opposition to neoliberal capitalist globalization
Gwyn Williams
the very meaning of activism itself became one of resisting the state and international power institutions such as the WTO
The most militant activists of the larzac plateau therefore sought to cultivate and extend their autonomy through practices that tried to increase their freedom relative to prevailing economic and political structures of domination
a self-conscious critical reflection on how power might ensnare them again, without, of course, ever being able to become totally free
Jose Bove
criticised for succumbing to capitalist order rather than cultivating autonomy from the power structure
David Graeber
Anthropologist and active anarchist anti-globalization militant
Prefigurative Polotics
Two strong points in its favour
Apparent hostility to the emergence of hierarchies
Offers a way of dealing with the problem that alterglobalization networks are never likely to be able to sustain mobilization aroound common collective identities
transcends the problems of social movement polotics that are grounded in identities
Marianne Maeckelberg
a way inwhich collective mobilization maybe based around not only identities that are different but respect in thier difference
Agree on what to do now; understanding that people will continue to have different ideas and that all those ideas may change in the future
the objective is to create a culture of democracy and come to provisional, momentary consensus
about achieving a minimal consensus on what everybody will accept for the moment
classic Marxist revolutionary politics and democratic systems often did the opposite- there would eventually be democracy, but not until the proletariat was secure in power
If you want to create a new kind of society and politics you have to start by organising yourselves in a way that corresponds to the type of inclusive, pluralistic and democratic system that you want to create
opted for by more successful alter-globalisation networks or coalitions
Paul Routledge
War against terron complicated life for anti-globalisation movements by distracting public attention and providing new propoganda arguements about the need to defend northern instituitions
Politics of Articulation
movements are often pricesly about gaining respect for the right to be different
in transnation, multi-scalar networks it is problematic to try to get everyone to agree to common principles that are declared universal becuase many of these principle are in danger of being seen as eurocentric, exclusionary or politically contentious
different visions have to be articulated into some kind of colective, shared vision
Globalized Local Action
when local movements are incorporated into multi-scalar network organizations
Many advantages exist eg furthering their cause and reducing likelhood of local repression
Convergence Space
how representative are leadersw of grass-roots movements who are promoted to participate in international spheres?
Even with effective virtual communication between people who can't afford to travel, convergence space seems to create various kinds of exclusions and inequalities
various kinds of practical limitations exist on this process
alter globalisation movements make it possible to persue political action at different scales despite the fact that the elements that make up the network are socially and often politically heterogeneous
Examples of alter globalisation movements
Advocating "other forms of globalization"
or that cultural differences and the right to local autonomy and self determination should be respected
even when demanding local forms of social and economic life should not be destroyed
Products of capitalist globalization
depend to a great extent on the technologies that capitalist globalization has fostered ie the internet
developed in reaction to its human consequences
Call for Global Justice
Hope to reform rather than undermine the capitalist system
ATTAC
behind the creation of the world socail forum
a general reform of global economic system
reform or abolition of WTO
cancel third world dedt
regulate financial capital
advocates an international tax on currency speculation, the Tobin tax
founded in 1998 by french newspaper le monde diplomatique
Political involvment in the hegemonic system vs autonomy
Sidney Tarrow
A strongly reformist approach to alter-globalisation
protests will become less effective if elites "draw away from involvement with non-state actors"
Southern Movements that find northern hegemony irksome will actually do better to negotiate with them rather than withdraw from these international networks.
alliances must be strengthened between "southerners who have a capacity for collective action on the ground" and "northerners who have a capacity for influence within instituitions"
the strongest challenges to global inequality maybe expected to come from organizations and movements located in the countries that have benefited most from existing global inequalities
Looks at different possible patterns of international contention that can arise through different sorts of relations between social movements, NGO's, national states, foreign states and international agenencies like the world bank
Globalization was only an effective frame for bringing different movements and actors with different kinds of discontents together at a particular moment of time
difficult to forge a unifying new global collective identity beyond this because north south tension continued to exist within the anti-globalisation movement itself
could be combined with anti-americanism, given that US hegemony could be seen as the root of a whole series of different problems
A diversity of unlike groups coming together
Arturo Escobar
The problem of translation?
The concept of the "Third World" is now less relevant
a new kind of third world exists; all those that have been impoverished and ghettoized by neoliberal capitalist development
demands a different kind of thinking, since they do not fit into the frameworks of identity politics and local self-determination that guide movements for indigenous rights, for example
presented ideologically by the imperial machine as pathological' through the idioms of crime and terrorism and the pervasive racialization of poverty
whose lives are often marked by violence and insecurity
because of the reconfiguration of social and political forces opposed to the currently hegemonic model of capitalist globalisation
imperial globality produces a new form of counter movement based on social movements networks that link transnationally
demand both socio economic equality and respect for difference
ways through which a richer array of alternative kinds of local and regional kinds of social worlds can be imagined throughout the network
place based movements have become empowered through the transnational connections that develop around them
issues of the right to cultural difference have become central
transnational networks do not have to be based on links between movements in the global south and movements in the global north.
may also be a way inwhic nation-states would not play the same dominant role in shaping patterns of national developments
movements without links to the global north could enhance the possibilities of remaking the social worlds of the south in a more strongly alternative counter hegemonic way
"a new US-based form of imperial globality"
a new form of colonialism
even seeks to suppress the culture and knowledge of subaltern peoples
propogating an economic-military-ideological order that not only seeks to subordinate everyone and everywhere
Facsist and militaristic
Gustavo Lins Ribeiro
Globalization from below
interesting similarities between the tactics that these networks use to subvert states' efforts to control them and those used by anti-globalization activists and occasional convergences too
not anti-systemic, since they want to make money and get thier very modest share of the global economic cake
grassroots economic networks are controled by making them illegal and branding the entrepreneurs and workers who participate in them as criminals
focuses on less threatening ways in which poor people participate in transnational economic networks that provide them with a livelhood by moving good across borders and selling branded and fake goods cheaply in popular markets that allow a broader range of people to participate in global consumption
based on the development of informal transnational economic networks and contraband trading
the world social forum "provides a framework in which a counter-hegemonic elite can develop its own power and influence in world affairs"
Distinguishes between anti globalisation and alter globalisation
How world changing are counter-hegemonic practices?
would international contention of neoliberal capitalist globalization be persued more effectively by more rather than less engagement of social movements and advocacy groups with international institutions and more sympathetic members of state elites
