Murray Bookchin

ÖZET Bu çalışmanın amacı, yakın bir geçmişe kadar felsefenin ve özelde onun alt disiplini olan etiğin, çoğu zaman gözden kaçırdığı bir problemi tartışmak ve bu probleme ilişkin öne sürülen çözüm önerilerinden biri olan hocam Uluğ NUTKU'nun bu tartışmaya dair geliştirdiği düşünceleri anlamaya çalışmak ve paylaşmaktır. Nutku'ya göre günümüze kadar yapılan insan merkezli ahlak felsefesi tartışmaları bizleri kısır bir döngüye taşımaktan ileriye gitmemiştir. Günümüzde herkesçe dile getirilen ekolojik problemlerin tek çözümü, problemin kaynağını tespit etmek ve onu tümüyle ortadan kaldırmaktır. Problemin kaynağını dışarda bırakıp onun olumsuz yansımalarını ortadan kaldırmaya çalışmak bizi ileriye taşımamanın yanında, içinden çıkamayacağımız bir sarmalın içerisine sürükler. Ayrıca problemin kaynağını tümden ortadan kaldırmak da başlı başına bir çözüm olamaz. Onu ortadan kaldırdıktan sonra, yeni bir başlangıca işaret eden ilkelerin belirlenmesi, yanlış kurulan insan-doğa ilişkisinin olumlanması bakımından zorunludur. Bu anlamda Nutku'nun belirlemiş olduğu ilkeler, ekoloji üzerine yapılan tartışmalara bütüncül bir felsefi perspektif sunması bakımından önemlidir.

En está obra Murray Bookchin esbozada la idea del municipalismo libertario, una idea de organización política basada en instituciones asamblearias de índole vecinal que, practicando la democracia directa, se federarían en una confederación de municipios o comunas libres, siendo una alternativa al Estado centralizado. Formulada a partir de la tradición localista y municipalista del anarquismo.

Writing in-between the distinct social ecologies of Murray Bookchin
(1921-2006) and Félix Guattari (1930-1992), my endeavour is to consider
how utopian and dystopian varieties of science fiction inform what I have
designated the “geotrauma” of the Anthropocene (Cole et al.). Through a
comparison of the oeuvre of Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) and Guattari’s
sole collaborative work with Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995), we shall look at how
the combination of ecosophy and literature may help us to make sense of our
time and lot. Following Deleuze and Guattari, I distinguish between author-
itarian utopias (utopias of transcendence), and immanent, revolutionary,
libertarian utopias and, following this, I reinterpret the meaning of philosophy’s
third reterritorialization in Deleuze and Guattari’s What is Philosophy?, which
is to say, the movement of thought from the Greeks in the past, to the crisis of
the democratic State in the present and the possibility of a futural people and
earth to come. I will think this meaning in connection and in comparison
with the possibility of a third revolution as envisioned in Bookchin’s social
ecology and social anarchism and how this finds expression in Le Guin’s The
Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. My conclusion shall point to the idea that
the social ecologies of Bookchin and Guattari share a common, middle ground

I examine some of the contributions to an ecological anarchist tradition that, I argue, antedates, influences, and presently remains coextensive with Murray Bookchin’s work. It is to this tradition which Bookchin returns, from which he departs, and occasionally over and past which he looks. In so doing, I situate Bookchin’s thought historically against the work of Peter Kropotkin in particular and try to illuminate some of the tendencies and tensions within both anarchist and ecological theory.

By showing how closely related Bookchin’s work is to Kropotkin’s opus, I try to restore the importance of Kropotkin for critical social theory and to stress his relevance for the future of social ecology. If, as I claim, comprehending Kropotkin is central to understanding Bookchin, then it would bode well for future social ecologists to investigate this earlier body of work as they advance and refine their theory. This comparative and critical enterprise is valuable ultimately because it allows us to better understand the origins of, changes in, and complexities concerning social ecology, and to further develop informed responses to environmental and political challenges.

Ekoloji hareketi hem ilerici hem de gerici düşünceler için son yıllarda bir savaş alanı haline gelmiştir. Ekoloji hareketi içerisinde, gerçekten ilerici ve insancıl olandan, tümden insan sevmez ve hatta eko-faşist olan çeşitli düşüncelerle karşılaşılır. Amerikalı toplumsal ekolojist Murray Bookchin on yıl kadar önce “Ekoloji ‘kasvetli bir bilime’ mi dönüşecek?” adlı makalesinde ABD ekoloji hareketi içerisinde insancıllık-karşıtı eğilimler saptadı: Derin ekoloji, biyo-merkezcilik, Gaiacı bilinç ve eko-teoloji gibi. Akıldan kuşku duyulması ve ekolojik konulara yaklaşımda içgüdüsel ve akıldışı olana önem verilmesi bu görüşlerin temelidir.

Depuis quelques années, le PKK turc et le PYD syrien sont au centre de l'attention des gauches mondiales. Certains observateurs, comme l'anthropologue David Graeber, l'historien Immanuel Wallerstein ou le linguiste Noam Chomsky les considèrent comme une des rares lueurs d'espoir dans le chaos moyen-oriental et comparent leurs expérimentations politiques à celles des zapatistes du Chiapas. En effet, ces organisations apparaissent comme un point de convergence de nombreuses luttes « nouvelles » : le combat militaire contre l'« obscurantisme » de Daech ; une forme avancée de féminisme contre le « patriarcat » islamiste et traditionaliste ; une volonté de promouvoir un « confédéralisme démocratique » postmarxiste et libertaire ; ou encore une manière renouvelée de contester le capitalisme et le culte de la croissance, au profit d'une écologie radicale. Pourtant, le PKK et ses organisations soeurs restent très méconnus. Fondé en 1978 et dirigé par son chef Abdullah Öcalan, emprisonné depuis 1999, ce parti radical, d'abord indépendantiste puis autonomiste, revendique s'être défait de ses oripeaux marxistes-léninistes pour développer une forme d'autogouvernement proche de la conception municipaliste de l'anarchiste américain Murray Bookchin. Qu'en est-il en vérité ?

L’elaborato si interroga sull’evoluzione della Questione Curda e analizza la situazione attuale alla luce degli avvenimenti storici e politici che hanno interessato la regione situata nella mezzaluna fertile. Nel Capitolo 1, viene analizzata la storia della più grande nazione mai riconosciuta, il Kurdistan, che nei territori siriani del Rojava dal 2011 ospita esperimenti di bottom up, di partecipazione e di alternativa nella gestione della cosa pubblica, contribuendo all’affermazione del Confederalismo Democratico, un’anomalia mediorientale ispirata al municipalismo libertario dello statunitense M. Bookchin. Non manca un’analisi sulla figura di Abdullah Öcalan, leader del PKK, a partire dai testi e dalle dichiarazioni direttamente ricollegabili alla sua persona. Al centro dell’analisi del Capitolo 2 si dedica particolare attenzione al femminismo islamico e alla condizione femminile in Medio Oriente; gli esempi emersi dall’esperienza del Rojava rappresentano una specificità utile al confronto sia con le altre etnie residenti nel Nord Africa, che con usi e costumi tipici, invece, dei popoli d’Europa. Si utilizzano testi di Dilar Dirik e Renata Pepicelli. L’immaginario collettivo tende ad essere influenzato dalla rappresentazione occidentale, la causa del pregiudizio nei confronti di tutto ciò che proviene da una determinata area geografica, tema su cui ci si sofferma nel Capitolo 3, anche attraverso spunti di Noam Chomsky e Michel Foucault. L’argomento si problematizza attraverso l’Appendice I, in cui vengono presentati in rassegna alcuni esempi di articoli, editi da testate giornalistiche, in cui viene descritta l’esperienza delle guerrigliere curde. Si pongono in essere le questioni relative al misrepresentation, alla distorsione del racconto in base agli obiettivi del divulgatore. Infine, viene data parola alla rappresentante delle Donne Curde in Europa, Nursel Kilic, che risponde alle domande incentrate su tre dei temi trattati nei precedenti capitoli: le somiglianze tra il movimento di liberazione curdo e quello palestinese, sul ruolo della donna nella società curda e sul racconto mediatico dei fatti che avvengono in Mesopotamia.

This thesis explores the relationships between punk and anarchism in the contemporary contexts of the UK, Poland, and Indonesia from an insider punk and anarchist perspective.  New primary ethnographic information forms the bulk of the research, drawing on Grounded Theory Method and an engagement with Orientalism.  The theoretical framework is informed by the concept of antinomy which embraces complication and contradiction – and rather than attempt to smooth-out complexities, impose a simplified narrative, or construct a fanciful dialectic, the thesis examines the numerous tensions that emerge in order to critique the relationships between punk and anarchism.

A key tension which runs throughout the PhD is the dismissal of punk by some anarchists.  This is often couched in terms of ‘lifestylist’ versus ‘workerist’ anarchism, with punk being denigrated in association with the former.  The case studies bring out this tension, but also significantly complicate it, and the final chapter analyses this issue in more detail to argue that punk engages with a wide spectrum of anarchisms, and that the ‘lifestylist’/‘workerist’ dichotomy is anyway false.

The case studies themselves focus on themes such as anti-fascism, food sovereignty/animal rights activism, politicisation, feminism, squatting, religion, and repression.  New empirical information, garnered through numerous interviews and extensive participant observation in the UK, Poland, and Indonesia, informs the thick description of the case study contexts.  The theory and analysis emerge from this data, and the voice of the punks themselves is given primacy here.

Come! Unity Press was an anarchist community in New York City in the mid nineteen-seventies that based its operations on the ideas of Murray Bookchin, the organizer best known for his theory of “Post-Scarcity Anarchism.” Come! Unity Press offered free access for the publishing of literature and visual propaganda of all sorts; it attracted a wide range of the underserved and unacknowledged: Native Americans, Puerto-Ricans, blacks, gays. Despite this, and like other cultural movements before it, the project initiated “the metamorphosis of political struggle from a compulsory decision into an object of pleasure, from a means of production into an article of consumption” [Walter Benjamin]. Come! Unity Press was a forerunner of the consumer-oriented cultures of today. This article suggests parallels with the ideology of Cubism and the cultural program of the Bavarian People’s Republic of 1919.

This study focuses on an ecocritical analysis of J.G. Ballard’s climate fiction novels of the early 1960s. Ecocritical perspectives, social ecological in specific have been utilized to shed light on the selected three novels of J.G. Ballard—The Wind from Nowhere, The Drowned World and The Drought. In contrast with the widespread scholarly research of surreal and psychoanalytic criticism in Ballard’s latter fiction, this study contemplates to analyse the author’s very first post-apocalyptic, climate fiction novels through the window of ecocritical theory. These three novels of the renowned British author are commonly considered as primary examples of the sub-genre of climate fiction. This study therefore proposes to analyse Ballard’s post-apocalyptic works of climate fiction by applying theories related to the school of ecocriticism, second wave of ecocriticism in particular. The study thereby aims to criticise Ballard’s oeuvre from the specific position of social ecology. Thus, the research reveals how Ballard dismantles and takes on western anthropocentrism in The Wind from Nowhere, the author’s first work of fiction, often dismissed by many including himself as an experimental work of fiction. Furthermore, the study also intends to criticise The Drowned World from a social ecofeminist viewpoint. Finally, it aspires to expose the social ecological motives behind The Drought, Ballard’s post-apocalyptic vision of a world running out of water. The study refers to a wide variety of scholars and theoreticians but mainly relies on the theories of Murray Bookchin and Karen J. Warren. Focusing on many different issues within ecocritical thought, the study insists on the scrutiny of social ecological motives in Ballard’s trilogy of climate fiction.

Radical geographers have been preoccupied with Marxism for four decades, largely ignoring an earlier anarchist tradition that thrived a century before radical geography was claimed as Marxist in the 1970s. When anarchism is considered, it is misused as a synonym for violence or derided as a utopian project. Yet it is incorrect to assume anarchism as a 'project', which instead reflects Marxian thought. Anarchism is more appropriately considered a protean process that perpetually unfolds through the insurrectionary geographies of the everyday and the prefigurative politics of direct action, mutual aid, and voluntary association. Unlike Marxism’s stages of history and revolutionary imperative, which imply an end-state, anarchism appreciates the dynamism of the social world. In staking a renewed anarchist claim for radical geography, I attend to the divisions between Marxism and anarchism as two alternative socialisms, wherein the former positions equality alongside an ongoing flirtation with authoritarianism while the latter maximizes egalitarianism and individual liberty by considering them as mutually reinforcing. Radical geographers would do well to reengage anarchism as there is a vitality to this philosophy that is missing from Marxian analyses that continue to rehash ideas–such as vanguardism and a proletarian dictatorship–that are long past their expiration date.

This paper covers the basic principles of Anarchism juxtaposed against the growing critique it offers against Marxism. Five major anarchist thinkers--Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Bookchin--are surveyed briefly to give the beginner reader to Anarchism a general understanding of Anarchism. The paper concludes with references to potential future challenges to libertarian socialism.

L'evento della crisi ecologica che sta mettendo seriamente a rischio la vita sull'intero pianeta, ha fornito lo spunto per una riflessione filosofica attorno alla frattura fra l'"umano" e l'"animale" che circoscrive il campo della biopolitica contemporanea, laddove essa si converte in biocidio generalizzato. Che relazione c'è fra il potere e la vita (umana e non-umana) nella modernità? Murray Bookchin, una delle voci più note della controcultura americana odierna, ha dedicato la sua intera opera all'esplorazione di questi ambiti, in un percorso che inteseca il pensiero di Adorno e quello di Foucault. Questo saggio si propone di ripercorrere in una lettura critica, i testi di Bookchin e di fornire un'archeologia dei concetti fondamentali dell'ecologia che sia utile al dibattito animalista, ambientalista o ecologista, che quotidianamente ne fa la propria attrezzatura pratica.

Responding to David Harvey’s critique of my paper ‘Why a radical geography must be anarchist’, I once again reiterate the importance of anarchist perspectives in contemporary politics and geographical praxis. In challenging Harvey on the limits to Marx, I urge him to think again about the hidden vanguardism, implied statism, and veiled hierarchy that continue to lurk within the Marxist project, and importantly how these specters constrain both our collective political imagination and the possibilities of radical geography. I am admittedly very critical of Harvey, but I nonetheless refuse to close the door on dialogue between the Black and Red, even in the face of ongoing Marxist ridicule of anarchist politics. Accordingly, I propose an agonistic embrace of a ‘postfraternal’ or ‘postsororal’ politics on the left, where we come to appreciate ongoing conflict as a sign of a healthy leftist milieu. In doing so we can move beyond the misguided idea that all disagreements over strategies, tactics, and organizing methods will ever be resolved. Ultimately, what I have dubbed ‘the condition of postfraternity’ keeps us alert to the continually unfolding possibilities of a thoroughly politicized and forever protean space. By embracing this shifting horizon, not as a static limit to our politics, but as a beautiful enabler of visionary possibilities, the rhizomes of emancipation grow stronger.

This article analyses the politics of new municipalism in Naples in relation to the constellation of ‘new institutions’ that has arisen from this politics. These ‘new institutions’ are illustrative of a politics of the interstices as a distinctive trait of the convergence between city government and social movements in Naples, as these latter have opted for staying neither outside nor inside official institutions and the city government has adapted its conduct to this strategy. To illustrate this point, the article explores the emerging constellation of ‘new institutions’ in Naples, which is understood as an embryonic form of radical ‘face-to-face democracy’ (in Murray Bookchin’s terms) at the municipal level that departs from mainstream conceptions of participatory democracy and commons-based democracy. Through this analysis, the article argues that the experience of new municipalism in Naples offers evidence of a kind of participatory urban democracy understood not in a procedural sense but in a genuinely political vein, where civic participation and political conflict productively coexist with institutional creativity.

Bu makale Kürt siyasi hareketinin toplumsal hareketler bağlamında geçirmiş olduğu evreler ile alakalıdır. Kürt siyasi
hareketinin kökenini oluşturan Kürt milliyetçiliğinin –her ne kadar Ahmed-i Xani’nin adı anılsa da- Şeyh Ubeydullah ile başladığı,
özellikle sonraki süreçte bu temsiliyetin Şeyh Said ile birlikte devam ettiği ve nihai olarak Şeyh Ubeydullah ve Şeyh Said’in dini
misyonundan farklı olarak PKK ile ilerlediği bu makalenin temel konusudur. Şüphesiz ki toplumsal hareketler içeriği açısında muhalif
olmayı ve sisteme meydan okumayı içermektedir. Kürt siyasi hareketlerinin de en önemli misyonu bu olmuştur. Şeyh Ubeydullah ile
başlayan ve Kürtlerin milli bilincinin uyanmasına sebep olan bu meydan okuma PKK ile nihayetine ulaşmış görünmektedir. Lakin
PKK’nın geçirmiş olduğu evirilmeler ve sonrasında yeniden yapılanışı, Kürt milliyetçiliğinin de yeniden yorumlanmasına sebep
olacaktır. İşte bu makale, yukarıda ifade edilenlerle birlikte son dönemde Kürt milliyetçiliğinin toplumsal hareketler bağlamında PKK
ile birlikte yaşadığı dönüşümleri de sosyolojik açıdan analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır.

This paper aims to analyze the historical trajectory of Kurdish political movement in the context of social movements. It
argues that although Kurdish nationalism constituting the ideological ground of Kurdish political movement has generally been
attributed to Ahmed-i Xani; it was rather Şeyh Ubeydullah who started the ideological motivation and afterwards the movement was
represented by Sheikh Said. Yet in the course of time, there has been a shift in terms of disengagement from the religious discourse and
continuation with PKK. It is certain that social movements are by definition in opposition to political status quo. This has also been the
most peculiar characteristic of Kurdish political movements. The challenge which contributed to awakening of the national
consciousness of the Kurds was led by Sheikh Ubeydullah and culminated by PKK. Nevertheless, the character of Kurdish nationalism
itself has been subjected to change parallel to the transformations took place in PKK and its restructuration. Together with the said
objectives, this paper tries to contribute to sociologically understand how Kurdish nationalism has been transformed in relation to the
influence of PKK.

Anarchism and geography have a long and disjointed history, characterized by towering peaks of intensive intellectual engagement and low troughs of ambivalence and disregard. This paper traces a genealogy of anarchist geographies back to the modern development of anarchism into a distinct political philosophy following the Enlightenment. The initial rise of geographers’ engagement with anarchism occurred at the end of the nineteenth-century, owing to Élisée Reclus and Peter Kropotkin, who developed an emancipatory vision for geography in spite of the discipline’s enchantment with imperialism at that time. The realpolitik of the war years in the first half of the twentieth-century and the subsequent quantitative revolution in geography represent a nadir for anarchist geographies. Yet anarchism was never entirely abandoned by geographical thought and the counterculture movement of the 1970s gave rise to radical geography, which included significant interest in anarchist ideas. Unfortunately another low occurred during the surge of neoliberal politics in the 1980s and early 1990s, but hope springs eternal, and from the late 1990s onward the anti-globalization movement and DIY culture have pushed anarchist geographies into more widespread currency. In reviewing the literature, I hope to alert readers to the ongoing and manifold potential for anarchist geographies to inform both geographical theory and importantly, to give rise to more practice-based imperatives where building solidarities, embracing reciprocity, and engaging in mutual aid with actors and communities beyond the academy speaks to the ‘freedom of geography’ and its latent capacity to shatter its own disciplinary circumscriptions.

The image of God has carried with it a special designation for humanity within the panoply of life on earth. This project attempts to reorient and expand theological anthropology to include the ecological dimension in Christian perspective to cultivate an understanding of the ecological self. This project will place traditional interpretations of what it means to be human into conversation with twentieth-century ecological philosophies and Native American spirituality in order to broaden the Christian imagination for understanding ourselves within creation. Vine Deloria’s analyses of Western temporal thinking and spatial thinking demonstrated by Native worldviews provides perspective for necessary theological shifts to support a Christian ecotheological anthropology.

Black Mask/Up Against the Wall Motherfucker existed from 1966-69 in New York, moving from abstract painting and intermedia environments to street posters and increasingly militant political happenings. They were definitive, influential activist-art groups, often cited as a key historical precedent for contemporary activist-art and social practice. Additionally, they represent a crucial but neglected moment in the contested radical legacy of the avant-garde of Surrealism and Dada. Their history has been previously available only in brief, mythologising accounts, but this article draws on interviews and extensive cross-archival research to present the first thorough historical account of their political art practices.

Contemporary geographical thought is constrained by a political economic imagination rooted in binarism, which is exemplified in debates surrounding neoliberalism. Neoliberal proponents call for decentralization and increased capital flows, while Marxists respond by pairing centralization with capitalism’s abrogation. The latter view considers hierarchy necessary, a position that promotes authority and regards horizontal politics as propitious to neoliberalism. Anarchism’s coupling of decentralization with anti-capitalism is dismissed because Marxism cannot accommodate the processuality of prefigurative politics. Marxism demands a revolution with a masterplan, considering horizontality a future objective. Such a temporality ignores the insurrectionary possibilities of the present and implies a politics of waiting. The spatial implications of centralized hierarchy are also questionable, employing a vertical ontology, wherein horizontal organization is deemed inappropriate when ‘jumping scales’. Yet scale represents both a theoretical dis-traction from grounded everyday particularities and a ‘master-signifier’ by providing a point de capiton, or anchoring point, that rests on the exclusion of unconsciousness–the knowledge that is not known¬. Thus the point de capiton is the (Archimedean) point at which an essentialist illusion of fixed meaning is created, as scale is unconscious of geography’s ‘hidden enfolded immensities’. The discourse of scale accordingly dismisses the openness of rhizomic politics by predetermining the political as an arborescent register. Yet the inevitable terra incognita that scalar hierarchies produce becomes a powerful resource for the oppressed, which is why anarchist direct action often proceeds outside of authority’s view. A flat ontology has significant resonance with anarchism, imparting that politics should operate horizontally rather than vertically. This ontological shift suggests that we need not wait for the emergence of a ‘greater’ class-consciousness, as one can immediately disengage capitalism by reorienting economic landscapes in alternative ways. Consequently, a human geography without hierarchy gains significant traction when we reject scale and embrace an anarchist flat ontology.

Rojava has recently received significant global attention thanks to
the victories achieved there by the revolutionary Kurdish militia
controlling the region and its Women’s Protection Units against
ISIS. An international community that has long been silent
about Kurdish oppression was suddenly fascinated by the Rojava
revolution and its potential for women’s liberation. But this current interest elides vital political and conceptual contributions of
activists in Rojava and elsewhere in Kurdistan, and reinscribes the
orientalist and imperial scripts invoked in the representation of
the emancipatory politics of the region’s peoples. Pushing against
these frameworks, this paper examines the new method of
Kurdish decolonization, “democratic confederalism,” as a distinct
and perhaps novel contribution to the global repertoire of anticolonial thought and practice, especially with its re-envisioning of
the revolutionary role violence and nonviolence can play in liberation. Tracing the intellectual and political process that turned
decolonizing Kurds from the pursuit of a territorial nation-state
towards the revolutionary and feminist transformation of colonized sites and lives, it distinguishes this decolonial politics and its
central means of community self-defense from both its reactionary opposites and revolutionary siblings. Foregrounding its foundationally anti-nationalist character, the paper proposes to
approach this revolutionary, egalitarian, and community based
self-defense as a rival ethics of nonviolence.

This article is a manifesto for anarchist geographies, which are understood as kaleidoscopic spatialities that allow for multiple, non-hierarchical, and protean connections between autonomous entities, wherein solidarities, bonds, and affinities are voluntarily assembled in opposition to and free from the presence of sovereign violence, predetermined norms, and assigned categories of belonging. In its rejection of such multivariate apparatuses of domination, this article is a proverbial call to nonviolent arms for those geographers and non-geographers alike who seek to put an end to the seemingly endless series of tragedies, misfortunes, and catastrophes that characterize the miasma and malevolence of the current neoliberal moment. But this is not simply a demand for the end of neoliberalism and its replacement with a more moderate and humane version of capitalism, nor does it merely insist upon a more egalitarian version of the state. It is instead the resurrection of a prosecution within geography that dates back to the discipline’s earliest days: anarchism!

"There were serious disjunctions between democratizing and 'Bookchinizing' life inside Rojava and the Marxist-realist approach of the SDF–PKK to what might be called Rojava’s foreign policy. The US and other actors in Syria milked the 'bad dialectic' between Rojava’s domestic and foreign and political relations. Turkey, Russia, al-Assad, and Iran all partook of the atrocious approach of forcing Rojava into difficult situations, where its hierarchy was forced to prioritize and centralize power to defend Rojava. Enforcing this bad dialectic is the latest instance of a classic counterrevolutionary trick devised by the American architects of the Cold War era."