Politikk, frihet og kjærlighet i Goldmans anarkistfeminisme

Abstract

When politics is understood as what happens between people, love is an expression of politics. Love is crucial for freedom: It effects what freedom is, and who can and should be free. Therefore love can both inhibit and enable freedom. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how love and motherhood can be carriers of political liberation in Emma Goldman’s (1869-1940) anarchist feminism through an examination of the relationship between the concepts of freedom and love, and the political connection between the two in Goldman’s writings. To clarify Goldman’s anarchist feminist theory in this area, the thesis also draws on the anarchist and feminist intellectual traditions that Goldman is aquainted with. Two important connections are the ones with Henrik Ibsen, and Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, especially Ibsen’s view on love and Hegel’s view of liberty. Freedom for Goldman is about what humans can be as individuals and as a collective. Human beings have a particular responsibility associated with freedom. Based on this argument the thesis argues that Goldman's anarchist feminism involves an ethics of love which encourages political counter-power.