Mexico City and New Transnational Anarchisms

• In Event: Mexico D.F.: Generating Cultural and Political Change

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century, Mexico City has been a meeting place for political dissidents and revolutionary tourists of all kinds. At the beginning of the century, Italian anarchists encountered North American beats, and Spanish anti-Franquistas. At the end of the century international Zapatista supporters and environmental activists mingled with punks and engaged buddhists. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, a new hybrid form of anarchism, heavily influenced by the example of Zapatista autonomy, is emerging from transnational networks of anti-globalization movements (Juris 2008, Graeber 2009). These new hybrid anarchisms include practices such as seed bombing, temporary autonomous spaces, and proyectos autogestivos. Based on historical research, participant observation fieldwork, and interviews with a diversity of contemporary Mexico City anarchists this paper investigates how Mexico City’s long and continuous history of anarchist thinkers and spaces has impacted this contemporary trend in leftist social movements in Mexico. I argue that the diversity present in Mexico City’s anarchist scene since the beginning of the 20th Century has created an emphasis on practice over ideology and contingent alliances over long-term solidarities.

Author

• Livia K Stone, Illinois State University