Anarchism and the Rewilding of Utopia

Laurence Davis, Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork, Ireland

L.Davis(at)ucc.ie

Abstract: Given the mounting pressures within the field of utopian studies propelling it towards a self-destructive accommodation with dominant conceptions of realism, coupled with the enormous power of the hegemonic capitalist utopia to harness utopian energies and desires to the exigencies of domination, what is to be done? The primary argument of this paper is that communist-anarchist utopianism manifests certain distinctive ideological features which, together, suggest a revolutionary, realistic, and grounded utopian alternative to the domesticated, depoliticised, elitist, and co-opted form of utopianism now gaining traction and scholarly legitimacy in the academy.