Contemporary feminist utopianism and the transformation of the political : discursive democracy in Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time and the Norwehian Women's Shelter Movement

Abstract

This thesis explores discursive democracy and active citizenship within the context of a contemporary feminist utopian narrative, Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), and in the Women’s Shelter Movement in Norway. Beginning with an analytical understanding of contemporary feminist utopianism as transformative and subversive in its anticipation of radical political and social change, the paper then provides an overview of theoretical designs for discursive, communicative, and radical democracy. The discussion focuses on deliberation as a process of communication and interaction characterized by persuasion, and free from coercion, through which free and equal participants aim toward consensus. Habermas’s perspective on collective political action and communicative rationality augments the analysis, as does Arendt’s discussion of political action. This theoretical framework is applied in an examination of the processes of deliberation in the utopian community of Mattapoisett in Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, where even questions of science and technology are decided through deliberation open to all citizens. An investigation of the Women’s Shelter Movement in Norway links these theories of democracy and political activism to the concept of a feminist eutopia, a good place for women. The aim is to show that contemporary feminist utopianism provides a space for envisaging a more inclusive, pluralistic and democratic society.