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Contemporary debates in anarchism, particularly the conceptual debates sparked by the development of post-anarchism and those surrounding the emergence of the anti-globalization movement, have brought an old question back to the table: what is anarchism? This study analyzes the canonical representations of anarchism as a political movement and political philosophy in order to reflect on the ways in which that critical question, 'what is anarchism?' has been answered in mainstream literature. It examines the way that the story of anarchism has been told and through a critical review, it discusses an alternative approach. For this purpose, two seminal canon-building texts, Paul Eltzbacher's The Great Anarchists, and George Woodcock's Anarchism have been identified and their influence is discussed, together with the representations of anarchism in textbooks describing political ideologies. The analysis shows how assumptions, biases, and hidden ideological perspectives have been normalized and how they have created an official history of a political movement. In challenging the official account, this study highlights the exclusions and omissions (third world anarchists, women anarchists, queer anarchism and artistic anarchism) that have resulted in the making of the core. The question of how to tell the story of anarchist past carries us to the shores of postmodern history where theoreticians have been discussing the relationship between past and history and the politics of representation. The anarchism offered in this study demands an engagement with a network-like structure of information rather than a linear, axial structure. Consequently, this study aims to show several layers of problems in the existing dominant historical representation of one of the richest political ideologies, anarchism; and then to discuss ways of representing the past and especially the anarchist past, to seek an answer to a principal question: what is anarchism?

This thesis explores the relationships between punk and anarchism in the contemporary contexts of the UK, Poland, and Indonesia from an insider punk and anarchist perspective. New primary ethnographic information forms the bulk of the research, drawing on Grounded Theory Method and an engagement with Orientalism. The theoretical framework is informed by the concept of antinomy which embraces complication and contradiction and rather than attempt to smooth-out complexities, impose a simplified narrative, or construct a fanciful dialectic, the thesis examines the numerous tensions that emerge in order to critique the relationships between punk and anarchism. A key tension which runs throughout the PhD is the dismissal of punk by some anarchists. This is often couched in terms of lifestylist versus workerist anarchism, with punk being denigrated in association with the former. The case studies bring out this tension, but also significantly complicate it, and the final chapter analyses this issue in more detail to argue that punk engages with a wide spectrum of anarchisms, and that the lifestylist / workerist dichotomy is anyway false. The case studies themselves focus on themes such as anti-fascism, food sovereignty/animal rights activism, politicisation, feminism, squatting, religion, and repression. New empirical information, garnered through numerous interviews and extensive participant observation in the UK, Poland, and Indonesia, informs the thick description of the case study contexts. The theory and analysis emerge from this data, and the voice of the punks themselves is given primacy here.

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This thesis describes and analyses the politics of the Australian DIY anarcha-punk scene and the ethos of the culture's participants. Eschewing the orthodox sub-cultural approach which situates 'punk' within a structuralist hegemony / resistance paradigm, the thesis uses participant observation and textual analysis techniques to understand the role played by zines (hand made publications) in fostering the intellectual and ethical capacities needed to participate in the Australian DIY anarcha-punk scene. The zines, in their deviation from classical anarchism, often invoke concepts of power and 'the political' analogous with those of poststructuralist theory, yet DIY anarchist politics also diverge from poststructuralism. I therefore address DIY anarchist politics by questioning the significance of these inconsistencies with Theory. In doing so I am led to suggest that the zines may be more usefully approached as elements in the ethico-political practice of DIY anarchism, which nonetheless draws on the 'conceptual vocabulary' of much poststructuralism, as well as other theoretical approaches. Thus I re-describe DIY anarchism as an ethos which seeks to argue for its agendas and values on non-foundational terms. Further, I demonstrate that by pursuing an ethos of 'autonomy', the culture's participants seek to develop their intellectual and ethical capacities through a self-consciously 'developmental' engagement of power relationships, in the form of DIY 'prefiguration' or exemplification. Following the preoccupation with gender politics in the zines and the wider scenes, I describe the approach to gender politics in similarly ethico-political terms, drawing likewise on various elements of poststructuralist and other theories. I show this feminist ethical practice to be based on assumptions about gender which embody a certain poststructuralist approach to 'gender', one that is predicated on the material effects of a discursively congealed gender structure, but forms part of an ethos aiming to deconstruct this structure. By re-describing the political approaches of these zines in reference to various theoretical perspectives and ethico-political practices, I am able to offer perspectives to the culture in question, as well as to the interdisciplinary academic context within which I am writing.

Twentieth century modernity has provoked multiple problems ranging from environmental degradation to human rights violations. Globally, diverse communities of people have organized to promote, not just reactive reforms, but a fundamental alteration of the foundational worldview underlying these issues. Radical activists committed their work to promoting an alternative ethos based on egalitarian, democratic, and ecologically-wise concepts. An array of methodologies emerged from these endeavors. More radical political groups focused on cultural tools to engage people in the construction of an alternative worldview. Radical activists utilized two forms of cultural politics: prefigurative politics, the physical presentation of an envisioned future and direct theory, the constant interaction between theory and practice. Within the artistic community, Ecological Artists centered their practice on cultural activism, creating publicly accessible, site-specific collaborative pieces that illuminate and utilize ecosystem principles to promote an eco-wise worldview. The concept of utilizing cultural production as a method for achieving social transformation has only recently been analyzed within the social movement discipline. Artists rarely utilize social movement vocabulary, or the term "activism" to describe their practices. To date, no correlation between artistic production and social movement strategies has been made. I argue in this thesis that Ecological Artists are cultural activists who simultaneously developed strategies and methods similar to those being worked out by radical social movement activists. While prefigurative politics and direct theory are terms defined within social movement discipline, the cultural activities are similar. Political activists' internal organization and external political work, prefigurative of an envisioned future and the result of constant interaction between theory and practice, correlates to the necessary collaborative organizations of Eco-Art and the physical presence of the work, a manifestation of the constant interaction between ecosystem theory and artistic practice. In this thesis I analyze the work of Ecological Artist Ruth Wallen as a form of cultural activism. I argue that the intention, execution, and content of her work are forms of prefigurative politics and direct theory. Ruth Wallen has been practicing Eco-Art for twenty years. Her work is focused on the heart of Eco-Art, its intention to produce an eco-wise future through artistic practice.