The challenges of solidarity in an anarchist utopia: Margaret Killjoy’s 'A Country of Ghosts' as a utopia of process

Abstract

The article discusses Margaret Killjoy’s literary realization of an anarchist society in her 2014 novel A Country of Ghosts. Killjoy creates a vision of society which is highly decentralized, anti-authoritarian, and egalitarian. It is based on free association and voluntary participation, yet its success is dependent on solidarity, mutual aid, and acceptance of responsibility. The depicted social reality is examined as a utopia of process, namely one which is open-ended, dynamic, and also not perfect – the author identifies the challenges that the solidarity of such a utopian space would face: the clash between communal consensus and personal autonomy, the treatment of potential conflict, maladjustment and crime, the performance of the decentralized state in the face of global crisis. Finally, the novel is analyzed as a work of modern anarchism, insofar as it demonstrates the impact of other contemporary anti-authoritarian movements, the result being a novel that is not merely an anarchist utopia, but one which may also be perceived as a queer utopia, a feminist utopia or an ecotopia.