Real utopias
Real utopias, as the sociologist Erik Olin Wright called them, are alternatives that already exist today and can grow. They combine the utopian desire for a better society with what can be built now. That way they show that change starts small.
Half a year after the Missionswerkstatt at Halle rollt e.V., a self-organised skatepark was standing.
The foundational work is Erik Olin Wright’s “Envisioning Real Utopias” (2010), with examples such as participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre and Wikipedia.
Critical futures studies and real utopias form one of three pairs with which Jonas Drechsel describes his work. In 2022 he showed in transform magazine how utopias, visions and action work together.
Guiding questions
- Where does what you want already exist on a small scale?
- What would it take for it to grow?