Postgraduate Researchers
John Nightingale
Email J.R.Nightingale@lboro.ac.uk Tel. Secretary: +44 (0)1509 222991 Fax: +44 (0)1509 223917 Dept. of Politics, History and International Relations Loughborough University Loughborough Leics. LE11 3TU UK |
 |
Doctoral Research
Working title: ‘The Concept of Solidarity in Anarchist Thought’
My research is focused on the concept of solidarity and how it has been defined, developed and deployed by thinkers of the anarchist tradition. It is my contention that the recent literature on the concept – solidarity has been conceptualised from social democratic, republican and radical humanist perspectives – is characterised by certain theoretical difficulties and developments which demonstrate the potential worth of an anarchist reading. Specifically, theorists have tended to refer to, locate or interpret solidarity according to implicitly statist frameworks and have subsequently skewed the concept according to their own preconceptions as to the functional role of the state. Anarchist theorists are able to avoid such conceptual distortion since they operate from an a priori rejection of the state and centralised authority in general. The anarchist tradition therefore represents a potentially rich source of theory on solidarity. As such, my research project consists in the retrieval and re-examination of anarchist conceptions of solidarity, focusing in particular on the political thought of Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Murray Bookchin and Colin Ward.
Academic Background
MSc. Research Methods (European and International Studies), Loughborough University, 2011
BA (Hons) Politics, Nottingham Trent University, 2010