Where is the Why if the What is in How? The Issue of Intent in “Unintentional Ideal Communities”

摘要

This article examines the place of intent in the development of “unintentional ideal” communities in relation to the wider realm of utopian practice. A utopian intent may seem to be inherent to utopia, indeed as crucial in identifying or establishing a “utopia”. Intent might be assumed to be less of an issue in utopian practice than with utopian literature; for the latter, the intentions of the creators or founders of a community may be found in statements, charters or core documents stating the beliefs or principles upon which a community is founded — they aim to realise utopia. However, a turn to resisting the closure, perfection or “blueprinted” nature of utopias has enabled an expansion of utopian studies to embrace the unknown, the processual and the open-ended. Intent is therefore problematic; indeed, the processual turn in utopian studies may obviate the need to consider intent at all. Yet utopists have seldom interrogated the nature of intent in an expanded utopian schema. Drawing on historical research — from ex-slave frontier communities of the nineteenth-century USA, and “pirate” communities of the late seventeenth/early eighteenth centuries — this article proposes that communities may develop which may be described as “utopian” or “ideal”, despite no express utopian intent amongst their founders or inhabitants of the community. This article therefore examines the notion of intent in practical utopias, and critically explores the implications of “unintentional” utopias for utopian thought.