Anarchistic actions. Reply by Trine Borake

Abstract

have both acted together and debated each other for well over a century, each sharpening the views of the other. Randall McGuire (2012, 576) has emphasized that we ‘should embrace the intersections and the tensions between anarchism and Marxism : : : Both lead us to critical understandings of our noncapitalist pasts’. Elsewhere, I have tried to show how both approaches can integrate (Angelbeck 2017), as there are many shared avenues of concern, if different points of departure. Again, the theory of anarchism primarily concerns methods of power in relationships, which places it at the heart of what constitutes the proper concern of social sciences (Russell 2004; Flyvbjerg 2001). Moreover, anarchism concerns various ways to implement such principles in practice, as appropriate for the cultural or environmental circumstances. Many principles concern resisting the concentration and centralization of power in ways that are seen as not justified. Other aspects of anarchism concern the harnessing of power collectively, whether for the accomplishment of economic, religious, or recreational projects, or inmovements of resistance, as emphasized by Borake here. The theory concerns both types of power expression. Too often, we can limit ouruse of ‘power’ to refer to top-downexertionsof power, as in those ‘withpower’or ‘in power’; these are ‘vertical’ forms of power. Yet just as important are forms of power that are exercised in conjunction, through alliance, or what is referred to as the ‘horizontal power’ of collectivities. It is important to recognize multiple forms if we are to adequately theorize social life. To reserve the use of ‘power’ for only vertical forms literally disempowers any consciousness of collective capability, and may contribute to a lack of understanding of such horizontal efforts in the past societies we investigate. Anarchism provides a reminder that state and society are separate phenomena. This is emphasized by Pierre Clastres (1987) in Society against the state. Too often, we can lazily slip into equating the two as one and the same, which is not helpful for understanding sociopolitical dynamics in the past. Rather, Clastres stressed that the ‘state’ is a sociopolitical structure organized often by a subset of the society overall; we should extend such to any structure of political hierarchy, not just states, but chiefdoms, and other formations, especially those of dominance. As Borake emphasizes here, these need to be evaluated for whether they are viewed as justified in their position of hierarchy and how they apply their power. In this article, Borake shows how an anarchist perspective can provide alternative and useful interpretations for cases in Scandinavian culture history, and by extension how such analyses might be applicable for archaeohistorical analyses of other areas and times. Her cases here have been at a macro scale, given the orientation; however, these cases provide examples of how such analyses could be carried out at smaller or finer scales of analysis, and I look forward to seeing such work expand and reorient our understandings of the past.