Abstract
Abstract
Many contemporary movements confront existing power structures while experimenting with alternative social relations—a dynamic often discussed as prefigurative politics. Yet social psychology has prioritized explaining why people participate over examining what unfolds through collective action. This study examines how 16 participants made sense of their participation in Chile's 2019 social explosion. Using reflexive thematic analysis of in‐depth interviews, informed by the elaborated social identity model, we examine whether aspects of their involvement were understood in prefigurative terms and, if so, whether this was rooted in prior commitments, or shaped through participation, or both. Our analysis developed four interrelated themes: discovering a shared struggle, organizing and relating differently, experiencing alternatives as feasible and desirable and, for most, understanding their involvement as partially enacting the change they sought—a process we term
prefigurative realization.
Although all had prior political experience, these accounts suggest that participation—not prior commitments alone—contributed to prefigurative understandings, as existing commitments were validated and reconfigured through collective practice. These findings support for social psychology to approach collective action as a potentially transformative practice, where action is not only a means of pursuing social change but a site where change may begin to take shape.