Preliminary Programme

Wed 24 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Thu 25 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Fri 26 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Sat 27 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.00

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Friday 26 March 2021 11.00 - 12.15
J-9 LAT04 Race, Ethnicity and Anarchist Praxis in Early 20th Century Latin America
J
Network: Latin America Chair: Jose Antonio Gutierrez
Organizer: Steven Hirsch Discussant: Jose Antonio Gutierrez
Geoffroy de Laforcade : From Artesanos Libertarios to Anarcho-ch’ixi: Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Decolonial Praxis, and Prefigurative Anarchism in Bolivia
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, a sociologist, historian, decolonial theorist and activist of Quechua and Jewish ancestry in Bolivia, founded the Taller de Historia Oral Andina (Andean Oral History Project) and authored a major work on Bolivian anarchism in which she discovered her filiation with the founder of La Antorcha in 1926, ... (Show more)
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, a sociologist, historian, decolonial theorist and activist of Quechua and Jewish ancestry in Bolivia, founded the Taller de Historia Oral Andina (Andean Oral History Project) and authored a major work on Bolivian anarchism in which she discovered her filiation with the founder of La Antorcha in 1926, Luis Cusicanqui. Through this work, she familiarized herself with indigenous and women’s interventions in the movement. Her oral history archive, established in the 1980s, gave voice to peasant and artisan resistance, and profoundly reshaped our understanding of anarchism in Bolivian history. In her work with urban self-reliance, ecological and feminist groups, some “autonomist” (mainly indigenous) and some explicitly anarchist, she has developed an understanding of the Bolivian state and diaspora, as well as colonialism, environmental issues and human rights, that constitutes a framework for her activism and theoretical production. She has also developed approaches to locality and decentralization, spirituality and “mestizaje”, that are imbued with indigenous cosmology and contribute to her epistemic mapping of Bolivian history and social activism, to a subversive epistemic definition of the “people” that blends indigenous with European heritage and continues the Bolivian anarchist tradition in novel ways. This paper will examine her work as part of an analysis of the convergence between contemporary decolonial theory and anarchist praxis, in a conflictual relationship with the socialist project of Evo Morales and the Bolivian “revolution.” (Show less)

Steven Hirsch : Regional Perspectives on Peruvian Anarchism and Indigenous Emancipation (1898-1927)
Manuel González Prada (MGP) the intellectual progenitor of Peruvian anarchism, intrepidly criticized indigenous oppression and called for indigenous emancipation. Ensconced in Lima, MGP had no meaningful contact with serranos or indigenous peoples. What about his epigones and anarcho-syndicalists involved in labor movements? Scholars suggest, in the few studies on the ... (Show more)
Manuel González Prada (MGP) the intellectual progenitor of Peruvian anarchism, intrepidly criticized indigenous oppression and called for indigenous emancipation. Ensconced in Lima, MGP had no meaningful contact with serranos or indigenous peoples. What about his epigones and anarcho-syndicalists involved in labor movements? Scholars suggest, in the few studies on the subject, that like MGP, urban anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists located on the coast evinced little knowledge of nor interest in the particularities of indigenous social existence. Even when they did it was filtered through a Eurocentric lens tinged with racial and ethnic biases that emphasized indigenous inferiority. Class analysis, other scholars claim, overrode and muted anarchist considerations of race and cultural issues. Still, to the contrary, some scholars argue anarchists drew on native Andean cultural forms to forge an alliance based on a shared utopian outlook and vision. What explains the tensions and contradictions in these different interpretations of anarchist attitudes toward indigenous Peruvians? In part, the answer lies with a tendency in the literature to essentialize Peruvian anarchists and to draw conclusions on the Lima-based anarchist press. By examining anarchist and indigenous interactions in different geographic and regional settings beyond Lima, this paper will highlight anarchist attentiveness to indigenous ethnic identities and demands. Special attention will be given to anarchist-indigenous cross-cultural and political fertilization, the formation of cultural and political go-betweens, and foundation of interethnic alliances. (Show less)

Kirwin Shaffer : Anarchism, Race, and Ethnicity in Cuba and Panama, 1900-1920
Thanks in large part to the history of European imperialism, the Caribbean Basin is a richly diverse region in language, race, ethnicity, and nationality. Anarchists born in the Caribbean region or who migrated to the region from Spain or other parts of Latin America brought their ideas of creating ... (Show more)
Thanks in large part to the history of European imperialism, the Caribbean Basin is a richly diverse region in language, race, ethnicity, and nationality. Anarchists born in the Caribbean region or who migrated to the region from Spain or other parts of Latin America brought their ideas of creating free, egalitarian societies to places like Cuba and Panama. While race and ethnicity rarely were central components of anarchist theory in the early 1900s, anarchists in the Caribbean Basin had to address such issues considering the populations in which they agitated. Commentators have stated—with little to no evidence—that anarchists ignored racial issues, especially issues centering on the region’s black populations. However, a reading of anarchist publications (and closer look at government intelligence sources) provides a more nuanced history in which anarchists acknowledged the importance of racial and ethnic issues where they lived and worked. In Cuba, anarchists worked within a vibrant cultural milieu of largescale Spanish, Haitian, and Jamaican immigration mainly to rural parts of the island to work in the expanding sugar industry as well as a native Afro-Cuban population. In Panama, anarchists worked among white migrants (considered semi-white by US authorities during the construction of the canal) from Spain, Afro-Caribbean workers from the British West Indians, and white, black, and mixed-race workers from Central and South America. This paper seeks to dispel the notion that anarchists ignored racial and ethnic controversies. While acknowledging that race and ethnicity often were not of immediate concern, anarchists still (1) addressed racial concerns on the island and in the isthmus and (2) worked to gain Afro-Caribbean support. The paper focuses on two key time periods: in Cuba, centering around the emergence of Afro-Cuban political culture before, during, and after the 1912 “race war” and in Panama, centering on anarchist outreach to West Indian laborers building the canal and to the early years of canal operation that culminated in the 1916 general strike. (Show less)



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