Utopia. Now: On the boundaries of political performativity

Abstract

This article examines the conceptual extremes of political performativity and the possibilities of performative resistance against looming dystopias. The most visible context is the US under the second Trump administration, and the argument concerns the various boundaries between which alternatives are performed: reality and utopia; agency and patience; protest and prefiguration; and emergency and emergence. A notion of performative utopias is suggested, thriving on the dual connotations of its ingredient concepts. Hence, performance and performativity cover both the dero-gatory, antitheatrical usage of common language and reporting – performative as shallow or hollow, not real, for show or distraction – and more philosophical idioms of changing the world. Likewise, utopia moves between the long-derided conceptions of something fundamentally unreal or embryonically totalitarian, and a proposed definition of some primary need or desire that is actively denied – that is, made utopian by force. Defined as performative, utopia will only ever exist to the extent that it is actually performed.