Mutual Support: a Factor in the Evolution of Piotr Kropotkin

A Proposal for Discursive Analysis Through Voyant Tools

Abstract

Piotr Kropotkin is considered one of the main classical authors of anarchism, as well as the father of the anarchocommunist current. One of his major concerns, embodied in much of his extensive output, was the search for a "natural explanation", in relatively Darwinian terms, of the unnaturalness of human beings' individualistic and unsupportive social behaviour, which, to some extent, stemmed from the wild and unbridled capitalism that dominated the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is precisely the theme on which Mutual Support: A Factor in Evolution is based. This paper, based on the third edition in Spanish published by Nossa y Jara Ediciones, analyses, from the novel perspective offered by the Digital Humanities, the discursive line followed by Kropotkin in this work. Through the Voyants Tools tool, composed of several panels for the academic reading and interpretation of texts, we have been able to verify in what terms the Russian thinker's response to those social Darwinists who argued that aspects such as exploitation, inequalities or capitalist individualism represented one more element of human adaptation to the natural environment was constructed.