Imagining and crafting for worlds ahead: Prefigurative utopias as contemporary practices of social imagination-in-action in Portugal and Spain

Supervisor/s: José Manuel Mendes, Mariana Barbosa and Teresa Cunha

Doctoral Programme: Human Rights in Contemporary Societies

Funding: FCT

Academic research on social transformation and protest has been traditionally focused on the politicised identities built within centralised and adversarial movements. However, recent movements (e.g., Occupy!; Transition Towns Movement) have ascribed great visibility to different processes of portraying social transformation (e.g., direct assemblies, horizontal leadership), and to place-based projects (e.g., self-managed social centres, workers cooperatives, ecovillages, food cooperatives, radical lifestyles) aiming at prefigure alternative ways of being, interacting, resisting and/or protesting. In other words, these initiatives are prefigurative utopias once they are the 'accessible waystations' (cf. Wright, 2011) to bring about radical transformation in the practice of everyday life. With a profound orientation to the creation of local alternatives (i.e., temporary and in ongoing construction) (Maeckelbergh, 2011) new prefigurative repertories of action tend to epitomize direct and autonomist political ontologies based on principles such as horizontality, congruency and self-management (i.e., Do it Yourself Politics) (Halvorsen, 2012; Hardt and Negri, 2001). Also, as the 'here and now' constructions of individuals, groups or communities' desired transformations, prefigurative utopias reflect alternative models of being and social interacting (Graeber, 2002; Maeckelbergh, 2012; van de Sande, 2015) led by an intent of placing social imagination-in-action (cf. Haiven and Khasnabish, 2014).

In line, this project aims to develop an integrative, critical and interdisciplinary reflection on prefigurative utopias as practices of social imagination-in-action by confronting and discussing the various contributions raised by different political and social sciences' branches. Secondly, while approaching the concrete case of emergent communities (i.e., urban social centres and rural ecovillages) in Portugal and Spain as prefigurative utopias, our goal is to understand how social imagination is being narratively constructed and practically performed by their own actors. In other words, and more concretely, this project intends to grasp the main repertories of disruption; forms of social and collective organization; the lived experience of the 'everyday practice'; and the micro-projects of emancipation and democratization which are envisioned by prefigurative actors as the alternatives to the main current systems of domination. A qualitative research design based on case-study and comparative analysis methodologies will be elected. Practical implications will be discussed in regard to the potentialities and limitations of these micro-maps of 'living otherwise' in regard to their emancipatory radical politics, collective action and innovations in social justice and human dignity discourses.