Prefigurative Practice: Acting in the Present, Foreboding the Future

While youth have been socially constructed as not-yet-political, their participation in social movements throughout history, and in response to the current climate crisis, suggests otherwise. This chapter explores young climate activists' uses of prefigurative strategies in global climate movements. Prefigurative politics explains how young people are inserting themselves into the political realm prior to being eligible. Prefigurative activism relates to the strategies employed in the climate change movement, such as lifestyle choices, inclusive and horizontal practices, and ethical consumption. Prefigurative foreboding is achieved through the use of protest spaces as temporary autonomous zones which provide a taste of disruption akin to what lack of climate action will entail. To examine these strategies, we draw on data generated via individual semi-structured interviews with young activists and ethnographic observation at activism events in Perth, Western Australia. The concept of prefigurative practice contributes to understandings that young people’s future imaginaries are built from their knowledge and experience of the climate crisis, inform their capacity and understanding of their experience of reality, and influence their investment in, and sense of responsibility to achieve climate action.

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Routledge Handbook of Young People's Environmental Activism

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978-1-003-40943-4

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