Societal Transitions to Sustainability: The Prefigurative Politics of Present Transformation

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.