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?

The Postanarchist, an activist in a heterotopia : building an ideal type is the theme of this doctoral thesis. The main aim is to elaborate a design for the postanarchist figure, picking up its main characteristics from the work of the postanarchist Saul Newman. The argument also bears on two other authors: the post-structuralist Michel Foucault, considered a strong influence of postanarchism, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first author who labelled himself as anarchist and the first to embrace anarchy positively. Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari are introduced as mediators to provide deeper understanding of the main authors. The dissertation offers a novel theoretical revision of postanarchism through Michel Foucault and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. It notes the close similarities between Foucault and Proudhon - in terms of concepts of space, struggle, movement, necessity and consequently anarchy; establishes a conceptual net around them and uses Proudhon s thinking to fill the bibliographic gaps in Foucault s writings. The goal is to better understand the thought and the activist practice of Foucault in terms of anarchism and, in the last instance, to better grasp the postanarchism of Saul Newman in order to carve the postanarchist ideal type. Postanarchism is understood as the constitution of autonomous spaces; the notions of space and heterotopias - the Foucauldian space - are central in the dissertation. Accordingly, the thesis is structured by three hypotheses: (i) postanarchism is space constitution; (ii) the constitution of space is a struggle; (iii) to establish space is to survive. The sub-concepts of the dissertation are: movement, necessity, struggle, power subject, body, sign, truth and utopia. The thesis provides an interpretative analysis of primary sources - books, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and manifestos - of the three main authors supported by secondary commentaries. It departs from conventions by adopting a theoretical approach inspired by Foucault s solar and circular worldview (and Tommaso Campanella s City of the Sun). This facilitates the fluid organization of the argument and avoids imposing linearity on the content, thus highlighting the interrelation between content and the structure of the argument. This thesis is an exposition, an interpretation that develops new knowledge through the connections and methods that enable us to better know who the postanarchist activist is.

This thesis presents a critique of counterhegemony, arguing that imperatives of unity and coherence in social movement theory and practice tend to limit potentials for transformation. I use the 'new social movement theory' of Alberto Melucci and Alain Touraine in order to foreground the problem of intelligibility. Laclau and Mouffe’s conception of articulation is used to develop the problem of intelligibility, and helps to avoid reification. However, I argue that their concept of counterhegemony presents a blackmail where social movements either represent themselves in universal terms, or are cast as merely fragmented and particular. The Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts molarization and molecularization are used to argue that social movements that appear fragmented or vague may in fact be transformative in unexpected ways. The final chapter focuses on a recent guerilla garden at the University of Victoria, and I argue that it is significant in its capacity to foreground problems and suspend commonsense habits, without presenting a coherent and unified programme.