‘The revolution’s never done’: the role of ‘radical imagination’ within anti-capitalist environmental justice activism

ABSTRACT

Many individuals become involved in activism due to concerns about contemporary structural conditions and likely (negative) futures arising from them. While negative perceptions are important for driving initial involvement, visions of positive alternative futures to work towards can be crucial for motivating and shaping activist engagement. Positive visions serve as a goal as well as a potential blueprint to inform practices such that the ‘means match the ends.’ In this paper, we explore Khasnabish and Haiven’s concept of the ‘radical imagination’ as a practice in sustaining and shaping social movement engagement through a shared vision of an alternative future. We emphasise the processes of organising and grounding action in practices of the present, which forms part of a ‘praxis of prefiguration’ – informing many aspects of community building and activism. While the radical imagination shared by anti-capitalist activists is sometimes depicted as a utopian dream, we suggest that it is, rather, a hopeful imagining in constant conversation with ideological positions and organising practices, situated against and within the margins of capitalist society. These ideological commitments and future imaginings shape the ways that anti-capitalists engage with overlapping environmental and social issues and the wider landscape of political action.

KEYWORDS:

• Activism
• radical imagination
• prefigurative politics
• ethnography
• insider-research

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ivy Scurr

Ivy Scurr(https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8599-7860) is a PhD candidate (sociology & anthropology) and casual academic at the school of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle. Ivy’s research encompasses activism and community building and the role of positive alternative futures for engagement with environmental and social justice issues. Ivy’s previous research on which this article is based examined the interactions between activism and community building in the Australian anti-capitalist environment movement. Ivy is currently working on a digital ethnography on Solarpunk as an emerging movement of the Anthropocene. Ivy tweets @Ivy_QS and updates for her current project can be followed at ivy-solarpunk.com

Vanessa Bowden

Dr Vanessa Bowden (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5553-3400) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle Business School. Her research explores the social constructions of environmental knowledge, specifically looking at climate adaptation in local communities and the politics of energy transitions. She has published in journals including Global Environmental Change, Environmental Sociology, Environmental Politics and the Journal of Sociology.