The recent collaborative workshop held in Oslo on 15–16 April brought together a diverse and interdisciplinary community of 32 scholars and practitioners from across 18 countries, including David Stella and Simeon Vaňo from the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, united by a shared interest in exploring prefigurative politics on transformations. The workshop was funded under the TransformERS Cost Action and was part of the Action’s activities.
The term prefigurative politics refers to the practice of embodying desired futures and empowering societal transformations. It is rooted in the idea that future visions can and should inform present-day action to enact futures. In this sense, it serves as a conceptual, methodological and political orientation.
An invitation to the seminar was sent to the authors of 29 drafted studies out of around 100 submitted, which represent the chapters of the upcoming book volume. Hosted in the Deichman Bjørvika library in downtown Oslo, the workshop was a lively and inspiring forum for discussion, reflection, and critique of submitted studies on prefigurative politics. The discussions were structured to allow for deep dives into each contribution, encouraging participants to critique, support, and extend one another’s work.
The participants in the seminar came from fields such as environmental science, political science, urban planning and architecture, disaster risk management, medicine and technology, psychology, philosophy or ethnography, among others. The workshop also featured a keynote address by renowned scholar Karen O’Brien, whose work on climate change, agency, and transformation helped to frame and deepen the collective inquiry.
At the conclusion of the workshop, the participants were invited to submit revised chapters that incorporated the feedback from the workshop and reflected the collective insights. The chapters are going to be a part of an edited volume within the Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability series, which is planned for publication at the end of 2025. The upcoming book aims to advance understanding of prefigurative politics as a practical, grounded response to the complex environmental and social transformation. By highlighting case studies, conceptual framings, and methodologies that enact desired futures in the present, the volume seeks to offer both analytical clarity and actionable insights.
Authors: Simeon Vaňo & David Stella
SustainableCZ 
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