Prefigurative Social Movements and the State in the 21st Century

• In Event: 261 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Activism and Social Movements

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the theory and practice of prefiguration. Prefigurative social movements, such as the Occupy movement, bypass appealing to or taking over state authority as goals. This is part of prefiguration’s general rejection of hierarchical power relations. After considering the ways in which social movements, including Occupy and the recuperated workplace movement in Argentina, have attempted to eliminate hierarchical social relationships, we discuss the Occupy Sandy movement. Using lessons learned from Occupy Wall Street, activists helped communities in Far Rockaway recover from Hurricane Sandy after state agencies proved incapable. Looking toward the future, activists have helped Far Rockaway residents establish cooperatively-owned businesses, which themselves prefigure a non-hierarchical economy. Despite all of this, however, prefigurative movements, as well as social movement theory more generally, must still consider the question of how to best understand the relationship between movements and the state.

Authors

• Heather Anne Hax, Towson University

• William Tsitsos, Towson University