Building New Social Relations Part 3

Building New Social Relations: Prefigurative Politics in Movements

Chair: Andrew Cornell, American Studies, New York Univeristy

Chris Dixon, History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz

Cindy Milstein, Institute for Anarchist Studies

Deborah Gould, Sociology, University of Pittsburth

Harjit Sing Gill, Institute for Anarchist Studies

The term prefigurative politics is widespread within various activist movements, and it describes modes of organization and tactics undertaken that accurately reflect the future society being sought by the group.

The I.W.W. and other anarchist activists refer to this as "building a new world in the shell of the old." If a group is aiming to eliminate class distinctions, prefigurative politics demands that there be no class distinctions within that group. The same principle applies to hierarchy: if a group is fighting to abolish some or all forms of hierarchy in larger society, prefigurative politics demands they do the same within their group structure.

Cindy Milstein is an anarchist activist and educator who talks at various anarchist and socialist gatherings. One such talk was the very informal but in-depth class, "Anarchism 101" at the National Conference on Organized Resistance, at the American University in Washington DC, in 2003 and 2004. (See the NCOR Web site for other talks by Milstein each year, including in the new Radical Theory Track.) Milstein's presentation covers the philosophical roots of anarchism and its evolution to the present, including pre-anarchist ideas of liberty, the anarchist-communist split, and a number of different anarchist philosophies, among other things.

She has also been involved with the Institute for Social Ecology, and is currently a board member with the Institute for Anarchist Studies and a co-organizer of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference. Milstein speaks regularly in public, at anarchist conferences and bookfairs as well as radical spaces, including the Finding Our Roots conference, the Unschooling Oppression conference, the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, the Bay Area Bookfair, the New York Anarchist Book Fair, and Left Forum, among others. Her essays are published in several recent anthologies--Realizing the Impossible: Art against Authority (AK Press, 2007), Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004), Confronting Capitalism (Soft Skull, 2004), and Only a Beginning (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004) as well as on the Free Society Collective Web site. She is also a collective member of the all-volunteer Black Sheep Books in Montpelier, Vermont.

To learn more about the panelist and ideas expressed in these videos check out the links at the following Sqworl page:

http://sqworl.com/?i=895030

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Left Forum
• Prefigurative Politics
• Cindy Milstein
• Anarchism
• Left
• Radical
• Imagine
• anti-authoritarian
• anti-capitalism

[billierain]

chris,

i like what you have to say about "prefigurative praxis," i.e. being the change. although to me it seems awfully similar or at least closely related to dual power. i disagree, however, that prefigurative praxis only makes sense in the context of movements for social justice.

the importance of organized resistance cannot be emphasized enough. however, the quality of our individual lives, and the impact of individual and community "prefigurative praxis" cannot be devalued.

xo billie