Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos ...

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Beyond resistance to global nexus 115 16–17 May before moving on to Geneva on 18 May for the Ministerial Conference of the WTO and a celebration of 50 years of the GATT. This was the first time an explict call for the use of civil disobedience against the WTO and G8 had been made and the global response catalysed by the PGA process was dramatic. On 16 May between 6,000–8,000 people occupied the Bullring area of Birmingham in close proximity to the conference centre where the G8 were meeting. This was a small part of the ‘Global Street Party’ initiated by London Reclaim The Streets, who were soon to become European convenors of PGA. On the same day in Geneva approximately 10,000 people marched on the WTO building smashing the windows of banks and overturning the Mercedes of the Director General of the WTO. Elsewhere, street blockades and parties involving tens of thousands of people took place in a number of cities worldwide including Athens, Berlin, Berkeley, Bogota, Darwin, Lyon, Melbourne, Prague, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Vancouver. As the protests against the WTO continued in Geneva in the days after the global street party, reports were posted on the internet by PGA including accounts of a mass mobilisation in Hyderabad, India involving nearly 300,000 people marching against the WTO. Whilst in Brazil a 50,000 strong ‘star’ march converged in Brasilia on the 20th May having set off from the four cardinal points of the country and led by organisations including Movimento Sem Terra (MST) whose representative at the Geneva protests declared ‘The mobilizations in Brazil are the logical response of peasants and workers against the policies imposed by the WTO. These policies are being readily implemented by the Brazilian government, and as a result, the social polarization is growing rapidly.’ Those marching in Brasilia went on to invade a number of supermarkets and distribute the food to the poor of the capital. These were the first globally co-ordinated events in the ‘field of collective action’ (Melucci 1996a, Alvarez 2000) that contextualised the emergent AGM, although the simultaneous and networked nature of these events went largely unobserved by either the media or academic commentators. Amongst those participating however, there was an explicit acknowledgement of the potential evinced by this globally networked and co-ordinated activity. As the PGA’s own analysis put it: ‘The success in Switzerland has many people asking, “is this the first flutter of a new global social movement?” After so many years of saying “it’s no use resisting here, we would have to organize globally”, people are thinking “hey, maybe we can!” ’ (PGA Bulletin Issue 2). Co-ordinating encounters: the PGA multiplier effect/affect Movements in complex societies are hidden networks of groups, meeting points, and circuits of solidarity which differ profoundly from the image of the politically organized actor. (Melucci 1996a: 115)
116 Beyond resistance to global nexus The explosion of internationally co-ordinated protest actions against global governance and finance structures that was initiated by PGA in Geneva grew exponentially through events that have become synonymous with the cities in which they took place. This historiography varies according to the involvement and preferences of those documenting the growth of the AGM, but for most, the key locations include London, Seattle, Washington, Prague, Melbourne, Quebec and Genoa. During these events, the reticular and multi-faceted aspects of this emergent movement became observable and various attempts were made to condense and represent the movements’ aims or demands for the purposes of political advantage or assimilation. This included the near universal condemnation of ‘violence’ within the movement by all parties with an investment in formal political processes, including most NGOs (Benjamin 2000). Despite evidence that violence was overwhelmingly conducted against rather than by protesters (Donson et al. 2004) and the instrumentalisation of that violence by those condemning it, for whom it had opened a space to convey their arguments via the media – the so called ‘radical flank’ effect (McAdam et al. 1996, 2001). This period of growth and action by the AGM precipitated regional PGA networks as personal enthusiasms, connections and affinities grew; this included the adoption and iteration by numerous groups and movements of the PGA hallmarks as a statement of intent and a condition of participation in protest events or particular repertoires of collective action. During this period, PGA-inspired groups and movements established regional networks in Latin America, Asia, North America and Europe. The idea was that the convenorship for each regional network would rotate between movements and those convenors would form a Convenor’s Committee that would organise conferences of the network. This was entirely fitting with the PGA’s organisational principles of decentralisation and autonomy and it was also anticipated that the Convenor’s Committee would be enabled to manage flows of information and advise on technical issues of resourcing, organisation and communication between regions. In practice, this proved extremely difficult due to the inability of convenors to fully assume their roles because of existing commitments to local movement activities. This was further complicated by the problems of working at a distance including cultural and language barriers and differentials between northern and southern movements with regard to resources, including Internet access and travel. In place of the Coordinating Committee an informally organised support group, a ‘PGA secretariat’ (Interview with PGA activist El Viejo, Geneva, 25.03.03) performed the task of co-ordinating flows between and amidst nodes in the network for its first four years. This group was largely composed of those who had catalysed the process, who also had the enthusiasm, time and contacts within the network, and this group tended to be bi-lingual or multi-lingual Europeans with mobility and internet access, with additional support coming from those inspired to promote the network in the other PGA regions. Whilst this group performed
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Complexity and Social Movements Che
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Complexity and Social Movements Mul
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Contents List of figures vi Acknowl
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Acknowledgements With thanks to all
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Preface ix activists and engaged ci
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2 Introducing global movements poli
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4 Introducing global movements arou
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6 Introducing global movements esta
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16 Introducing global movements ‘
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18 Introducing global movements for
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20 Introducing global movements and
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2 Prefiguration and emergence Intro
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24 Prefiguration and emergence on T
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26 Prefiguration and emergence 9 If
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28 Prefiguration and emergence Prop
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30 Prefiguration and emergence agai
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32 Prefiguration and emergence C. E
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34 Prefiguration and emergence The
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36 Prefiguration and emergence Glob
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38 Prefiguration and emergence In t
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40 Prefiguration and emergence Neo-
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42 Prefiguration and emergence from
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44 Identities, protest dynamics and
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Page 75 and 76: 64 Identities, protest dynamics and
Page 77 and 78: 66 Identities, protest dynamics and
Page 79 and 80: 68 States fight back when trust in
Page 81 and 82: 70 States fight back academically,
Page 83 and 84: 72 States fight back streets from d
Page 85 and 86: 74 States fight back ‘green Parli
Page 87 and 88: 76 States fight back to trivialise
Page 89 and 90: 78 States fight back beneath Big Be
Page 91 and 92: 80 States fight back ran out. The p
Page 93 and 94: 82 States fight back The attempt to
Page 95 and 96: 84 States fight back Accounts of th
Page 97 and 98: 86 States fight back hair, infringe
Page 99 and 100: 88 States fight back crisis is in e
Page 101 and 102: 5 Ecologies of action within global
Page 103 and 104: 92 Ecologies of action attractor wi
Page 105 and 106: 94 Ecologies of action embedded in
Page 107 and 108: 96 Ecologies of action The assimila
Page 109 and 110: 98 Ecologies of action compatibilit
Page 111 and 112: 100 Ecologies of action linking up
Page 113 and 114: 102 Ecologies of action occurred wi
Page 115 and 116: 104 Ecologies of action leading to
Page 117 and 118: 106 Ecologies of action siege of in
Page 119 and 120: 108 Beyond resistance to global nex
Page 125: 114 Beyond resistance to global nex
Page 139 and 140: 7 The death of collective identity?
Page 141 and 142: 130 Global movement as a parallelog
Page 159 and 160: 148 The map is not the territory th
Page 161 and 162: 150 The map is not the territory of
Page 163 and 164: 152 The map is not the territory Ne
Page 165 and 166: 154 The map is not the territory mi
Page 167 and 168: 156 The map is not the territory or
Page 169 and 170: 158 The map is not the territory mo
Page 171 and 172: 160 The map is not the territory of
Page 173 and 174: 162 The map is not the territory ne
Page 175 and 176: Notes 1 Introducing global movement
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166 Notes 12 Ya Basta’s! subseque
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168 Notes 19 This practice has been
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170 Notes Afro Bloc parading drum b
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172 Bibliography Barker, C., Johnso
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174 Bibliography De Sousa Santos, B
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176 Bibliography Grubacic, A. (2003
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178 Bibliography Lash, S. (2002) Cr
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180 Bibliography O’Neill, J. (200
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182 Bibliography Thompson, E.P. (19
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Index Note: Page numbers in italics
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186 Index class: affinities 93; and
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188 Index G7 23 G8 23, 100; meeting
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190 Index London 52, 63, 69, 116; E
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192 Index Poland 44, 45; ‘Orange
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194 Index Taylor, P. 168 n.2; call
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