The romance of prefiguration and the task of organization

ABSTRACT

In this short commentary, I reflect on the strengths and limitations of thinking about social change in terms of prefiguration. It’s a fashionable term in social movements and amongst academic commentators, but is it a helpful one? What practices, strategies and forms of organisation does it exclude? I begin with Carl Bogg’s 1977 essay which defined prefigurative organising as an antidote to party Marxism but does not celebrate it uncritically. I then move on to consider just why so many people seem to be charmed by the idea of prefiguration, before concluding with some remarks on why those committed to prefiguration cannot evade questions of strategy, of a dynamic relation between means and ends, if they wish to address both personal and institutional politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Activism
• prefiguration
• social movements
• strategy
• means
• ends

Acknowledgments

Grateful thanks to Elena Pagani for her comments on a previous draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Though its relationship to the radical feminism of the time was rather shameful, involving throwing fruit and shouting. The phrase ‘the personal is political’, credited to Hanisch (1970), is in part a reaction to ideas about male vanguardism in US radical politics.

2. https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/iwwpreamblemanifesto.html, accessed 11/21.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin Parker

Martin Parker is Professor of Organization Studies and lead for the Inclusive Economy Initiative at the University of Bristol, UK.