Anarchy of the Archipelicans

In this episode we talk about anarchy. Through the scholarship of Bima Satria Putra, David Wengrow, and Stevphen Shukaitis, we explore the longer histories of anarchy in South East Asia. Long histories of refusal, separation and difference emerge across the archipelago in response to various forms of centralised authority. History shows anarchy always wins. Instead of anarchy coming at the end of “civilisation,” it can be thought of as the start of experimentation in different communal organisation. We discuss how this refusal is always also a refusal of centralised gender and sexuality. We descend into the problematics of classification and dive into the violence at the centre of white nationalism as productive of difference where there is none. Then Melletios gets angry on a bus, and Tim finds a gun hilarious.

Further Reading

Bima Satria Putra, Anarchy in Alifuru, 2025

Bima Satria Putra, David Wengrow, and Stevphen Shukaitis, Fire Tribes and Stateless Worlds: A Conversation, e-flux, 2026

Dagmar Herzog, The New Fascist Body, 2025

David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, 2021

Shukaitis, S. and Figiel, J., The Wages of Dreamwork Class Composition & the Social Reproduction of Cultural Labor. Minor Compositions, 2024

Hakim BeyT.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone , 1991