The Prefigurative Politics of Present Transformation

Present times are characterised by competing urgencies that have been memorably termed a polycrisis. Silo thinking and the slow burn of long-term targets do not cut it in the face of escalating societal challenges and rapidly shifting goalposts. Prefigurative politics—embodied strategies to render desirable futures with immediacy—represent a future-oriented approach to the need to act in the here and now to move from crises toward resolution. Just as polycrisis cannot be resolved in a single way, prefigurative politics do not come with a recipe for action. They are necessarily contingent and situated, co-created in dynamic engagement, and mobilised through networks of resonance and resistance. In this editorial introduction to our book on the prefigurative politics of present transformation, we offer a reflective take on this quintessentially pluriversal concept. Convening the contributors to this collection around this theme has brought into firmer focus the conceptual and analytical potential inherent in the mobilisation of prefigurative politics, both as a way to think and as a means to act, in the context of sustainability. These practices play out at the urban scale, in spaces of conviviality and politics, within sectoral movements, as well as in cross-sectoral and transdisciplinary transitions to diverse notions of sustainability, birthing futures through embodiment.