The Transition movement is a well-studied social innovation initiative grounded in the economic imaginary of degrowth (Longhurst et al., 2016). Starting in 2016, the movement developed a shared governance model based on sociocracy and holacracy principles aiming to distribute power, resources, and responsibilities transparently across a growing international network. To do so, the knowledge about a set of governance techniques was shared to strengthen an organising culture that reflects a just and sustainable society. This recent governance experience has not been deeply analysed by scholarly work. To better understand this experience with shared governance, this paper aims to analyse how a prefigurative organising was developed by the network looking at their practices and the normative/epistemological references that support these practices. Conceptually, we focus on a prefigurative politics approach (Monticelli, 2021; Monticelli et al., 2022), looking at the practices of a prefigurative organising (De Coster & Zanoni, 2022; Parker, 2021; Reinecke, 2018; Schiller-Merkens, 2022; Skoglund & Böhm, 2020) and the democratic innovations that might emerge from the experimentation of systems of ideas, theories, and strategies as part of an epistemic struggle that can produce and transmit knowledge within collective endeavours that challenge traditional forms of understanding and have potential to influence social and political change (della Porta & Pavan, 2017; Icaza & Vázquez, 2013). Data is provided by documents about governance, in-depth semi-structured interviews with key actors of the Transition Network, National/Regional Hubs and local initiatives from 4 European countries, and participant observation in different levels of the network, including the international decision-making instances. For this article, we use a multi-positional and collaborative ethnographic triangulation (Miyahara & Fukao, 2022). We combine reflexivity and data collection of field observation-participation and in-depth participant-experience roles within the network’s organisation and relevant coordination circles.

--

• Ciências Políticas - Ciências Sociais