“This is how I want to live my life”: An Experiment in Prefigurative Feminist Organizing for a More Equitable and Inclusive City Janet Siltanen Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Janet.Siltanen@carleton.ca Fran Klodawsky Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Caroline Andrew Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Abstract: This paper aims to think differently about possibilities for feminist organizing in cities. We use a current experiment with city-based feminist organizing to explore how it can be possible to work with the local state while at the same time challenging and disrupting understandings and practices that marginalize the diversity of women’s needs, contributions and concerns. Trying to work “inside” the local state while maintaining an “outside” critical perspective involves a tricky balancing act between being inside enough to have credibility and effectiveness within the business of city politics and administration, and outside enough to maintain strong connections with the community and grassroots support. In managing this balancing act, we argue that the organization enacts a strategic use of prefiguration both within the organization and when engaging the local state. Keywords: prefiguration, feminist organizing, inclusive cities, social change The relationship between feminist organizing and the state has always been a difficult one and a subject of much debate (Brodie 2008; Fraser 2013; Mizrahi 2007; Saur and Wöhl 2011; Walby 2011; Yuval-Davis 2011). Proponents of engaging the state acknowledge the potential risks to feminist principles and aims, but nevertheless see value in confronting and attempting to change “a state which denies resources and power to live out your days decently and enjoyably and have hope for the future” (Rowbotham 1989:162). Since states come in many forms, and with specificities shaped by historical, scalar and geo-political contexts, analyzing strategies of engage- ment involves examining particular efforts to engage particular states in furthering particular feminist objectives. Our focus in this paper is a contemporary experiment in feminist organizing that aims to engage the local state in order to promote equality and inclusion. We identify this organization as one which strategically positions itself as simultaneously “inside” and “outside” the local state. This positioning offers Antipode Vol. 00 No. 0 2014 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 1–20 doi: 10.1111/anti.12092 ©2014 The Author. Antipode © 2014 Antipode Foundation Ltd.