Trying Not to Think About It: The Limits of Inter-ideological Collaboration in Prefigurative Movements

• In Event: 3151 - Theory Section Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 9. Theorizing Institutional Challenges

Abstract

Studies of recent protest movements have suggested that by following the anarchist tradition of prefigurative politics, such movements are able to form broad coalitions based on shared practices that sidestep ideological differences. This study examines the limits of this “primacy of practice” argument, by looking into the actual political practices of several ideologically diverse prefigurative movements. Based on a three years ethnography of a New England based prefigurative libertarian movement, and a comparison of its political practices to similar previously documented ones adopted by New Left prefigurative movements from the 1960s to 1980s, this study shows ideology to have salient presence in activists’ habitual political action, leading to differences not only in the meanings attributed to ostensibly similar institutions, but in the actual practices themselves. These findings serve to challenge existing assumptions about prefigurative movements ability to form inter-ideological coalitions, as well as to advance social change solely through developing alternative institutions and practices.

Author

• Oded Marom, University of Southern California