Erica Lagalisse

In the nineteenth century anarchists were accused of conspiracy by governments afraid of revolution, but in the current century various "conspiracy theories" suggest that anarchists are controlled by government itself. The Illuminati were a network of intellectuals who argued for self-government and against private property, yet the public is now often told that they were (and are) the very group that controls governments and defends private property around the world. Intervening in such misinformation, Lagalisse works with primary and secondary sources in multiple languages to set straight the history of the Left and illustrate the actual relationship between revolutionism, pantheistic occult philosophy, and the clandestine fraternity. Exploring hidden correspondences between anarchism, Renaissance magic, and New Age movements, Lagalisse also advances critical scholarship regarding leftist attachments to secular politics. Inspired by anthropological fieldwork within today's anarchist movements, her essay challenges anarchist atheism insofar as it poses practical challenges for coalition politics in today's world. Studying anarchism as a historical object, Occult Features of Anarchism also shows how the development of leftist theory and practice within clandestine masculine public spheres continues to inform contemporary anarchist understandings of the "political," in which men's oppression by the state becomes the prototype for power in general. Readers behold how gender and religion become privatized in radical counterculture, a historical process intimately linked to the privatization of gender and religion by the modern nation-state.

With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples

Occult Features of Anarchism

Nel corso della storia, un filo rosso ha sempre legato i circoli occulti ai movimenti politici: dalla massoneria ai movimenti operai internazionali, dagli alchimisti ai culti esoterici, la storia del contropotere ha sempre mostrato le zone d'ombra invisibili allo sguardo del comune pragmatismo. Non a caso, il simbolismo riveste un ruolo centrale per definire la geografia e gli equilibri delle forze tra loro in competizione. In Anarcoccultismo, Erica Lagalisse analizza come le teorie politiche, i simboli e la storia dell’anarchismo e del socialismo affondino le proprie radici anche nell’occultismo, passando attraverso la caccia alle streghe (detentrici di una scienza medica empirica), maghi rinascimentali e massoni rivoluzionari. Tenendosi alla larga da improbabili teorie del complotto e avvalendosi di una minuziosa bibliografia, Anarcoccultismo mostra come i sentieri oscuri dell'eresia di ogni epoca sono incrociati con la lotta alle disuguaglianze, all'oppressione patriarcale e alle coercizioni del potere.

Dissertazione sulle cospirazioni dei Re e sulle cospirazioni dei popoli

Anarcoccultismo

"Contemporary anarchist activists aim to manifest non-hierarchical social relations within their own social milieu, as well as topple the social hierarchies that characterize the dominant society, such as white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism: Anarchists observe the importance of "means" matching "ends" and work to bring about "a new world in the shell of the old". I argue however that anarchist activism in North America does not entirely subvert the logic of neoliberalism. Colonial property relations, bureaucratic legalism, and statistical fantasies of the sovereign state (among other linear equations) continue to inflect anarchist politics and self-making projects: the rhizome is re-territorialized.This multi-sited ethnography explores anarchist networks that cross Québec, the United States and Mexico to demonstrate how anarchist practice is mired in contradiction, especially to the extent that this practice is shaped by notions of self and property (propriety) dominant in English-speaking North America. My comparative study illustrates similarities and differences among diverse anarchist scenes, throwing into relief the particular practices of university-educated Anglo American leftists, and draws on anthropological, feminist and critical race theory to show how they have preempted the black feminist challenge of "intersectionality" by recuperating it's praxis within the logic of neoliberal self-making projects and property relations, a particular economy of value in which certain identities are foregrounded and others--especially that of class--are effectively concealed. Ultimately the anarchists are presented as a limit case: even within their "autonomous" everyday practices, the propertizing self prevails in what I call the game of "good politics" - the Bridge of all prestige games, and one which structures much contemporary critical academic scholarship as well. " --

"Good Politics" - Property, Intersectionality, and the Making of the Anarchist Self

An Ethnography of Transnational Activism

Desde Abajo Y a la Izquierda

Erica Lagalisse propose une réflexion radicale sur l'autorité au sein des mouvements de gauche et de la mouvance anarchiste, dans une perspective féministe et décoloniale qui en examine les angles morts. Les inégalités de genre, de classe et la domination Nord-Sud sont tour à tour évoquées dans ce portrait de ce qui constitue le capital culturel de plusieurs leaders élitistes de la gauche. Dans un contexte où les théories du complot sont florissantes, Lagalisse montre comment il est impérieux de comprendre l'attrait que celles-ci exercent au sein de groupes très divers. D'autant plus, rappelle Lagalisse avec un malin plaisir, que les organisations anarchistes se sont souvent inspirées d'associations secrètes et de pratiques occultes.

Erica Lagalisse

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