"Jos me ei tehdä, niin kuka tekee?" : asukasaktivismi prefiguratiivisena representaationa

Authors

• Tiina Rättilä
• Jarmo Rinne

Abstract

In this article we address the phenomenon of on-the-increase resident activism(s) in Finland as an upcoming form of local political agency. We will analyze, based on interviews made among thirteen resident movements around Finland, activists’ conceptions of representation and experiences of influencing political decision-making in their municipality. We approach the subject in terms of the theory of political representation. We argue that the paradigmatic view of representative politics in terms of electoral democracy is today insufficient to understand the developments in society of the politics of representation. We will introduce a new view of representation centering on the notion of prefiguration. From this theoretical perspective representation appears as a dynamic doing and performing, in distinction to the normative underpinnings of the paradigmatic theory. One of the central findings in the article is that resident activists feel increasingly distrust towards the local government and politicians and prefer generating their own alternative relations of agency and representation in order to increase autonomy over their own affairs in the community. Through performing various self-organizing, do-it-yourself projects residents affirm their own expertise and agency, prefiguring for their community what to them represents a better way of life – more au­tonomous, social, nature respecting, and aesthetic as to its local milieu.