| This thesis critically explores contemporary anarchistic politics. In particular, it examines the relationship between anarchist theory and social transformation to see how it can offer scholars a new way to look at possibilities of anti-authoritarian alternatives to both the existing neo-liberal order, and to the failed State-communist programs of the Twentieth century. What distinguishes the anarchist milieu is its emphasis on employing anti-hierarchical forms of social interaction within the methods of organization. This practice manifests the very forms of social relationships that activists hope to achieve in the longer term. In other words, anarchists are committed to the ethos of prefigurative politics, which seeks to collapse the distinction between their means and ends. Thus, by closely exploring these prefigurative practices—spokescouncils, consensus decision-making, and black bloc formations—it reveals and opens the doors to post-utopian possibilities of resistance and alternative ways of being, although they remain imperfect and seemingly paradoxical. |
