Societal Transitions to Sustainability

The Prefigurative Politics of Present Transformation
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-3-032-07394-5
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan

Buch, Englisch, 472 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 756 g

Reihe: Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability

This open access book responds to the need for rapid and transformative societal change towards a sustainable future. The editorial introduction and conclusion bookend 27 case chapters about urban sites of experimentation and contestation, spaces of conviviality and politics, sectoral movements, and cross-sectoral and transdisciplinary transitions. These short case chapters address the prefigurative politics of present transformations based on wide-ranging empirical and conceptual analyses. They span societal transitions in and across sectors such as energy, food, and transport. Three key insights concern the multi-scalar nature of prefiguration, its entanglement with boundary transgression, and the multiple temporalities of prefigurative politics in the present.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sareen, Siddharth

Juhola, Sirkku

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Nachhaltigkeit

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword: Patterning a Sustainable Future ( ).- Chapter 1. The Prefigurative Politics of Present Transformation ( ).- Part I: Urban Sites of Experimentation and Contestation.-Chapter 2. Acclimatising to the Future: Prefiguration and Urban Experimentation in Public Policy ( ).- Chapter 3. Prefigurative Politics in Citizen Science: The Golf Vinor Project as a Case of Present Transformations ( ).- Chapter 4. Prefiguring Consumption Reduction in Shadow Networks: Recirculating Resources, Knowledge and Skills in Urban Tool Libraries and Community Bike Workshops ( ).- Chapter 5. Starting by Doing: Ethical Orientations for Open-Ended Prefigurative Action ( ).- Chapter 6. Prefigurative politics of post-growth futures in the making: learning from transformative practices that leverage (temporary) convivial space ( ).- Part II: Spaces of conviviality and politics.- Chapter 7. Broadening the Understanding of Deconstruction in Prefigurative Social Spaces ( ).- Chapter 8. Prefigurative Politics in Action: Youth Climate Activism and Arendt’s Politics of New Beginnings ( ).- Chapter 9. A Multi-Political Reflection on the transformative potential of citizen panels: Insights from five case studies ( ).- Chapter 10. Laughter, role-play, and immersion: Rediscovering the audience in prefigurative politics through carnival ( ).- Chapter 11. Community-based proleptic environmentalism: food, energy, and Kafka’s ‘Weg-von-hier’ ( ).- Chapter 12. Imagining futures in the present: Conceptualising prefigurative impulses through the politics of organising ( ).- Chapter 13. Inhabitation as Prefigurative Politics and Source of Political Transformations ( ).- Chapter 14. Prefiguring Conservation, Peace, and Self-Determination in the Salween Peace Park in Karen State, Myanmar ( ).- Part III: Sectoral movements.-  Chapter 15.Climate Change as a Crisis of Recognition: Prefigurative Politics of Socio-Ecological Movements for Food Sovereignty in Brazil ( ).- Chapter 16.The potential role of the law clinics in prefigurative law and politics: Environmental law clinics as a case study ( ).- Chapter 17. Prefiguring healthcare: Community-driven digital therapeutics and the politics of patient innovation ( ).- Chapter 18. Prefigurative Politics of Transformations in Land Use Decision-Making Systems in Europe ( ).- Chapter 19. For a More-Than-Human Politics of Short Food Supply Chains in Times of Human-Plant Migrations ( ).

Über Autor(innen)

Siddharth Sareen is Research Professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo. He is an award-winning environmental social scientist with a background in development studies, political ecology, and human geography. He works on the governance of energy transitions at multiple scales in and across sectors such as solar energy, electricity grids, urban transport, and forestry. Sareen has held research positions at institutions in seven countries and supervised over 50 postgraduates. He engages actively in research policy and developing the next generation of social scientists to inform, engage with, and enact more inclusive and just energy futures.

Sirkku Juhola is Full Professor of urban environmental policy at the Ecosystems and Environment Research Program at the University of Helsinki and leads the multidisciplinary research group Urban Environmental Policy. She holds degrees from the University of East Anglia and University of Sussex in international relations and development, and has worked at the United Nations University in Tokyo. She is a contributing author of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report, a lead author in the Third Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities, and a member of the Finnish Climate Change Panel.