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

Abstract

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 Anderson's 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.

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