scholarly journals On the necessity of prefigurative politics

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110569
Author(s):  
Lara Monticelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Public Philosophy ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Prefigurative Politics

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.

scholarly journals Carnival against the Capital of Capital

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-288
Author(s):  
John L. Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Political Protests ◽  
Russian Literary

The medieval carnival, according to Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin, was a public festivity of excess in which people were free to violate social norms and subvert prevailing authority. Recent analysts have applied Bakhtin’s concept of carnival to contemporary political protests that incorporate a playful, culture-defying element. But the term has been used in multiple and contradictory ways. For Bakhtin, carnival is an expressive pattern pervasive in a culture and has no instrumental purpose (what I call “communal carnival”), while carnivalesque protest consists of specific practices with an explicit political agenda (“intentional carnival”). The Occupy Wall Street movement can be analyzed as both communal and intentional carnival. Protest movements use humor to subvert received doctrines; humorous performances are addressed to participants, the public, and repressive forces. Some critics regard carnivalesque performances as frivolous and demeaning of serious political causes. I conclude by discussing the effect of carnival on the Occupy movement.

The Ballerina and the Blue Bra: Femininity in Recent Revolutionary Iconography

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Lisiak
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Tahrir Square ◽  
The Military

The uprisings and protest movements of 2011 (the so-called Arab Spring, "indignados," Occupy Wall Street, etc.) have been widely considered groundbreaking because of their leaderless structures. Owing to the absence of unequivocally leading figures, the symbolic and practical role of urban space has been emphasized in popular media and scholarship alike. Next to the widely circulated and discussed images of Tahrir Square, Puerta del Sol, and Zucotti Park, however, another type of image has been prevalent, that of a revolutionary woman. In response to W.J.T. Mitchell's article "Image, Space, Revolution: The Arts of Occupation" (2012), the author argues that the reasons for the focus of recent revolutionary imagery on women cannot be reduced to the allegedly feminine character of nonviolence, but are much more complex and entail far-reaching consequences. Lisiak engages with two images Mitchell quotes as iconic of the 2011 revolutions – the ballerina from the Occupy Wall Street poster and the "blue bra girl" beaten and disrobed by the military police in Tahrir Square – and discuss their cultural and historical significance. These two images represent two major tropes prevalent in revolutionary iconography: woman as a symbol of revolutionary ideals and woman as a symbol of the failure of revolution. Further, the author proposes that revolutionary images centered on women, both real-life and fictional, belong to what Ariella Azoulay calls the "language of revolution".

Governance: Democracy All the Way Down

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Media System ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
Prefigurative Politics

This chapter examines indymedia's multilayered, transnational application of direct democracy, which in many ways anticipates and sets the stage for Occupy Wall Street. It focuses on the ways that democracy is understood and enacted by indymedia activists—from the development of an open media system where anyone can speak (democratizing the media), to the preference for consensus-based decision making (democratic governance), and the belief that activists must develop the structures, processes, and relationships within the movement that they aim to achieve in the world (prefigurative politics). Seen from this vantage, for indymedia activists democracy is multivalent, standing in as the end goal of a new society, a revolutionary tool to remake that society, and the everyday practice that allows for innovation and new forms of collective power.

Council Democracy and Contemporary Movements of Occupation

2020 ◽  
pp. 193-197
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ask Popp-Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Institutional Form ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Self Organisation

The conclusion summarises the main arguments of the book and relates the council tradition to contemporary protest movements such as Occupy Wall Street and Indignados. Although the council movements of the 20th century cannot be used as a blueprint for future protest and organisation, the council tradition and contemporary movements of Occupation share the ambitions of self-organisation, of pluralising the traditional spaces of politics, and of giving institutional form to the constituent power.

scholarly journals The alter-globalism movement and its successors: The struggle for common human identity?

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-272
Author(s):  
Viktor O. Melnikov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Single Identity ◽  
Traditional Institutions ◽  
To Come

The crisis state of society, expressed in the breakdown of traditional institutions, escalation of conflicts in the international arena, environmental problems, alienation and other issues need to be resolved. It is necessary to solve social problems by the whole society, but a problem arises here: while there is no unifying, universal platform and single identity, the society remains atomized and fragmented. Nevertheless, there have been attempts to create such a platform, with the formation of a common identity. The most striking example was the alter-globalization movement, which rebelled against the neoliberal version of globalization and all the problems it poses. In the opinion of the authors of this article, the alter-globalization movement fought for a truly general humanistic content of a process that would unite all mankind. It was this movement, despite the fact that it eventually collapsed, that set the vector of development for social movements for several decades to come. So, “Occupy Wall Street”, “square movements”, modern populist movements, etc. – all of them, despite many differences between them, one way or another, fought for another future, for an alternative, inalienable world. At the same time, in recent years, we can see that the tendency to unite people in the struggle for such a goal is only gaining momentum, which, apparently, will determine the socio-political agenda of our time for a long time to come. The novelty of this study is a view on socio-political movements as mechanisms for the development of a common human identity, where the “customer” is the whole modern crisis mankind.

Protest Movements and Citizen Discontent: Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Levi Martin ◽  
James P. Murphy ◽  
Rick Moore
Keyword(s):  
Tea Party ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Protest Movements

scholarly journals A sociology for other animals: analysis, advocacy, intervention

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 242-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Cudworth
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to map the field of sociological animal studies through some examples of critical and mainstream approaches and considers their relation to advocacy. It makes the argument that while all these initiatives have made important contributions to the project of “animalising sociology” and suggest a need for change in species relations, the link between analysis and political strategy is uncertain. Design/methodology/approach – The paper develops its argument by using secondary sources, reviewing sociological positions and offering illustrations of possible interventions. Findings – Sociological interventions in the field of animal studies have been informed by critical perspectives, such as feminism and Marxism, or taken less critical routes deploying actor-network theory and symbolic interactionism. Whilst those working in critical traditions may appear to have a more certain political agenda, an analysis of “how things are” does not always lead to a clear position on “what is to be done” in terms of social movement agendas or policy intervention. In addition, concepts deployed in advocacy such as “liberation”, “quality of life” or “care” are problematic when applied beyond the human. Despite this, there are possibilities for coalition and solidarity around certain claims for change. Research limitations/implications – If the central argument of the paper were taken seriously by general sociologists, then sociology may be more open to “animal studies”. In implications for exisitng sociological animal studies scholarship is to trouble some of the certainties around advocacy. Practical implications – If the central argument of the paper were taken seriously by advocacy groups, then the hiatus between “welfarism” and “liberation” might be overcome. Originality/value – There have been recent attempts to map the field of scholarship in animal studies, but surprisingly little consideration of how different emergent positions inform questions of advocacy and the possibilities for political intervention.

Forum on Occupy Wall Street

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-114
Author(s):  
Juliet Dee
Keyword(s):  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street

scholarly journals The Organizational Trace of an Insurgent Moment

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 237802311770065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam D. Reich
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
York City ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Formal Organizations ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between social movements and formal organizations has long been a concern to scholars of collective action. Many have argued that social movement organizations (SMOs) provide resources that facilitate movement emergence, while others have highlighted the ways in which SMOs institutionalize or coopt movement goals. Through an examination of the relationship between Occupy Wall Street and the field of SMOs in New York City, this article illustrates a third possibility: that a moment of insurgency becomes a more enduring movement in part through the changes it induces in the relations among the SMOs in its orbit.

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