Notes on Nowhere: Feminism, Utopian Logic, and Social Transformation

Conclusion. Moveable Locales: Narrating Unsutured Utopia

CONCLUSION Moveable Locales: Narrating Unsutured Utopia In Sources of theSelf, Charles Taylor observes that our orientation in moral space is similar to our orientation in physical space; this observation also holds true for our orientation in social and political space. Contemporary critical discourse, in particular, tends to construct social forces in spatial relations such as "inside versus outside" or "margin versus center." Given this characteristic of contemporary political discourse, my interest in combining an analysis of feminist theory with an analysis of Utopian literature derives not just from the explicitly political and didactic nature of Utopian literature, but also from the way that Utopian literatures emphasis on description spatializes the relation between social forces. Utopia's description of the social space provides an opportunity to "visualize" the relation between the experience of oppression and the vision of a transformed society, and to visualize the problematics of moving back and forth between them. Taylor also observes, however, that a basic condition of our existence is the way we grasp our lives in narrative, and that in order to have a sense of where we are, we have to have a sense of how we have become and of where we are going (47). In examining the relation between the Utopian and critical impulses, I have therefore also focused on this temporal pole by recognizing the fact that Utopia is not finally a space, but rather the narration of a space. In my analysis of the literature, I have emphasized that the manner in which this space is narrated and the relations that narration draws between the discourses circulating within the novel—as much as the 203 Conclusion frozen image of this space—contribute to how Utopian literature signifies politically. In part through an examination of the productive practices of Utopian literature, I have identified what I consider generally to be the conservative aspects of the Utopian impulse. I have shown how the traditional form of the Utopian novel is organized around the neutralization of contradiction, a homology between individual and social body (with the attendant suppression of the embodied individual agent), and a dichotomy between Utopia and dystopia (with the attendant concern for shoring up the boundaries of Utopia). I have observed that, in discourses of social transformation, this conservative Utopian impulse is expressed through a dependence upon representational subjectivity, a fear of contamination by the dominant order, the projection of internal contamination and contradiction , and the suppression of individual subjectivity and agency. I have demonstrated how, when attempts to imagine oppositional subjectivity and oppositional social spaces retain this conservative Utopian logic, they easily end up complementing the dominant order. An examination of feminist "utopias of reversal" reveals that, while attempts to construct a Utopia based on difference effectively turn our gaze to that other space against which the dominant order has defined itself, these attempts end up sustaining a complementary relation between the two terms of the opposition without significantly challenging the structure of that opposition. The rejection of Utopian logic in contemporary discourses of social transformation is inspired both by the identification of this logic's conservative tendencies and by the increasing perception that there exists no transcendent position outside of language and representation —in, for example, the body, or in some unreconstructed notion of the "experience" of marginalized groups—from which to launch a critique. This rejection represents a movement away from predicating social transformation on identifying a Utopian ideal toward which society is moving, or a Utopian point of locution from which to imagine alternatives to existing conditions. Since Utopia has traditionally attempted to suppress its interaction with existing conditions , recognition that the Utopian impulse is implicated in and produced by existing conditions has been understood to be hostile to 204 Conclusion this impulse—compromising its effectiveness and relevance. Because the Utopian impulse is also tied to the critical impulse, the perception of its erosion is also tied up with the perception of eroding possibilities for effectively critiquing existing conditions. Although I have examined when and how Utopian space sustains an oppressive logic or attempts to disengage itself from its historical conditions of production, I have questioned the proposition that the Utopian impulse is either always oppressive or always coopted. Through an analysis of contemporary critical Utopias, I have looked for ways that the Utopian impulse can be deployed strategically in a productive and critical way to challenge the status quo. The evolution of contemporary...