ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Science, Collaboration… and Anarchy! (France, early 20th)

• In Event: New Perspectives on Collaboration in Science 1

English Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, the anarchist movement became fascinated by Science. Science was seen as a tool for people’s emancipation, useful not only in the fight against religions but also capable of helping to build a future society free from all forms of oppression. From this perspective, numerous collaborative science popularization projects emerged, designed as training tools for activists or, more generally, for the benefit of the working classes, who were largely excluded from the sciences. Examples include L’Encyclopédie d’enseignement populaire supérieur (Encyclopedia of Higher Popular Education), directed by J-M. Lahy in 1908, and L’Encyclopédie anarchiste (The Anarchist Encyclopedia), launched by the French activist Sébastien Faure in 1927. The latter was presented as a compilation of "all the knowledge that a revolutionary activist can and should possess."1, within which a large number of entries addressed scientific topics.
Beyond these collaborative educational works, the collaborative ideal will also motivate several anarchists to get involved in "participatory" science frameworks, like the Société astronomique de France (French astronomical Society) founded by the famous astronomer and popularizer Camille Flammarion, where amateurs are invited to report on their observations. These activists thus no longer simply promoted science "for all," but also cherished the dream of science "by all," in a society where the distinction between manual and intellectual labor would have been abolished along with the State and Capitalism. Collaboration – or rather cooperation – as a political principle of anarchism is thus mobilized in its most radical form (“by all”) to defend an epistemic stance.
This paper will thus be an opportunity to study not only the importance of Science and its collaborative dimension in anarchist discourses and activities, but also the ways in which this epistemic stance is developed.

Author

• Mathieu Florian, Sorbonne Université