Prefiguration is the future-oriented construction of political alternatives during protest and movement-building, where activists reflect their political goals and values within the processes of their movements.

This post is a summary of the well-cited article on the topic by Luke Yates, “Prefigurative politics and social movement strategy: The roles of prefiguration in the reproduction, mobilisation and coordination of movements.” Political Studies 69, no. 4 (2021): 1033-1052.

Prefiguration is about the future

Yates defines prefiguration in the first paragraph: 

“The concepts of prefigurative politics and prefiguration refer to the future-oriented construction of political alternatives, or of attempts to reflect political goals or values in social movement processes.” (1033)

Prefiguration, in this definition, is about the future. Protesters organize with a vision of the future in mind. This includes “goals” which, by definition, have not yet been reached. (goal can be defined as “the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result”). It can also mean “values,” which muddles the future-orientation a bit. But, in Yates et al (2024), prefiguration is included as part of the imagined future, or future-oriented activity.

Later in the article, Yates defines it again:

“Prefiguration is now generally used to refer to one, another, or both of the practices around (1) building alternative initiatives or practices for an anticipated changed world, or (2) a similarly future-oriented political orientation where the ‘means’ reflect ‘ends’ (Yates, 2015).” (1042)

Here, the emphasis is clearly on the future.

Examples of prefiguration

Yates lists some examples of prefiguration (1034):

— “A shift towards broadly anti-authoritarian, horizontal, participatory style of organising in the Left… network-based, informally organised mobilisations have become normal”

— “the alter-globalisation movement, the Social Forums and the anti-austerity and new democracy movements of 2010–2013, where micro-societies in city squares comprising complex divisions of labour and consensus-based participation ‘prefigured’ the alternatives sought”

— “social and solidarity economy initiatives, consumer movements, sustainable communities and other ‘everyday political’ practices and projects”

— “Slogans about ‘being the change’ are strikingly ubiquitous in popular culture.” (1035)

— Broadening the concept can include “‘urban laboratories’; ‘socio-technical niches’; ‘real’, ‘everyday’ and ‘working’ utopias; and interest in free, ‘safe’ and alternative spaces” (1034)

History of the term

The article presents an academic history of the term prefiguration. 

Prefiguration is about socialist ambition

The term seems to be strongly connected with the left and with socialism. The concept was coined by Carl Boggs in the 1970s and was about how the left can use social movements to bring about socialism. Yates (1036): “prefiguration or the verb to prefigure described revolutionary strategy and was not contrasted with taking state power, but was part of a process of radical transformation.”

Authors of the time wrote about the radical transformation from capitalism to socialism. As Yates put it, “In summary, the concept of prefigurative politics, normally attributed to Boggs, was at the point of its emergence indistinguishable from a broader discussion of ‘prefiguration’ and ‘prefigurative socialism’ which was about revolutionary left strategy” (1037).

This lasted from the 1970s to at least the late 1980s.

1990s to now: New social movements, identity movements, and anarchism

Yates argues that the 1990s version of prefiguration was the division between old social movements and new ones. The new ones included gender, identity, and the like as important central facets missing from movements of the 60s and 70s. In the 2000s, the term was taken up by anarchists. By the 2010s, the “alter-globalization” and Occupy movements had helped to popularize the term.

(a note about popularity with regard to mentions in academic articles. Almost every term that one can think of had a meteoric rise in the 2000s because the internet helped to facilitate the creation of new journals, and academics became more numerous, and therefore articles became more numerous. The more journals and articles, the more any topic is talked about)

Means-ends equivalence

Another concept related to this is “means-ends equivalence.” The author does not define it, but in short, means-ends equivalence in relation to prefigurative politics refers to the principle that the methods (means) used in political actions or movements should reflect and embody the desired goals (ends) of the movement. This concept challenges the idea of postponing the realization of ideals until after achieving power, emphasizing that the process of working towards change must align with the vision of the future society being sought… the way you act now should model the outcomes you seek.

Means-ends equivalence seems the same as prefiguration. Yates and others debate some below-the-surface nuances (1040 -1041), if you are interested.

Not much about right-wing prefiguration

Yates makes the point that the emphasis of the prefiguration literature on left-wing movements means that we don’t know much about how it applies to non-left wing movements:

Yates writes: “there is still disproportionate work on prefiguration that focuses on decision-making and direct action, and on informally organised and anti-authoritarian left-wing movements in the global North – raising questions for future research about whether and how other types of left-wing groups, right wing movements and collectives other than social movements are in any way prefigurative, and how.” (1040)

Prefiguration as a strategy

Yates laments that prefiguration has become synonymous with social movement organizing — activism per se —  and thus there has been little debate on prefiguration as a particular strategy.

“Recently, its use to describe activism per se rather than to qualify movements as prefigurative or not has revived the central debate explicitly, that of understanding its role in strategy and effective collective action.” (1041)

Yates then discusses prefiguration as a strategy of social movements. He argues that it has been criticized for being too small and too local to be useful, or easily co-opted by authorities, or becoming kinda cult-like, turning off newcomers. Yates then selectively fights with scholarship that criticizes the strategy of prefiguration. 

Yates also mentions something called “folk politics.” He doesn’t define it specifically. Folk politics is a term used to describe a style of political action that is reactive, localized, and focused on immediate, tangible outcomes rather than strategic, systemic, or long-term change. Folk politics emphasizes face-to-face interactions, small-scale projects, and local action. Examples include community gardening, neighborhood organizing, or localized direct action protests. It eschews the abstract for the practical.

There is some debate about the strategy of folk politics, and the relationship between folk politics and prefiguration. This is a discussion for another time.

Functions of prefiguration

Yates suggests that prefiguration can fulfil five functions:

1. Substitution or Supplanting Institutions: Prefiguring alternative institutions and practices as part of a process to replace existing institutions, transform states, practices, or norms 

2. Experimentation and Innovation: Using prefiguration for experimentation, learning, and setting examples to inspire others, emphasizing the generative role of movements in creating new social forms and ideas.

3. Preparation and Resourcing of Collective Actors: Serving as spaces for socialization, collective identity formation, and care for activists, including “free” or “safe spaces”.

4. Achieving Immediate Outcomes: Pursuing direct action or immediate results in the present, rejecting compromise, delay, or negotiation through third parties.

5. Ethical and Micropolitical Activism: Engaging in activism that emphasizes micropolitics and embodies moral distinctions from traditional leftist approaches, where means justify ends.

Through these functions, Yates argues, prefiguration remains central to how movements reproduce themselves, mobilize participants, and coordinate action, even as debates about its strategic value continue.

The creation of these notes were supported by the National Science Centre, Poland (2021/43/B/HS6/01155).