Non-reformist reforms towards abolition

This commentary focuses on the concept of non-reformist reform and prefigurative practice. It argues that prefigurative activities require active discernment to check whether efforts to address some of the worst excesses of suffering are not in fact reinforcing existing violent structures. This is the tricky territory of reform, co-option, counterinsurgency and revolution raised in the original article. Where the author of this article has dismissed the concept of ‘non-reformist reforms’ as inevitably part of a counterinsurgent reformist logic, this commentary points to other abolitionist works that have embraced it as a tool that supports the discernment work that prefigurative practice relies on. Examples from U.K. abolitionists Sisters Uncut illustrate how abolitionist movements try to navigate reform without reinforcing oppressive systems. The following commentary asks whether these efforts may also be worth considering as a legitimate abolitionist practice.