Abolition feminism and utopian justice: speculative visionary fiction and the end of gendered violence

Abolition feminism is often critiqued for being “too utopian”. This pejorative use of utopianism overlooks the generative intersections between utopianism and abolition feminism. This chapter investigates some of these interrelationships between utopian-thinking, utopian literature (specifically speculative visionary fiction) and abolition feminism. Speculative visionary fictions which envision a world without prisons, patriarchy, heterosexism, racism, capitalism, and ecocide (etc) and focus on world-building speak to, are informed by, and are a part of abolitionist and social justice movements. In this chapter, we read canonical and non-canonical speculative visionary fiction – particularly that which centres Black and decolonial feminist abolitionist utopias and thought – to explore conceptualisations of violence, responses to violence and prefigurative non-carceral systems for justice. We reflect on what bringing abolition feminism and speculative fiction into conversation in the academic context tells us about responses to gendered violence, and what process-focused utopian scholarship can tell us about moving toward abolitionist futures.