The ambiguous necessity of utopia: post-colonial literatures and the persistence of hope. [Paper in special issue: Utopias Dystopias, Alternative Visions. Archer-Lean, Clare (ed).]

• Published in: Social alternatives Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 8 - 14
• Main Author: Ashcroft, Bill
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brisbane Social Alternatives 01.01.2009
• Subjects: Ambiguity; Bloch, Ernst; Bloch, Ernst (1885-1977); Collective memory; Colonialism; Decolonization; Knowledge (Theory); Literary criticism; Literature; Memory; Negotiation; Politics; Postcolonialism; Power (Philosophy); Socialism; Source studies; Utopianism; Utopias; New York; Virginia; Chicago Illinois
• ISSN: 0155-0306; 1836-6600

This essay hinges on the paradox that becomes increasingly obvious in post-colonial literatures: while all achieved utopias are degenerate, without utopian thinking liberation is impossible. The discussion looks at the ambiguous philosophical relationship that has existed between utopias and dystopias since Thomas More's seminal classic, and the argument is advanced through the foundational Marxist utopian theory of Ernst Bloch. Paradoxically, only the thinnest of lines separates utopia from dystopia and the slippage from one to the other hinges on three kinds of ambiguity-three contradictions which demarcate the very thin line between them. Wherever utopias occur these contradictions emerge, in: the relation between utopia and utopianism; the relation between the future and memory and the relations between the individual and the collective. While these ambiguities are present in all utopian thinking, the particular ways in which post-colonial writers and thinkers negotiate them tell us a lot about their distinct form of cultural and political hope. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]