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A Study of Social Critical Theory, Feminist Utopianism, Anarchism and Eco-Political Thought

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A Study of Social Critical Theory, Feminist Utopianism, Anarchism and Eco-Political Thought Lincoln University Digital Thesis Copyright Statement The digital copy of this thesis is protected by the Copyright Act 1994 (New Zealand). This thesis may be consulted by you, provided you comply with the provisions of the Act and the following conditions of use: you will use the copy only for the purposes of research or private study you will recognise the author's right to be identified as the author of the thesis and due acknowledgement will be made to the author where appropriate you will obtain the author's permission before publishing any material from the thesis. How Should We Live? A Study of Social Critical Theory, Feminist Utopianism, Anarchism and Eco-political Thought A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University by Seònaid Mary-Kate Espiner Lincoln University 2019 Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 4 Part One: Utopian Intentions ................................................................................................. 27 Chapter One: Utopianism: More to Occupy ....................................................................... 37 Chapter Two: Anarchism, Anarcha-feminism and Eco-Political Discourses as Critical Utopian Texts .................................................................................................................... 67 Chapter Three: What’s the Alternative? Living without Capitalism and Patriarchy in Anarres and Mattapoisett ................................................................................................ 93 Chapter Four: Poststructural Theory, Anarchism and Subjectivity ................................... 117 Chapter Five: Having It All in One Place: Feminism and Capitalism in Ellen Bravo’s “Not a Favour to Women: The Workplace in a Feminist Future” .............................................. 148 Part Two: Accidental Utopianisms? ...................................................................................... 165 Chapter Six: The Material of Theorising ........................................................................... 176 Chapter Seven: Awakening the Sleeping Islands: Rachel McAlpine’s The Limits of Green (1985) and Running Away from Home (1987) ................................................................ 192 Chapter Eight: Agency and the Utopianism of Nonhuman Nature: Plant Gang and McAlpine’s Assemblages ................................................................................................ 217 Chapter Nine: A Proximate Synthesis ............................................................................... 241 Part Three: Utopian Reflections ........................................................................................... 252 Chapter Ten: Utopain: Unhappy Hope ............................................................................. 255 Chapter Eleven: Postmodernism, Utopianism and the Inward Turn: Particularity, Identity and Difference ................................................................................................................ 279 Conclusion: Staying with the Fragments .......................................................................... 308 1 Acknowledgements My heartfelt thanks first and foremost to my supervisors, Dr. Kevin Moore and Dr. Roslyn Kerr, whose immense support and unwavering trust enabled me to begin and continue this thesis. Thank you for your kind guidance and for your generous sharing and entertaining of ideas throughout the twists and turns of this thesis. I acknowledge also the financial support of the William Machin trust for providing a research scholarship for which I am very grateful. Thanks must go to my extremely supportive and tolerant family and their accommodation of me during the most difficult part of my thesis work. Thank you to my parents, Trisa and Stephen, for never doubting my ability to complete this project and for teaching me two things integral to the subject of this thesis: critical thought and a profound commitment to hope. “No one makes it alone” (Greg Johnson). Thanks to my sisters, Eilish, Niamh and Ciara for your continual friendship and inspiration: burger night banter, Running Squad Motivation and traversing the district fully-clad in ABBA costumes reminded me how to live amongst long stretches of study. Thanks also to Maisie for her company during otherwise solitary days of reading and writing. I am also immensely grateful to my grandparents, Tom, Kate and Eric for your ongoing support over the years which made it possible for me to reach the point of even beginning. Thank you also to my friends, fellow socialists, and the postgraduate communities at both Lincoln University (especially the Forbes Fivers!) and the University of Canterbury. I appreciate the countless conversations which have shaped my thinking, and I am thankful for the solidarity throughout our thesis journeys. Thanks to Sionainn and Mark for the feedback and kind encouragement on chapter drafts. Thank you to Susan, Paulien, Callum and Mark, for providing much needed emotional support, tolerating all manner of ramblings, and whose own thinking about anarchism, utopianism, feminism, politics, resistance and the meaning of life has, at various points, provided the building blocks, sounding boards and the motivation to begin, continue and complete this thesis. Like any project, this has been a collaborative effort. 1 2 Abstract of a Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. How Should We Live? A Study of Social Critical Theory, Feminist Utopianism, Anarchism and Eco-political Thought by Seònaid Mary-Kate Espiner Resistant discourses such as feminism, anarchism and environmentalism can be read as assertions that social life could be arranged and experienced in ways other than how heteropatriarchal capitalism structures society and culture. These criticisms are both utopian and ontological. Inherent in these critical discourses is both the concern that things are not as they ‘should’ or could be, and the proposition that dominant discourses do not hold a monopoly on reality. This play between reality and improvement, between the possible and the immanent, is a hallmark of utopianism, and is well-trod ground in utopian theory. Holding academic work, activism and fiction to be collaborators in a perhaps unintentional utopian project, I analyse a number of examples from fictional writing, resistant discourses and social critical theory. In the postmodern era however, resistance and even the suggestion of alternatives to heteropatriarchal capitalism seems particularly difficult and likely to be subsumed by dominant discourses. Yet although resistant discourses remain entangled with dominant ones, unable to transcend the cultural conditions which produce them, they all nonetheless contain ideals and alternatives for 2 3 world-making. In this thesis I argue that utopianism is not irrelevant, but immanent, while also seeking to problematise and disprove that claim by examining some of the concepts and assumptions usually attached to the concept ‘utopian’. In reading these discourses as utopian, and by drawing on a body of work in utopian studies which has become increasingly nuanced over time, I offer a conceptualisation of utopianism and resistance in terms of fragments and unintentionality. I argue that postmodern utopianism might be described as a utopianism which is expressed through the particular. I frame these practices of utopianism as fragments of an assemblage or collective utopian and resistant project which negates the totality of dominant discourses and hierarchy in western culture, even while this reading reflects, rather than transcends, the postmodern preoccupation with particularity. Key words: Critical theory, resistant discourses, feminism, anarchism, environmentalism, eco-politics, utopianism, fiction 3 4 Introduction “Utopia is on the horizon: When I walk two steps, it takes two steps back. I walk ten steps, and it is ten steps further away. What is Utopia for? It is for this, for walking” (Eduardo Galeano, qtd. in Racine et al.). Walking is an apposite metaphor for this thesis. Not necessarily in the sense of stumbling in vain towards an ever-moving horizon, but rather in that movement itself, going on, is a practice of both writing and hope. There is no end goal, no final horizon to attain. The movement itself is what utopianism and what theory, is perhaps ‘for’. Nonetheless, this thesis purports to do a number of more specific things. Firstly, to point out the persistence and variety of utopianism, particularly where it appears in places or texts not usually considered to be first and foremost “utopian”. Relatedly, this thesis positions current theoretical and political discussions and conundrums within the domain of a utopian question which might be put broadly as “how should we live?” (Levitas, “The Imaginary” 48). Secondly, this thesis seeks to understand how some aspects of utopian thought interact with various postmodern characteristics in theory, culture and discourse. In particular, I look at utopianism in relation to identity, fragmentation and boundary-dissolution, and how these may be a part of the production of resistance to existing orders (in theory, fiction and activism alike) and the imagining of revolutionary change in a cultural and political context that assimilates or makes impossible
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