Social Movements Prefiguring Political Theory

Adding to the growing literature on social movements as knowledge and theory creators, this chapter wants more social movement research to focus on the content of the political theories created by social movements, as an outcome of their morality. This chapter argues that prefigurative social movements create political theory through the interplay of their internal and external communication, their organization, and in their discussions of how and why to change the world: They are prefiguring political theory through their cognitive praxis. The chapter demonstrates how the literature on prefigurative social movements and Ron Jamison and Andrew Eyerman’s concept of cognitive praxis, combined with a decolonial feminist approach to knowledge and theory, provides space for the political theory of social movements within social movement literature. This theory is inherently political as it is aimed to be a (temporary) guide toward the kind of world the movements want to see and argues why the world should look like that. The chapter briefly outlines how a Cartesian approach to science prevents us from viewing theory based on lived experience as theory, even though all theory is based on lived experience, and thereby explains why we have not taken the knowledge and theory created by social movements seriously for so long. To recognize social movements as political actors, we need to engage with the concepts, policy proposals, critiques, or new institutions that they are creating, and not only the mechanics around creating them. Consequently, we need to recognize social movements as the authors of the knowledge and theory they create and not take credit for “discovering” it. Lastly, from a decolonial approach, we should recognize that social movement research is relational and that the research process should involve the social movements themselves to make sure they also benefit from it, and view them as colleagues who are sharing their knowledge with us. Moving away from the more Cartesian view of science requires a decolonization of the entire research process, and in particular rethinking what this means in terms of authorship, ownership, and credit.