The article Protests as Imagined Futures, published in Sociology Compass last week, explores the concept of street protests as future-oriented collective performances aimed at envisioning social change¹: ​

Street protests are expressions of grievance and dissent that seek social change. Yet, scholars rarely theorize about protests’ inherent future‐orientation. In this article, we build on the “imagined futures” approach to understand street protests as collective, future‐oriented performances that envision social change. The imagined futures approach shows us that the concept of the future has long been a central idea in social science theory, and for political sociology, its interdisciplinary roots are in cultural studies’ social imaginaries and fictions, and in social movement studies’ framing, narrative, and prefiguration. We trace these roots to argue that protests are an emergent phenomenon such that contextual conditions and organizational instigation, along with the dynamics of the protest itself, interact to co‐create a protest’s vision of the future.

• Every street protest expresses a collectively imagined future
• Visions of imagined futures are the product of the dynamic interactions that occur during the protest
• Thus, imagined futures can be considered as emergent phenomena that arise out of protest dynamics.

Imagined futures are akin to cultural studies’ concepts of “social imaginaries”. Shared social imaginaries in the political sphere can be compatible with the idea of utopias, “practical fictions” that open new ways of engaging with reality and build on the transformative potential of the political sphere.

Protests are collective expressions that transcend individual intentions. Imagined futures that emerge in protests do not need to end with the protest itself. Once articulated and performed, they can continue to influence how people think, feel, and act. Research can go beyond the causes of protest to investigate the formation of protest imaginaries.

The article is relevant in the present context of political conflict and protest around the Globe.

The symbolism of the events in Minneapolis, for example, is unmistakable:

ICE has now killed two innocent civilians. Trump administration has given ICE agents a green light to ratchet up their violent tactics. If this violence goes unchecked, it could indeed be a turning point. The energy and solidarity among people supporting their immigrant neighbors and protesting ICE’s brutal tactics herald a defining showdown.

The current wave of Gen‑Z mobilisations against inequality, authoritarian drift, and a perceived “dystopian” horizon is less a tantrum of a frustrated cohort than a collective attempt to sketch livable futures under conditions of climate crisis, automation, and permanent precarity. What unites youth in Nepal, Madagascar or Peru is not only anger at elites, but a shared refusal of inherited trajectories and an insistence that another distribution of risks, resources and recognition is possible.

Billions of people today desperately need an appealing new image of a different possible world in which they can build lives worth living. The main idea developed in the aforementioned article is therefore essential and worth exploring. It is neither necessary nor possible to wait passively for new ideas to reveal themselves. That imagined future will emerge as a product of collective action.

If there is any truth in the famous maxim “the best way to predict your future is to create it,” this is the moment to put it to the test. Let us make emerge that future through protest and collective mobilisation.

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(1) Dubrow, Joshua, Anna Radiukiewicz, Alan Żukowski, y Michał Nawrocki. «Protests as Imagined Futures». Sociology Compass 20, n.^o 1 (2026): e70163. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.70163.

Featured Image: Jolly Roger pirate flag has emerged as a symbol of global Gen-Z protests.

Jariego, Francisco J. ‘Protests as Imagined Futures’. Mind the Post, 1 February 2026. https://indieresearch.net/2026/02/01/protests-as-imagined-futures/.