On the necessity of prefigurative politics

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the concept of prefiguration by outlining the necessity of its contribution to a progressive public philosophy for the 2020s. In the introduction, I explain how the object of critique for many social theorists has shifted over the course of the last decade from neoliberal globalization to capitalism understood as an encompassing form of life. In light of this, I enumerate the features that should define a progressive public philosophy: radical, emancipatory, and decolonized. The introduction is followed by an overview of the academic debates emerging after the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2007–8. Among these, accelerationism fundamentally rejects the incorporation of prefigurative politics in any emancipatory political agenda. To better understand this position, I examine the origin and meaning of prefiguration and prefigurative practices in more detail in Section III. In it, I argue that prefigurative politics entails a holistic approach to social change that digs its roots in feminist and ecological thought and focuses on social reproduction and the preservation of life rather than solely economic production. Subsequently, I deploy the case of Occupy Wall Street to show that a growing number of contemporary social movements are implementing a dualistic strategy that simultaneously combines repertoires of action typical of protest movements with prefigurative practices focused on the embodiment of alternatives. This dualism, along with the limited success of Occupy Wall Street in concretizing its claims and goals, has led prefigurative politics to being labelled as incompatible with, if not even hindering, any emancipatory strategy. My argument instead is that prefigurative politics constitutes a fundamental and necessary component of any political strategy aimed at transcending contemporary capitalism since it conceives progressive social change in an ontologically and epistemologically different way with respect to political parties and protest movements. Taking this into consideration, I conclude that conventional politics and prefigurative politics can be seen as having the potential to mutually reinforce each other and that prefigurative politics should be acknowledged as a pivotal concept in establishing a progressive public philosophy for the 2020s. Only by doing so, will this philosophy be truly radical, emancipatory, and decolonial.

Introduction to Special Issue: Decertifying Legal Sex—Prefigurative Law Reform and the Future of Legal Gender

“…Treating a contentious legal proposal associated with the future as if it was a currently viable reform is an exercise in prefigurative institutional experimentation. Prefiguration is a helpful framework for thinking about initiatives that anticipate and embody hoped-for future possibilities (see Monticelli 2022), by enacting changes that are sought (Yates 2015;Mensink 2020; see also Carroll et al 2019). Such a move refuses the conventional political division between means and ends (Van de Sande 2013; Swain 2019).…”

Dissent within the global political economy: four frustrations, and some alternatives

“…Consequently, prefigurative projects and the solidarity economy cannot fully escape capitalist market imperatives or subvert traditional power relations, something which also creates challenges and raises significant questions regarding the transformative momentum of alternatives (Monticelli, 2021). Experiences of the large worker cooperative Mondragon in Spain highlight how scaling up non-capitalist projects can reproduce social hierarchies, such as between cooperative members and waged labourers (Gritzas and Kavoulakos, 2016).…”

Introduction

“…Indeed, the contributors to this volume -as demonstrated in the chapters by Monticelli, Yates and de Moor, and du Plessis and Husted -are well aware of the limitations of prefigurative politics; hence, they provide cautions that one should bear in mind while studying prefigurative movements. At the same time, though, critics sometimes fail to acknowledge that, as some scholars of prefiguration have previously pointed out (Brissette, 2016;Monticelli, 2021), we can't deploy the same epistemological lenses used to assess the effects of conventional and contentious politics to study prefigurative politics. To put it bluntly, it would be like using the instruction manual of a fridge to learn how to drive a car.…”

“…Rather than being 'scaled up' from the grassroots to the mainstream institutional level, many prefigurative initiatives follow non-linear, rhizomatic, network-like and place-based patterns of change diffusion (on this, see Forno and Weiner, 2020). Finally, prefigurative politics -and the embodiment of alternatives it implies -integrates, rather than supplants, conflict and resistance-based social movements and collective actions (Temper et al, 2018, p 754;Monticelli, 2021).…”