摘要：Through her reading of The Odyssey, Adriana Cavarero proposes a strategy for feminist action based on the creation of small communities as a means of disconnection from patriarchal society. On the face of it, her argument may seem like a straightforward appeal for feminist separatism, but it is in fact intended as a critique of the political theory of Hannah Arendt. In arguing that the public space is inherently patriarchal, and proposing that women therefore abandon the public space in favour of small communities that can provide islands of freedom from patriarchy, Cavarero rejects Arendt's v alorisation of action in a central public realm. This makes Cavarero's work interesting in the context of contemporary debates on Arendt, in which several commentators have attempted to 'decenter' Arendt's political theory. Cavarero's 'small-community' model of action also unsettles the traditional dichotomy between models that locate action within a central, public space and models that construe action as the individualistic transgression of social norms. Her work is therefore important in the context of the growing interest in small-community models of action. However, Cavarero's gendering of Arendt's concept of political action as masculine leads her to engage in identity politics, and this renders the strongest version of her argument unsound. Nonetheless, a slightly weaker version of Cavarero's argument can support her thesis that Arendt's political theory must be decentered by the inclusion of a small-community model of action
