In recent years, anarchist history and historiography have seen a renewed and sustained interest. This has led to new research approaches shaped by cross-contamination between different fields, such as social history, history from below, oral history, public history, cultural history, the history of ideas, microhistory, and a renewed interest in biographical reconstruction, as methods of investigation of collective histories.
This evolving body of work could begin to address questions posed by Ruth Kinna as early as 2012: What are the defining features of anarchist research? What does anarchist research require to be fully suited to its subject matter? Yet it may still fall short of answering a third, deeper question Kinna raises: Is there a “specifically anarchist theory and practice of historiography”?
If we understand “anarchist historiography” as a specific view on history—an ideological framework made up of values, ideas, and theories aimed at interpreting the human past and its meaning (as with Marxist historiography)—then perhaps a different term is more useful. The phrase anarchist gaze on history, understood as a distinctive approach to the practice of historical inquiry, might be more appropriate.
Kinna’s third question challenges us to consider whether there is, or ought to be, such a thing as anarchist historiography—a framework that extends beyond the bounds of anarchist history itself. Does it make sense today to propose such a historiography? Or is it more fitting, and less constraining, to speak of an anarchist gaze on history?
This term—anarchist gaze—avoids the pitfalls of trying to construct a new anarchist historiographical canon or rigid definition, which risks becoming overly academic, institutionalized, or ideologically narrow.
However, asking whether an anarchist gaze on history is possible (and similarly, an anarchist approach to sources and archives, including our own) does not mean we can ignore the core elements of historiographic practice. These include, to mention a few, distinct methodologies, the issue of sources (the question of their preservation and representation, as well as their critique), the selection of subjects and objects of inquiry, the problem of periodisation, and the choice of levels of analysis. We must also consider how, in dialogue with other fields of study, these elements and their definitions can be interpreted through an anarchist lens—take, for example, “history from below” and the possibility of its anarchist reimagination.
Lastly, this reflection inevitably turns toward the role of anarchist archives themselves: the custodians of the movement’s historical memory. What place do they hold in this broader conversation about an anarchist gaze on history?
Useful resources #
- Kathy E. Ferguson, Scrivere l’anarchismo attraverso la “storia dal basso”
- Marcus Rediker, A proposito di storia dal basso
- Ian Forrest, Storia medievale e anarchist studies
Books #
- Lorenzo Pezzica, L’archivio liberato, Editrice Bibliografica, 2020