Post #700299

2026-03-16 12:32 UTC

I know this is me kind of... spiraling on something, but I need to be very clear: Judith Suissa has literally done precisely zero for anarchist pedagogy (or anarchist learning spaces or anarchist anything). She wrote a book about a niche topic. One. She hasn't worked with anarchists, she isn't an anarchist, and she makes her living by being an academic. And we know that academics, particularly those who do not engage with the topics they research (but even those...), are engaged in extractive work. Nothing she did benefited any anarchic learning community. Her work also focused primarily on alternative schools that weren't specifically anarchist in any capacity, regardless of whether or not there was an anarchist somewhere inside of it. She did the academic thing. Niche topic to extract from, conflate things that aren't really that topic (while ignoring the relevant people in that space), and then move on. And she has spent the last decade being a piece of shit TERF and has appeared in Krauss's most recent piece of shit bigot book, The War on Science (2025). And here's me... in 2023 pointing this out for what feels like the dozenth time.

Replies (2)

@whatanerd@social.treehouse.systems 2026-03-16 12:41

This isn't me saying that I or others cannot get something out of the work done by academics or that they are all inherently bad people. I don't think that. Suissa is very much a person who shouldn't be included anywhere, and she especially shouldn't be included in anything related to anarchism (I don't care if she wrote a fucking book, and I still wouldn't care even if that book was fabulous). The job of academics, whether they are people we like or people we oppose, is to extract things and place them squarely within a walled garden. It is to categorise and define the "proper" aspects of a thing while obfuscating the "improper." That is just part and parcel of academia. (There is a reason there are a handful of academics—not many—who try to make their work as widely available to those it is actually relevant for and why they have to fight to do that in a lot of cases.) And it is more true when people do fuck all to actually engage with and participate in the things they study and research and discuss and write about.

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@young_harbinger@social.treehouse.systems 2026-03-16 20:22

@whatanerd@social.treehouse.systems !!! timely; am about to start a book report on Anarchism and Education, so genuinely thanks so much for writing this. (seems like it'll be a fun hate-read) am new but eagerly involved in education studies; would love to kindly dialogue about this am curious on your thoughts about other teacher/researchers who claim anarchist education ~ in you opinion, who gets it right, if anyone? (your critique of academia is appreciated in this context). where should i be looking for folks who take seriously this work? am appreciative of however you wish to engage with this; take care :)

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