Postanarchisms: a critical assessment

Post-modernism has had a significant influence on anarchism, notably in the interrelation between the theoretical positions of libertarianism and post-structuralism (a set of theories and philosophies strongly identified with, but not identical to, post-modernism). This has generated a subset of anarchist thinking referred to as postanarchism. Postanarchism, like anarchism, is a fluid assemblage of political concepts that alters according to geographic and historical context. Within this chapter, some of its key theorists, principal terms, and some of the structures that coordinate its central principles, are identified and assessed. The chapter then concentrates on the apparent differences between postanarchism and more traditional anarchisms, arguing that rather than regarding postanarchism as a transcendence of anarchism, as some of its proponents maintain, it is more appropriate to regard postanarchism as representing a particular, historically specific constellation of practices, which consequently prioritizes particular discourses, agencies and tactics that are peculiar to these locations