There was once among anarchists a rather healthy suspicion of the academy as an elitist institution fully bound up with the reproduction and extension of power structures within capitalist societies. Suddenly it is almost hip to be an anarchist academic.Īt one time, not so long ago in fact, this would have been a curious situation for anarchists to find themselves in. There have also emerged, perhaps ironically enough, professionally recognized associations and networks of anarchist researchers, such as the Anarchist Studies Network of the Political Science Association in Britain. These include: Academic articles focusing on varying aspects of anarchist theory and practice the publication of numerous books on anarchism by most of the major academic presses and growing numbers of courses dealing in some way with anarchism or including anarchism within the course content. The flourishing of anarchism in the academy is also reflected in other key markers of professional academic activity. Indeed the Politics Department at Loughborough has actively recruited graduate students for a program of study that focuses specifically on anarchism. ![]() Several anarchists have taken up positions in prominent, even so-called elite, universities, including Richard Day at Queen’s University in Canada, Ruth Kinna at Loughborough University in England and, for a time, David Graeber at Yale (now at London). This is especially true in terms of people pursuing graduate studies and those who have become members of faculty. Indeed, it is probably safe to say that unlike any other time in history, the last ten years have seen anarchists carve out spaces in the halls of academia. A glance across the academic landscape shows that in less than a decade, since Seattle in 1999, there has been substantial growth in the numbers of people in academic positions who identify as anarchists. Yet it would seem that Graeber’s fears are quite unfounded. In his view this is something that should be a cause of concern for anarchists. As he notes in his disappointed comparison of anarchist successes with those of the Marxists: “In the United States there are thousands of academic Marxists of one sort or another, but hardly a dozen scholars willing openly to call themselves anarchists” (2004: 2). ![]() Graeber seems to long for the type of success that Marxists have enjoyed in their move into the academy following the rise of Marxist theory among the students of the New Left. ![]() Despite the blossoming of anarchist thought and practice, David Graeber is perplexed that this flowering of anarchism has found little reflection in the academy. Anarchist academic David Graeber devotes the first section of his book Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology to his attempt to answer the question, “Why are there so few anarchists in the academy?” For Graeber this is a pressing question given the veritable explosion of anarchist theory and lively debates over anarchism outside of the academy, especially within the numerous social movements which have emerged recently.
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