Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Siddharth Sareen ,  Sirkku Juhola
Publisher:   Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:  

9783032073945

ISBN 10:   3032073944
Pages:   461
Publication Date:   19 January 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Foreword: Patterning a Sustainable Future (Karen O’Brien).- Chapter 1. The Prefigurative Politics of Present Transformation (Siddharth Sareen and Sirkku Juhola).- Part I: Urban Sites of Experimentation and Contestation.-Chapter 2. Acclimatising to the Future: Prefiguration and Urban Experimentation in Public Policy (Bård Torvetjønn Haugland and Timo von Wirth).- Chapter 3. Prefigurative Politics in Citizen Science: The Golf Vinoř Project as a Case of Present Transformations (David Stella).- Chapter 4. Prefiguring Consumption Reduction in Shadow Networks: Recirculating Resources, Knowledge and Skills in Urban Tool Libraries and Community Bike Workshops (Simon Batterbury, Sabrina Chakori and Carlos Uxo).- Chapter 5. Starting by Doing: Ethical Orientations for Open-Ended Prefigurative Action (Bob Grumiau and Ian Hughes).- Chapter 6. Prefigurative politics of post-growth futures in the making: learning from transformative practices that leverage (temporary) convivial space (Steven R. McGreevy, Corelia Baibarac-Duignan and Maximilian Spiegelberg).- Part II: Spaces of conviviality and politics.- Chapter 7. Broadening the Understanding of Deconstruction in Prefigurative Social Spaces (Giuseppe Feola).- Chapter 8. Prefigurative Politics in Action: Youth Climate Activism and Arendt’s Politics of New Beginnings (Turkan Firinci Orman).- Chapter 9. A Multi-Political Reflection on the transformative potential of citizen panels: Insights from five case studies (Maria Luisa Lode, Samyajit Basu, Cathy Macharis).- Chapter 10. Laughter, role-play, and immersion: Rediscovering the audience in prefigurative politics through carnival (Frank Eckerle).- Chapter 11. Community-based proleptic environmentalism: food, energy, and Kafka’s ‘Weg-von-hier’ (Gerald Taylor Aiken).- Chapter 12. Imagining futures in the present: Conceptualising prefigurative impulses through the politics of organising (Kavitha Ravikumar).- Chapter 13. Inhabitation as Prefigurative Politics and Source of Political Transformations (Jens Brandt and Jan Lilliendahl Larsen).- Chapter 14. Prefiguring Conservation, Peace, and Self-Determination in the Salween Peace Park in Karen State, Myanmar (Zali Fung and Sheila Htoo).- Part III: Sectoral movements.-  Chapter 15.Climate Change as a Crisis of Recognition: Prefigurative Politics of Socio-Ecological Movements for Food Sovereignty in Brazil (Juliana E. Goncalves).- Chapter 16.The potential role of the law clinics in prefigurative law and politics: Environmental law clinics as a case study (Zerrin Savasan).- Chapter 17. Prefiguring healthcare: Community-driven digital therapeutics and the politics of patient innovation (João Rocha-Gomes).- Chapter 18. Prefigurative Politics of Transformations in Land Use Decision-Making Systems in Europe (Simeon Vaňo, Julia Leventon, Peter Mederly).- Chapter 19. For a More-Than-Human Politics of Short Food Supply Chains in Times of Human-Plant Migrations (Elisa T. Bertuzzo).

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Author Information

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.

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