Prefigurative politics
Participating in protests does not appeal to me as a person. Neither do hierarchical organisations, endless organising meetings, and manifestos. I find it interesting how often contributing to change is reduced to participating in protests, in some organised movement, and voting. Oftentimes, when I mention prefigurative politics, fellow humans don't know what it means. Perhaps they just don't know the term, but most participate in prefiguring a better society anyway, often without adopting a label or claiming to be part of some movement (such as degrowth). I try to bring about a better society via my personal, everyday, simple actions, in teaching, writing, consumption, interacting with human and non-human others, etc. As a researcher, I am interested in these actions manifested by others too. It is interesting that prefigurative politics seems to be a way self-actualising humans bring about change. For example, Maslow (1970) observes: "What they settled down to as a group was an accepting, calm, good-humoured everyday effort to improve the culture, usually from within, rather than to reject it wholly and fight it from without."