Science and Social compromise. Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) and Geography of freedom.

Conference Cycle held in November 2005 at the Residence of Researchers CSIC-Generalitat de Catalunya and at Institute of Catalan Studies.

As J.Cornualt, author of one of the presented texts, says «it is not that easy for authentically interested adults to ignore Reclus today».
 
Two main axis in Élisée Reclus’ life and work which in turns determinate them absolutely are: love for Nature and love for human beings.

When still young, love for Nature led him, while he was walking along the Shannon River banks, during his exile in Ireland, to devote himself to geography studies.
 
Love for human beings made him extremely sensitive towards injustice, lack of freedom, power abuse and the exploitation of the weak. This sensitivity made him compromise with any social movement which would defend individual freedom and the equal right to every individual to live with dignity and without penuries.

This compromise pushed him to fight in defence of the republican ideal against monarchy, in the first place, and against Luis Bonaparte’s empire afterwards.

But the Paris Commune defeat, in which Reclus had participated actively, made him reach the conclusion that the State, no matter how it was constituted, was a mean of oppression and exploitation in the hands of the powerful, so he decisively embraced anarchism —«the highest expression of order», according to Reclus’ own words—as the only way for the human beings’ emancipation. 

The purpose of this four conference cycle was to present to the audience two main aspects of Èlisêe Reclus’ life and work: science and social compromise, the geographer and the libertarian or the libertarian and the geographer; inseparable aspects in Reclus.
 
Two geographers were invited for the conferences —Dr. Teresa Vicente Mosquete, from the University of Salamanca, and Dr. Philllipe Pelletier, from the University of Lyon— and to historians —Dr. Eduard Masjuan, from International Historic Studies Centre Centre of the University of Barcelona and Dr. Álvaro Girón, from Institution Milà and Fontanals - CSIC of Barcelona.

Besides, the book presents an article especially issued for the occasion by Joël Cornuault, who directs Les Cahiers Reclus, through which we are shown how is still possible to interrogate Reclus and his work from a political, geographical and philosophical point of view. There is still much to do! is what he says.  

Xavier Arnau
(Representing the publishers)

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