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

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Introducing global movements 17 established approaches are a range of factors which can be usefully addressed through the notion of immaterial interests. This is an area attracting increasing attention from diverse perspectives’ including concerns with immaterial labour (Hardt and Negri 2000, 2004) and more abstract philosophical formulations such as those of Lyotard (2004). It is our contention that Melucci, alone amongst social movement theorists, developed an analytical and interpretive schema with the sophistication and flexibility to combine these diverse concerns. Notions of immaterial labour revolve around the necessity of formalising one’s personal attributes in terms of emergent labour market conditions requiring collaborative team working characteristics, networking and presentational skills in the production of ‘immaterial’ goods. The emergence of the information society and knowledge economy create a new subjectivity incorporating work(non)place skills within the private sphere constituting both a generalised intellect and disciplinary fear structured through flexible labour markets (Gorz 1999). To Hardt and Negri the techniques of self associated with immaterial labour are simultaneously the tools of radical transformation which ‘the multitude’ can now target directly at the global institutional nexus constituting ‘Empire’ (Hardt and Negri 2004). Lyotard’s concerns are much broader relating to the integrity of the planet upon which all life is dependent and which has become a global laboratory for scientific appropriation and economic utilisation. Orientations towards a future holding the long-term prospect of planetary extinction when the sun loses its integrity becomes a significant question for Lyotard. This philosophical concern can be rendered more tangible by addressing issues of inter-generational equity made increasingly prominent through environmentalist’s interventions. The unborn are immaterial beings yet there are interests centrally important to these nascent humans with clean air, water, food and viable cultures being obvious examples. Those alive can attempt to address such immaterial needs, though doing so means abandoning certain habits of mind. Whilst more tangible, such issues remain complex and lead back to fundamental questions related to the meaning of life and human beingness. The prospect of genetic selection and human enhancement raised by genomic science intensify and extend these concerns which are in the process of being rendered as material choices within a neo-liberal eugenic axiomatic (Habermas 2003). The increasing attention to post-human, cyborg futures reflect the early material cultural capacities constituting the immaterial (Haraway 1999). In Melucci’s terms, person and planet are increasingly rendered as information through self-organising systems understood in terms of cybernetics but which simultaneously code symbolic stakes. Central here are certain stakes which require collective reflection as the neo-liberal axiomatic of individual choice embeds asymmetrical power relations, effectively sequestering choice and allocating it to profit orientated market
18 Introducing global movements forces. For Melucci these collective stakes are declared by movements acting as ‘prophets’ (McKechnie and Welsh 2002). ‘Social movements act as signals to remind us that both the external planet, the Earth as our homeland, and the internal planet, our “nature” as human beings, are undergoing radical transformations’ (Melucci 1996a: 7). For Melucci a pre-occupation with the impact of movements upon prevailing political systems and policies diverts attention away from their role in the ‘production of cultural codes’ which ‘is the principle activity of the hidden networks of contemporary movements’ (1996a: 6). This process constitutes a cultural politics rather than a political culture signifying a transformation of both the form and content of political life pursued by ‘man’ (sic) as Marx’s ultimate ‘zoon politicon’ – or political animal. The established dualisms ‘producer/consumer’, ‘capitalist/worker’, which structured political institutions and systems are ‘breached’, as the systemic effects of conflicts organised around these cultural codes produce no outright winners, offering a future of longer working hours and an extended working life. The stresses and strains associated with the increasingly visible connections between material affluence, environmental degradation and self-betterment are rendered tangible via sensitised individuals whom Melucci encountered as a practising therapist. Like Goffman and framing, much of Melucci’s writing was rather removed from field work and an important element of this work is to redress this imbalance by demonstrating the kinds of reflexive framing encountered within the AGM. Here, we find reflexive actors recognising the inescapable presence of difference transcending the old binary opposites underpinning the liberal social democratic polity and pursuing ways of achieving unity in diversity. Their success in rendering visible previously immaterial issues is underpinned by Melucci’s recognition of movement as media (1996a: 36) a point developed by Atton (2002). This leads naturally into a consideration of the use of CMC and the virtual domain as a field of co-operation and conflict through which network actors engage with a global power nexus. Movement as media The idea that movement are media is important for our notion of reflexive framing on a number of grounds. Goffman insists that bystanders become ‘deeply involved’ (1974/86: 36) by events they witness. This involvement is particularly complex in the context of theatrical performance where ‘multi-channel effects’ (1974/86: 146) encode multiple layers of meaning initially appropriated by visual fast framing. Melucci’s recognition of movement as media opens up the potential for movement to directly channel meaning through lifestyle encoding (social frames and prompts) and by staged acts of intervention. This is a very different sense of media relations to that developed within POS approaches where movement impact is
Page 2 and 3: Complexity and Social Movements Che
Page 4 and 5: Complexity and Social Movements Mul
Page 6 and 7: Contents List of figures vi Acknowl
Page 8 and 9: Acknowledgements With thanks to all
Page 10: Preface ix activists and engaged ci
Page 13 and 14: 2 Introducing global movements poli
Page 15 and 16: 4 Introducing global movements arou
Page 17 and 18: 6 Introducing global movements esta
Page 19 and 20: 8 Introducing global movements Thes
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Page 33 and 34: 2 Prefiguration and emergence Intro
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Page 37 and 38: 26 Prefiguration and emergence 9 If
Page 39 and 40: 28 Prefiguration and emergence Prop
Page 41 and 42: 30 Prefiguration and emergence agai
Page 43 and 44: 32 Prefiguration and emergence C. E
Page 45 and 46: 34 Prefiguration and emergence The
Page 47 and 48: 36 Prefiguration and emergence Glob
Page 49 and 50: 38 Prefiguration and emergence In t
Page 51 and 52: 40 Prefiguration and emergence Neo-
Page 53 and 54: 42 Prefiguration and emergence from
Page 55 and 56: 44 Identities, protest dynamics and
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68 States fight back when trust in
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70 States fight back academically,
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72 States fight back streets from d
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74 States fight back ‘green Parli
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76 States fight back to trivialise
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78 States fight back beneath Big Be
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80 States fight back ran out. The p
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82 States fight back The attempt to
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84 States fight back Accounts of th
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86 States fight back hair, infringe
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88 States fight back crisis is in e
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5 Ecologies of action within global
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92 Ecologies of action attractor wi
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94 Ecologies of action embedded in
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96 Ecologies of action The assimila
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98 Ecologies of action compatibilit
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100 Ecologies of action linking up
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102 Ecologies of action occurred wi
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104 Ecologies of action leading to
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106 Ecologies of action siege of in
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108 Beyond resistance to global nex
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7 The death of collective identity?
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130 Global movement as a parallelog
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148 The map is not the territory th
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150 The map is not the territory of
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152 The map is not the territory Ne
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154 The map is not the territory mi
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156 The map is not the territory or
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158 The map is not the territory mo
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160 The map is not the territory of
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162 The map is not the territory ne
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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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