Evolution and revolution: Anarchist geographies, modernity and poststructuralism

International audienceThis 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 dichotomized 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

Urbanism and Ecological Rationality

The chapter explores the relation between “urbanism”, the practice of urban and territorial design, and “ecological rationality” - a form of rationality that has deeply permeated the urbanistic discourse over the past decades. The aim of this text is to reveal, by deconstructing some design hypotheses, discourses and representations, the role and consequences of “ecological rationality” for the shaping of an original body of knowledge regarding cities and territories. Such an analysis is especially important because cities and urban regions are radically changing today, even in the European context, and ecological rationality introduces fundamental concepts and tools to interpret and design them. Three main themes, accompanied by case studies, will help identify issues, scales, types of urban organization and hypothesis. From zoning to systems illustrates the emergence of ecological rationality in an urbanistic systemic approach. Territorialism: inside a new form of megacity contains three hypothesis connected by the renewed importance of the territorial scale and form to understand the contemporary city. The last theme, The porous city, a project for the “after Kyoto metropolis”, emphasizes porosity, as concept and metaphor, as a tool to reconceive natural and social relations into the space of the metropolis