More Than Prefigurative Politics? Redefining institutional frames to reduce precarity under neoliberal capitalism
Abstract
This paper responds to the emergent calls for recovering the role of contentious politics in prefigurative communities to more effectively transform capitalist institutions. Theoretically drawing on the work of Judith Butler, our paper points to the importance of addressing the institutional frames that demarcate who will be (mis)recognized in the public space and which are at the core of politics. Our analysis of the Coop case shows how prefigurative and contentious politics are not incompatible, but can rather strengthen each other in a virtuous circle. When articulated to redefine existing institutional frames, they can reduce precarity. Through this articulation an assembly is constituted where a redefined subject can emerge outside the precarizing frames of neoliberalism. At the same time, our analysis suggests that Coop’s political practices do not completely redefine the individualized, calculative neoliberal subject. Project workers embraced the assembly only to the extent that it helped them reduce their self-responsibility and advance their professional and life projects. Overall, these insights advance the literature on grassroots organizations by showing the importance of contentious politics in attempting to redefine the institutional frames, as opposed to solely relying on prefigurative politics outside institutions. Yet they simultaneously confirm the difficulty of redefining the precarious neoliberal subject through collective emancipatory projects.
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Biographies
Marjan De Coster is a doctor-assistant at the department Work and Organisation Studies at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven and affiliated to the research group SEIN at Hasselt University. Her work focuses on processes of precarization and vulnerability and the potential of resistance under neoliberal governance. She draws on the work of Judith Butler to theorize these matters along processes of performativity and (mis)recognition along the institutionalized frames. Her earlier work has been published in Gender, Work and Organization.
Patrizia Zanoni is full professor at the School of Social Sciences of Hasselt University (Belgium) and chair in organization studies at the School of Governance of Utrecht University (The Netherlands). Drawing on various critical traditions of thought, she investigates diversity in the capitalist organization of the economy and society, technology, (in)equality and the possibility of alternatives. Her work has been published in various established international journals. She is currently co-editor-in-chief of Organization: The critical journal of organization, theory & society.
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Article first published online: July 2, 2022
Issue published: June 2023
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