Beyond Refusal: Reconceptualizing Deconstruction in Prefigurative Social Spaces

Social scientists have often studied grassroots initiatives in terms of prefiguration, generating 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 undertheorized. This essay brings the theoretical perspectives of schismogenesis and unmaking capitalism into conversation with theorizations of refusal in prefiguration, allowing the advancement of a novel understanding of deconstructive processes in prefigurative grassroots initiatives. Building upon a conceptualization 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 comprehend fully and more accurately such disabling or weakening, scholars should rely on a conceptual repertoire that encompasses refusal, as well as 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.