In Siddharth Sareen and Sirkku Juhola (eds), Societal Transitions to Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, pp. 449-466
The necessity for unprecedented levels of change in social organisation towards more sustainability is now widely acknowledged. There also appear to be transformations taking place at various scales with a focus on reimagining, challenging, and changing existing practices and ways of seeing, being, and doing. Viewing these present transformations through the lens of prefigurative politics, as we do in this volume, illustrates not only the explanatory power of the concept of prefigurative politics, but also the ways in which present transformations are emerging and evolving, or stalling. In this conclusion, we emphasise the key insights from each chapter for our overarching concern, and offer three main takeaways. These pertain to the multi-scalar nature of prefiguration, its entanglement with boundary transgression, and the multiple temporalities of prefigurative politics in the present. Together, these characteristics are crucial for a coherent understanding of and cohesive approach to the prefigurative politics of present transformation.
