau seems to have been essential, together with other published and unpublished cartographic materials, in deciding the 1900 Swiss arbitration of the Franco-Brazilian border dispute. These materials provide an opportunity not only to analyse the political power of maps, but also to explore a different European way of conceiving maps and geography, that of anarchist geographers, which diverged from the uncritical hagiographies of colonialism and geographical discoveries that were typical in European science during the Age of Empire (1875‒1914).

Evolução e revolução: os geógrafos anarquistas Elisée Reclus e Pëtr Kropotkin e sua relação com a ciência moderna, séculos XIX e XX

This text examines the construction of a line of scientific thinking by a group of anarchist geographers who were active in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most famously represented by Elisée Reclus and Pëtr Kropotkin. The members of this network were simultaneously intellectuals and activists, and the originality of their scientific production stands out in comparison with the science of that time. They were also interested in disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and pedagogy, and used the scientific tools from the leading intellectual trains of thought of that era (such as positivism and especially evolutionism) in an attempt to reach different conclusions that did not justify social inequalities, but rather could be used to construct a fairer society.

Teaching Anarchist Geographies: Elisée Reclus in Brussels and “The Art of Not Being Governed”

This article addresses the issue of how to teach anarchist geographies, as discussed by the current literature in this field. To this end, I analyze an exceptional archival source, the notes taken by a student of anarchist geographer Elisée Reclus during the classes that Reclus gave at the New University in Brussels. These notes are the only surviving document able to shed light on the short teaching experience Reclus had at the end of his career (1894–1905). Drawing on Andersons notions of “anti-colonial imagination” and of different “frameworks of comparison,” I show how Reclus tried to perform an anarchist geographical teaching by simultaneously embracing empathy toward cultural differences and universal feelings of justice and international solidarity. Therefore, he taught a nonstatist geography by showing his students what Scott called “the art of not being governed,” addressing the examples of the egalitarian traditions of some non-European peoples, together with their antiauthoritarian and anticolonial struggles. Finally, I explain how this case can help elucidate the present-day debates on performing radical teaching approaches inside and outside the academy.

Anarchist Geopolitics of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939): Gonzalo de Reparaz and the ‘Iberian Tragedy’

ABSTRACT This paper addresses an early case in critical and anarchist geopolitics by analysing a body of work from Spanish geographer Gonzalo de Reparaz Rodríguez-Báez (1860–1939). After reconstructing the complex and contradictory figure of Reparaz, a scholar and activist who oscillated between very different political positions in his especially long and productive career, we focus on the geostrategic writings he produced for the anarchist journals, CNT, Fragua Social and Solidaridad Obrera during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. Our argument is twofold. First, in the ideological wanderings of Reparaz, it is possible to identify some elements of coherence around the principles of Iberism, Federalism and Africanism as produced by the Spanish culture of that time. Second, the works he produced for the anarchist press in the last part of his life can provide important insights for present-day scholarship on critical, radical and anarchist geopolitics, especially on what an ‘anarchist geopolitics’ might look like and which ways it can contribute to the largely debated problem of exiting the ‘territorial trap’. The case we present contributes to these debates by showing that an anarchist engagement with ‘geopolitics’, a term that Reparaz used some times at the end of his career, might draw on challenging clashes of civilization and ‘pure’ identities, on questioning statist and administrative frameworks of analysis and on focusing more on grassroots activism than on providing advice for state strategies.

Imperial ambivalences. Histories of lady travellers and the French explorer Octavie Renard-Coudreau (1867–1938)

ABSTRACT This article addresses the life and works of a virtually unknown lady explorer, Octavie Renard-Coudreau (1867–1938), who continued an Amazonian exploration ‘alone’ after the death of her husband, the maverick French geographer Henri Coudreau (1859–1899). It extends and connects two main bodies of scholarship, the first on women travellers and feminist historical geographies, the second on scientific couples and collaborative partnerships in the history of sciences. I argue that, in addition to textual analysis, the social, biographical, cultural and political contexts of these travels allow a better understanding of the ambivalences that characterized Western travellers and scholars, both men and women, in imperial contexts. This helps avoiding essentialism and recovering the experiences of marginalized figures in the history of geography. The story of Octavie Coudreau has elements of originality that can stimulate new reflections on these points, also because her travel experience was not in the hegemonic Anglophone context, and she was acquainted with unorthodox and dissident geographers of that time. This article also contributes to studies on the influence which anarchist geographers such as Elisée Reclus, a supporter of the Coudreaus, exerted on explorers, though Octavie seemed to keep her distance from this former socialist inspiration.