Utopia, future imaginations and prefigurative politics in the indigenous women’s movement in Argentina

ABSTRACT

In order to analyse how social movements build alternative futures, this article explores the relationship between prefigurative politics and utopianism. A case study of the ‘Indigenous Women’s Movement for Buen Vivir’ in Argentina will reveal how movement members shape alternative futures, while taking into account how everyday life influences their approaches to the future. Empirical data collected in 2019 shows that members define the present day as a crises-ridden dystopian age, exemplified by the conflicts they face which emerge from the resource-based development model of global capitalism. Extractivist activities are understood as destroyers of the planet and therefore are viewed as an imminent threat to human existence. Hence, the members aim to make the future possible by (re)constructing a reciprocity with nature as well as one between humans and other-than-human beings, in short, to realize Buen Vivir. To unravel how prefigurative practices and utopian imaginations intersect and co-constitute each other, I focus on how Buen Vivir is experienced in the movement through horizontality, spirituality, and autonomy. These experiences are framed by the actors as pre-colonial practices that are reconstructed in the present, as they seek to decolonise capitalist modernity ‘so that there is a future’. This understanding reflects a cyclical temporality that inspires a processual, non-linear view of social change, which accompanies the indigenous women’s ‘prefigurative walking’. Thus, the linking of prefiguration with utopianism helps us in grasping the role of imagination, hopes, and visions for future transformations in the process of building alternative futures.

KEYWORDS:

• Prefiguration
• utopia
• future transformation
• indigenous movements
• Buen Vivir
• horizontality

Acknowledgement

This research was conducted as part of a DAAD-funded research stay at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in Argentina that was aimed at collecting data for my PhD dissertation. My thanks go to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for the funding and to the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at the UBA for providing support in accessing the field. I also thank my doctoral supervisor, Eva Gerharz, for her guidance, as well as feedback during the drafting process, Shelley Feldman, Luke Yates and the three anonymous referees for their insightful comments. Thanks most of all to the movement participants for enabling my engagement in their activities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service.

Notes on contributors

Anja Habersang

Anja Habersang is a scientific coordinator at the Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS) at the University of Kassel. She is also a PhD-student at the Ruhr-University Bochum and associated member of the Doctoral Research Centre at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences. As an activist scholar, her research interests include socio-ecological transformation, social movement research, and decolonization theory.