Giuseppe Feola presents at GIIST conference

On 26 September 2024, Giuseppe Feola presented the paper titled ‘Beyond refusal: reconceptualising deconstruction in prefigurative social spaces’ at the Conference ‘Grassroots Innovations as Incubators of Sustainability Transitions’ at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Abstract. Social scientists have often studied grassroots initiatives in terms of prefiguration, which has generated important insights into the construction of alternatives to capitalism. However, the role of deconstructive processes such as the refusal to engage with capitalist logics and relations remains debated and undertheorised. This essay brings the theoretical perspectives of schismogenesis and unmaking capitalism into conversation with theorisations of refusal in prefiguration, allowing the advancement of a novel understanding of deconstructive processes in prefigurative grassroots initiatives. Building upon a conceptualisation of grassroots initiatives as the production of social space, the essay makes three contributions to the debate on refusal and deconstruction in prefiguration. First, it contends that the prefiguration of alternatives to capitalism by grassroots initiatives is inherently entangled with and enabled by deconstructive processes of differentiation from capitalist cultural and sociomaterial configurations. Thus, deconstructive processes disable or weaken the influence of capitalism on prefigurative initiatives. Second, to fully and more accurately comprehend such disabling or weakening, scholars should rely on a conceptual repertoire encompassing refusal, but also other processes such as unlearning, sacrifice, and defamiliarization. Third, the essay contends that such deconstructive processes may enable, if not be preconditional for prefiguration having liberating, protective and affirmative functions.