Prefigurative Brazilian ativismo through the lens of the transformative activist stance: renewing radical political imagination through “collectividual” agency

ABSTRACT

During three months in 2015, in São Paulo, Brazil, public high school students carried out an unprecedentedly successful protest that forced the state governor to abandon plans to merge schools, which would have resulted in overcrowding and reducing their number. Working collectively via social media coordination without direct ties to institutions, students occupied hundreds of schools, reflecting recent trends in social movements characterized as prefigurative practices. The sociological literature has grappled with theorizing the core dimensions of prefigurative politics that have been associated with widely varied and often politically contested practices. We argue that defining prefigurative practices calls for theorizing agency and human development as integral to collaborative projects of social transformation and that Vygotsky’s project expanded by the Transformative Activist Stance (TAS) approach proposed by Anna Stetsenko can contribute to such theorizing. The TAS offers conceptual tools to analyze the dialectics of individual and collective agency in struggles for a sought-after future implicated in transformative practice. Based on a case study of high school occupations, we highlight the central role played by students’ development as agents of social transformation in conjunction with the growth of their collective political action as key to creating the future in the present.

Acknowledgments

The authors are also grateful to the members of Anna Stetsenko’s research group at City University of New York for commenting the first draft of the paper.

Notes

1. Inspired by the success of this movement in São Paulo, throughout the year 2016 high-school and college students from several other states across the country began occupying their schools and colleges (Wenceslao et al., 2017).

Inspired by the success of this movement in São Paulo, throughout the year 2016 high-school and college students from several other states across the country began occupying their schools and colleges (Wenceslao et al., 2017).

2. All translations from Portuguese texts were made by the authors.

All translations from Portuguese texts were made by the authors.

3. The data collection for this study was carried out by the first author under the supervision of third and fourth authors, his academic thesis advisors. The second author contributed to the theoretical background, analysis, and discussion of the article.

The data collection for this study was carried out by the first author under the supervision of third and fourth authors, his academic thesis advisors. The second author contributed to the theoretical background, analysis, and discussion of the article.

4. The term autonomist has also been used to describe the general characteristic of these protests, and it frames a set of anti-authoritarian left wing ideas and theories.

The term autonomist has also been used to describe the general characteristic of these protests, and it frames a set of anti-authoritarian left wing ideas and theories.

5. Documentaries sampled: (a) “Escolas ocupadas – A verdadeira reorganização” [Occupied Schools – the true restructuring on education] (Bro, 2015); (b) “São Paulo: Educação Ocupada” [São Paulo: Occupied Education] (VICE-Brasil, 2015); and (c) “Ocupação das Escolas na voz dos Estudantes, Pais e Sociedade” [Occupied schools in students, parents, and society’s point of view] (Estadão, 2015).

Documentaries sampled: (a) “Escolas ocupadas – A verdadeira reorganização” [Occupied Schools – the true restructuring on education] (Bro, 2015); (b) “São Paulo: Educação Ocupada” [São Paulo: Occupied Education] (VICE-Brasil, 2015); and (c) “Ocupação das Escolas na voz dos Estudantes, Pais e Sociedade” [Occupied schools in students, parents, and society’s point of view] (Estadão, 2015).

6. Their Facebook page, currently followed by about 76 thousand users, is available at https://goo.gl/7vJ2p3 and the blog can be reached at https://goo.gl/CYhr1g. Both pages were visited on October 09 2019.

Their Facebook page, currently followed by about 76 thousand users, is available at https://goo.gl/7vJ2p3 and the blog can be reached at https://goo.gl/CYhr1g. Both pages were visited on October 09 2019.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation FAPESP processes numbers nº [2015/26241-0]; [2017/00664-7]; [2018/01064-6].