Theories of Resistance: Anarchism, Geography and the Spirit of Revolt
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Space is never a neutral ‘stage’ on which social actors play their roles, sometimes cooperating with each other, sometimes struggling against each other. Space is a product of interrelations, and is always under construction. Its co-constitutive role in the development of social relations is multiple and complex: a reference for identity-building and re-building; a material condition for existence and survival; a symbol and instrument of power. However, as much as space has been made instrumental for the purposes of heteronomy (from class exploitation to gender oppression to racial segregation), space (spatial re-organisation, spatial practices and spatial resources) is also a basic condition for human emancipation, i.e. for autonomy and freedom. Recognising the way space has been used for resistance, especially in those more specifically left-libertarian contexts (from the early anarchist organising efforts in the 19th century, to the Paris Commune, to the early kibbutzim, to the makhnovitchina in Ukraine, to the socio-spatial revolution during the Spanish Civil War, to the contemporary re-birth of left-libertarian and sometimes specifically anarchist praxis among social movements such as Mexican Zapatistas) is important. Here, a greater understanding of space can teach a great deal about both limits and potentialities, particularly in relation to the possibilities and tasks of re-purposing and re-structuring the built environment, changing images of place, and overcoming old and new boundaries of all sorts.
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