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Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization <\/strong><\/a>by Jeffrey S. Juris<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Barcelona has emerged as a critical node, as Catalans have played key roles within the anarchist \u00adinspired Peoples\u2019 Global Action (PGA) and the World Social Forum (WSF) process, both of which unite diverse movements in opposition to corporate globaliza\u00adtion. Anti\u2013corporate globalization movements involve an increasing conflu\u00adence among network technologies, organizational forms, and political norms, mediated by concrete networking practices and micropolitical struggles. Activists are thus not only responding to growing poverty, inequality, and environmental devastation; they are also generating social laboratories for the production of alternative democratic values, discourses, and practices.<\/p>\n Computer \u00adsupported networks, including activist media projects, Listservs, and websites, were mobilizing hundreds of thousands of protesters, constituting \u201ctransnational counterpublics\u201d (Olesen 2005) for the diffusion of alternative information. Indeed, media activism and digital networking more generally had become critical features of a transna\u00adtional network of movements against corporate globalization, involving what Peter Waterman (1998) calls a \u201ccommunications internationalism.\u201d Moreover, emerging networking logics were changing how grassroots movements orga\u00adnize, and were inspiring new utopian imaginaries involving directly demo\u00adcratic models of social, economic, and political organization coordinated at local, regional, and global scales.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jeff <\/em>: How is PGA going? Jeff <\/em>: What do you mean? <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I really wanted to study the networks behind these demonstrations during their visible and <\/em>\u201csubmerged\u201d phases (Melucci 1989). It seemed that if activists wanted to create sustainable movements, it was important to learn how newly emerging digitally powered networks operate and how periodic mass actions might lead to long\u00ad term social transformation. After several days, I finally realized what should have been apparent all along: my focus was not really a specific network, but rather the concrete practices through which such networks are constituted. Indeed, contemporary activist networks are fluid processes, not rigid structures. I would thus conduct an ethnographic study of transnational networking prac tices and the broader cultural logics, shaped by ongoing interactions with new digital technologies, that generate them.<\/p>\n To answer these questions, I turned to the traditional craft of the anthropologist: long\u00ad term participant observation within and among activist networks themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cAnti-globalization\u201d is not a particularly apt label for a movement that is in\u00adternationalist in perspective, organizes through global communication net\u00ad works, and whose participants travel widely to attend protests and gatherings. Moreover, most activists do not oppose globalization per se, but rather corpo\u00adrate globalization, understood as the extension of corporate power around the world, undermining local communities, democracy, and the environment.<\/p>\n they [anti-globalization activists] are specifically challenging a concrete political and eco\u00ad nomic project and a discourse that denies the possibility of an alternative (Weiss 1998). In examining anti\u2013corporate globalization movements, it is thus impor\u00adtant to consider how globalization operates along several distinct registers.<\/p>\n At the broadest level, globalization refers to a radical reconfiguration of time and space. It is thus a multidimensional process encompassing economic, so\u00adcial, cultural, and political domains.8 With respect to the economic sphere, the current phase of globalization features several defining characteristics.9 First, there has been an unprecedented rise in the scope and magnitude of global fi\u00adnance capital facilitated by digital technologies and market deregulation. Second, economic production and distribution are increasingly organized around decentralized global networks, leading to high \u00advolume, flexible, and custom commercialization. Finally, the global economy now has the capability to op\u00aderate as a single unit in real time. More generally, contemporary globalization generates complex spatial patterns as flows of capital, goods, and people have come unbound, even as they are reinscribed within concrete locales.<\/p>\n globalization also provides a concrete enemy and symbolic framework, generating metonymic links among diverse struggles. In this sense, anti\u2013corporate globalization networks such as PGA or the WSF help forge a global frame of reference. As the PGA slogan de\u00adclares: \u201cMay the struggle be as transnational as capital!\u201d<\/p>\n Neo\u00ad liberal projects have facilitated the penetration of corporate capitalism across space, bringing new areas into global production, consumption, and labor circuits while commodifying healthcare, education, the environment, and even life itself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At least since the Zapatista uprising against the Mexican government on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, activists have forged an alter\u00ad native project of \u201cgrassroots globalization\u201d (Appadurai 2000), combining placed \u00adbased resistance and transnational networking (cf. Escobar 2001). Anti\u2013corporate globalization movements have mounted a highly effective symbolic challenge to the legitimacy of neoliberalism. As the former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz (2002) suggests: \u201cUntil protesters came along there was little hope for change and no outlets for complaint. . . . It is the trade unionists, students, and environmentalists\u2014ordinary citizens\u2014 marching in the streets of Prague, Seattle, Washington, and Genoa who have put the need for reform on the agenda of the developed world\u201d (9).<\/p>\n Stiglitz is not alone among global elites in supporting activist demands. The international financier George Soros has consistently denounced \u201cmarket fundamentalism\u201d while the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs has been a vocal critic of the Bretton Woods institutions. Moreover, leftist political parties in France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, and elsewhere have embraced the popular slogan of the World Social Forum: \u201cAnother World Is Possible.\u201d<\/p>\n this book is not about the politics of globalization. Rather, it ex\u00adplores emerging forms of organization among anti\u2013corporate globalization movements, particularly in light of recent social, economic, and technological transformations. Although the activists explored in this book seek to influence contemporary political debates, they are also experimenting with new organi\u00adzational and technological practices.<\/p>\n The rise of new digital technologies has profoundly altered the social movement landscape. Activists can now link up directly with one another, communicating through global communications networks without the need for a central bureaucracy. In what follows, I examine how activists are building local, regional, and global networks that are both instru\u00admental and <\/em>prefigurative, facilitating concrete political interventions while reflecting activists\u2019 emerging utopian ideals.1<\/p>\n the world and regional social forums and other grassroots networking processes have increasingly come to the fore. Although not as spectacular as direct actions, these projects have provided relatively sustainable platforms for generating alternative ideas, discourses, and practices, allowing activists to pursue their strategic and prefigurative goals in more lasting ways.<\/p>\n Technology, Norm, and form <\/strong><\/p>\n Shortly after the Bolshevik revolution, the Russian anarchist Voline outlined a bold vision for an alternative, directly democratic society: \u201cOf course . . . society must be organized. . . . the new organization . . . must be established freely, socially, and, above all, from below. The principle of organization must not issue from a center created in advance to capture the whole and impose it\u00ad self upon it but on the contrary, it must come from all sides to create nodes of coordination, natural centers to serve all these points.\u201d What strikes today\u2019s reader about this passage is its resonance with the contemporary discourse of activist networking. Although the top\u00ad down Leninist model of organization won out in the Soviet Union, consolidating a revolutionary paradigm that would be exported around the world, the past few decades have witnessed a resurgence of decentralized, networked organization and utopian visions of autonomy and grassroots counterpower. As we will see, these emerging network forms and imaginaries have been greatly facilitated by the rise of new digital technologies. Shaped by the networking logic of the Internet and broader dynamics associated with late capitalism, social movements are in\u00adcreasingly organized around flexible, distributed network forms (Castells 1997; cf. Bennett 2003; Hardt and Negri 2004). Observers have pointed to the rise of \u201csocial netwars\u201d (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 2001) or an \u201celectronic fabric of struggle\u201d (Cleaver 1995), but such abstract depictions tell us little about con\u00adcrete networking practices.<\/p>\n This book outlines a practice\u00ad based approach to the study of networks, linking structure and practice to larger social, economic, and technological forces.20 I employ the term \u201ccultural logic of networking\u201d as a way to conceive the broad guiding principles, shaped by the logic of informational capitalism, that are internalized by activists and generate concrete networking practices.21 Networking logics specifically entail an embedded and embodied set of social and cultural dispositions that orient actors toward (1) the building of hori\u00adzontal ties and connections among diverse autonomous elements, (2) the free and open circulation of information, (3) collaboration through decentralized coordination and consensus\u00ad based decision making, and (4) self-directed networking. At the same time, networking logics represent an ideal type. As we shall see, they are unevenly distributed in practice and always exist in dy\u00adnamic tension with other competing logics, generating a complex \u201ccultural politics of networking\u201d within particular spheres.<\/p>\n In what follows, I argue that anti\u2013corporate globalization movements involve a growing confluence among networks as computer\u00ad supported infrastructure (technology), networks as organizational structure (form), and networks as political model (norm), mediated by concrete activist practice. Computer networks provide the technological infrastructure for the emer\u00adgence of transnational social movements, constituting arenas for the produc\u00adtion and dissemination of activist discourses and practices. These networks are in turn produced and transformed by the discourses and practices circu\u00adlating through them.24 Such communication flows follow distinct trajectories, reproducing existing networks or generating new formations. Contemporary social movement networks are thus \u201cself\u00ad-reflexive\u201d (Giddens 1991), constructed through communicative practice and struggle. Beyond social morphology, the network has also become a powerful cultural ideal, particularly among more radical activists, a guiding logic that provides a model of, and model for, emerging forms of directly democratic politics.<\/p>\n contemporary norms and forms are shaped by technological change and, further, how they reflect emerging utopian imaginaries.<\/p>\n Computer-Supported Social Movements <\/strong><\/p>\n Although the wide\u00ad spread proliferation of individualized, loosely bounded, and fragmentary social networks predates cyberspace, computer\u00ad mediated communication has reinforced such trends, allowing communities to sustain interactions across vast distances. The Internet is also being incorporated into more routine aspects of daily social life as virtual and physical activities are increas\u00adingly integrated. The Internet thus facilitates global connectedness even as it strengthens local ties.<\/p>\n Build\u00ading on the pioneering use of digital technologies by the Zapatistas, as well as early free trade campaigns, anti\u2013corporate globalization activists have used computer networks to organize actions and mobilizations, share information and resources, and coordinate campaigns by communicating at a distance.<\/p>\n Computer \u00admediated communication is thus most effective when it is moderated, clearly focused, and used together with traditional modes of communication. Accordingly, activists generally use e\u00admail to stay informed about activities and perform concrete logistical tasks, while complex planning, political discussions, and relationship building occur within physical settings.<\/p>\n Network-Based organizational Forms <\/strong><\/p>\n Beyond providing a technological medium, the Internet\u2019s reticulate struc\u00adture reinforces network-\u00adbased organizational forms.<\/p>\n Networking logics have given rise to what many activists in Spain and Catalonia refer to as a \u201cnew way of doing politics.\u201d By this they mean a mode of organizing involving horizontal coordination among autonomous groups, grassroots participation, consensus decision making, and the free and open exchange of information, although, as we shall see, this ideal is not always conformed to in practice. While the command-oriented logic of traditional parties and unions involves recruiting new members, developing unified strat\u00adegies, pursuing political hegemony, and organizing through representative structures, network politics revolve around the creation of broad umbrella spaces, where diverse collectives, organizations, and networks converge around a few common principles while preserving their autonomy and identity\u00ad based specificity. The objective becomes enhanced \u201cconnectivity\u201d and horizon\u00adtal expansion by articulating diverse movements within flexible, decentralized information structures that facilitate transnational coordination and com\u00admunication. Key \u201cactivist\u00ad hackers\u201d (Nelson 1999) operate as relayers and exchangers, receiving, interpreting, and routing information to diverse net\u00ad work nodes. Like computer hackers, activist \u00adhackers combine and recombine cultural codes\u2014in this case political signifiers, sharing information about projects, mobilizations, strategies, and tactics within global communication networks.33<\/p>\n At the same time, discourses of open networking often conceal other forms of exclusion based on unequal access to information or technology. As a grassroots activist from India suggested to me at the 2002 WSF in Porto Alegre, \u201cIt\u2019s not enough to talk about networks; we also have to talk about democracy and the distribution of power within them.\u201d<\/p>\n what many observers view as a single, unified anti\u2013 corporate globalization movement is actually a congeries of competing yet sometimes overlapping social movement networks that differ according to is\u00ad sue addressed, political subjectivity, ideological framework, political culture, and organizational logic.<\/p>\n Social movements are complex fields shot through with internal differen\u00adtiation (Burdick 1995). Struggles within and among specific movement net\u00ad works shape how they are produced, how they develop, and how they relate to one another within broader movement fields. Cultural struggles involv\u00ading ideology (anti-globalization versus anticapitalism), strategies (summit hopping versus sustained organizing), tactics (violence versus nonviolence), organizational form (structure versus non-structure), and decision making (consensus versus voting), or what I refer to as the cultural politics of network\u00ading, are enduring features of anti\u2013corporate globalization landscapes. In the following chapters, I thus emphasize culture, power, and internal conflict.34 As we shall see, discrepant organizational logics often lead to heated struggles within broad \u201cconvergence spaces\u201d (Routledge 2003), including the \u201cunitary\u201d campaigns against the World Bank and EU in Barcelona or the World Social Forum process more generally.<\/p>\n Networks as Emerging Ideal <\/strong><\/p>\n Expanding and diversifying networks is more than a concrete organizational objective; it is also a highly valued political goal. The self\u00ad-produced, self-developed, and self\u00ad-managed network becomes a widespread cultural ideal, providing not only an effective model of political organizing but also a model for reorganizing society as a whole.<\/p>\n The dominant spirit behind this emerging political praxis can broadly be defined as anarchist, or what ac\u00adtivists in Barcelona refer to as libertarian.35 Classic anarchist principles such as autonomy, self\u00ad management, federation, direct action, and direct democracy are among the most important values for today\u2019s radicals, who increasingly identify as anticapitalist, anti\u00adauthoritarian, or left \u00adlibertarian.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n These emerging political subjectivities are not necessarily identical to anar\u00adchism in the strict ideological sense. Rather, they share specific cultural affini\u00adties revolving around the values associated with the network as an emerging political and cultural ideal: open access, the free circulation of information, self\u00ad-management, and coordination based on diversity and autonomy.<\/p>\n In a similar vein, Arturo Escobar (2004) has drawn on complexity theory to argue that anti\u2013corporate globalization movements are emergent in that \u201cthe actions of multiple agents interacting dynamically and following local rules rather than top\u00ad down commands result in visible macro\u00adbehavior or structures\u201d (222).36 This is a compelling depiction of how anti\u2013corporate globalization networks operate from a distance, but a slightly different perspective emerges when we engage in activist networking firsthand. Transnational networking requires a great deal of communicative work and struggle. Complexity theory provides a useful metaphor, but given its emphasis on abstract self -organizing systems, it tends to obscure micropolitical practices.<\/p>\n activists increasingly express their emerging utopian imaginaries di\u00adrectly through concrete organizational and technological practice. As Geert Lovink (2002) suggests, \u201cIdeas that matter are hardwired into software and network architectures\u201d (34). This helps to explain why ideological debates are often coded as conflicts over organizational process and form.<\/p>\n Networks are not inherently <\/em>demo\u00adcratic or egalitarian, and they may be used for divergent ends. The network technologies and forms explored in this book were initially developed as a strategy for enhancing coordination, scale, and efficiency in the context of post-\u00adFordist capital accumulation. As we are reminded nearly every day, ter\u00adror and crime outfits increasingly operate through global networks as well.<\/p>\n while networks more generally are not necessarily <\/em>democratic or egalitarian, their distributed structure does suggest a potential <\/em>affinity with egalitarian values\u2014including flat hierarchies, horizontal relations, and decen\u00ad tralized coordination\u2014which activists project back onto network technolo\u00ad gies and forms.<\/p>\n What many activists now call \u201chorizontalism\u201d is best understood as a guiding vision, not an empirical depiction<\/p>\n Multiscalar ethnography <\/strong><\/p>\n I specifically employ two tracking strategies: fol\u00ad lowing activists to mobilizations and gatherings, and monitoring discourses and debates through electronic networks.<\/p>\n During my time in the field, I employed diverse ethnographic methods. First, I conducted participant observation among activists at mass mobili\u00adzations, actions, and gatherings; meetings and organizing sessions; and in\u00ad formal social settings. Second, I made extensive use of the Internet, which allowed me to participate in and follow planning, coordinating, and political discussions within Catalan, Spanish, and English\u00ad language Listservs based in Europe, Latin America, and North America. Third, I conducted seventy qual\u00ad itative interviews with Barcelona \u00adbased activists from diverse backgrounds. Fourth, I collected and examined movement \u00adrelated documents produced for education, publicity, and outreach, including flyers, brochures, reports, and posters. Finally, I also collected articles and texts within mainstream and alternative media.<\/p>\n Practicing Militant ethnography <\/strong><\/p>\n The ethnographic methodology developed here, which I call \u201cmilitant eth\u00adnography,\u201d is meant to address what Wacquant (1992) calls the \u201cintellectual bias\u201d: how our position as outside observer \u201centices us to construe the world as a spectacle, as a set of significations to be interpreted rather than as concrete problems to be solved practically\u201d (39). The tendency to position oneself at a distance and treat social life as an object to decode rather than entering the flow and rhythm of ongoing social interaction hinders our ability to understand social practice.45 To grasp the concrete logic generating specific practices, one has to become an active participant. With respect to social movements, this means organizing actions and workshops, facilitating meetings, weighing in during strategic and tactical debates, staking out political positions, and put\u00ad ting one\u2019s body on the line during direct actions. Simply taking on the role of \u201ccircumstantial activist\u201d (Marcus 1995) is not sufficient; one has to build long\u00ad term relationships of commitment and trust, become entangled with complex relations of power, and live the emotions associated with direct\u00adaction orga\u00adnizing and transnational networking. Militant ethnography thus refers to ethnographic research that is not only politically engaged but also collaborative, thus breaking down the divide between researcher and object.46<\/p>\n Furthermore, militant ethnography also generates embodied and affec\u00adtive understanding. As anyone who has participated in mass direct actions or demonstrations can attest, such events produce powerful emotions, involving alternating sensations of anticipation, tension, anxiety, fear, terror, solidar\u00adity, celebration, and joy. These affective dynamics are not incidental; they are central to sustained processes of movement building and activist networking. In this sense, I use my body as a research tool, particularly during moments of intense passion and excitement, to generate what Deidre Sklar (1994) calls \u201ckinesthetic empathy.\u201d47<\/p>\n militant ethnography can provide tools for activist (self\u00ad) reflection and decision making while remaining pertinent for broader aca\u00ad demic audiences. I thus hope to contribute to strategic debates, but always from the partial and situated position of the militant ethnographer.<\/p>\n Practicing militant ethnography can thus help activists carry out their own ethnographic research.<\/p>\n For Burdick, this involves supporting movements in their efforts to reach out to a wider audience. But it might also mean helping activists analyze di\u00ad verse movement sectors, understand how they operate, and learn how to most effectively work together.<\/p>\n Militant ethnography thus includes three interrelated modes: (1) collective reflection and visioning about movement practices, logics, and emerging cul\u00adtural and political models; (2) collective analysis of broader social processes and power relations that affect strategic and tactical decision making; and (3) collective ethnographic reflection about diverse movement networks, how they interact, and how they might better relate to broader constituencies. Each of these levels involves engaged, practice\u00ad based, and politically committed re\u00ad search carried out in horizontal collaboration with social movements.<\/p>\n those of us within the academy can use writing and publishing as a form of resistance, working within the system to generate alternative politically en\u00adgaged accounts.<\/p>\n The Book ahead <\/strong><\/p>\n the genealogy of diverse processes that converged there, including grassroots struggles in the Global South, student\u00adbased anticorporate activism, campaigns against struc\u00adtural adjustment and free trade, anarchist \u00adinspired direct action, and global Zapatista solidarity networks. I then go on to trace the growth and expansion of anti\u2013corporate globalization movements after Seattle, before concluding with an analysis of their major defining characteristics.<\/p>\n The conflict between networking and traditional command logics forms part of a broader series of struggles involving competing visions, ideologies, and practices, leading to a complex pattern of shifting alliances driven by networking politics at local, regional, and global scales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization by Jeffrey S. Juris Barcelona has emerged as a critical node, as Catalans have played key roles within the anarchist \u00adinspired Peoples\u2019 Global Action (PGA) and the World Social Forum (WSF) process, both of which unite diverse movements in opposition to corporate globaliza\u00adtion. Anti\u2013corporate globalization movements involve … Continue reading “Notes from Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,125,7,21,121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-network-analysis","category-politics","category-psychology","category-sao-paulo-forum"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8e7kf-21k","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7772,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770\/revisions\/7772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLaurent<\/em>: It\u2019s the most interesting political process I\u2019ve ever been a part of, but it\u2019s kind of ambiguous.<\/p>\n
\nLaurent<\/em>: Well, you never really know who is involved.
\nJeff <\/em>: How can that be?
\nLaurent<\/em>: It\u2019s hard to pin down because no one can speak for PGA, and the ones who are most involved sometimes don\u2019t even think they are part of it!<\/p>\n