Social Movements

Two competing stereotypes can currently be identified in the debates within the radical left and insocial movements. One of these stereotypes postulates the death of political parties and prophesiesa political renewal animated by social movements. The other stereotype projects a resurrection ofthe party-structure and considers the role of social movements to be merely subaltern. The presentarticle adopts a position which is sociologically antithetical regarding this issue : it begins by examining the numerous similarities between political parties and social movements and, more particularly, their shared vulnerability to the traits of professionalisation and the monopolisation of power.Contemporary social movements are not immune to such trends, despite repeated protestations oftheir commitment to horizontality. The article goes on to examine the process of differentiationwhich caused social movements to establish a specific space, separate from the political sphere. Inthe wake of this process, the political and the social appear to constitute two distinct universes,traversed by their own specific logics, while at the same time retaining relations which are both closeand fluctuating.

In this interview, three researchers (one of whom is the co-script-writer) and the script-writer and producer of Nadia and the hippopotami (1999) explain their goals in making this fictional film about the railwaymen’s strike in 1995. After discussing the role and the character of the political film in France, they analyse different interpretations of the film, especially as a representation of the railwaymen’s world, and the evolution of these readings of the film over time.

An Inter-disciplinary analysis of the birth of the “Solidarity”. A remarks on the margin of the Tomasz Kozłowskis book, Anatomia rewolucji. Narodziny ruchu społecznego „Solidarność” w 1980 roku, Warszawa 2018.

Abstract

The article is a review of the Tomasz Kozłowskis book Anatomia rewolucji. Narodziny ruchu społecznego “Solidarność” w 1980 roku [„The anatomy of the revolution. The birth of the »Solidarity« movement in the year 1980”], Warszawa 2018 which is an inter-disciplinary analysis of the birth of the “Solidarity” movement. The author characterizes the contain of Kozłowski’s monography, indicates its advantages and formulates some critical remarks, finally coming to highly positive general opinion.

Resumo: Apresentamos a  partir  deste artigo uma  leitura  possível do uso de mídias sociais  e fotografias produzidas  ou  garimpadas online por estudantes  secundaristas durante o movimento deescolas ocupadas em São Paulo ocorrida de novembro de 2015 a  janeiro  de  2016 em  oposição  ao  plano  de  reorganização  escolar.Para  tanto, observamos  a  página correspondente à  Escola  Estadual  Fernão  Dias  Paes “Escola de luta  Fernão  Dias  Paes” no Facebook. Utilizamos os  conceitos  de  liso  e estriado  de Deleuze &  Guattari com  vista  a  refletirmos  sobre  a  dinâmica daquela ocupação  e algumas de suas potencialidadesde resistência e pontos de fuga.

Palavras-chave:redes sociais; Deleuze;Guattari;ocupação; educação

Abstract: This paper relates to a possible understanding of social media and photographs produced or found online by high school students during the occupied schools' movement in São Paulo occurred from November 2015 to January 2016opposing to a reorganizing school plan.  We observe  the page  which  corresponds  to  Fernão  Dias  Paes  State  School movement “Escola  de luta  Fernão Dia Paes” on  Facebook.  We  discuss  the Deleuze’s concepts of smooth and striated regarding the dynamics of that occupation and some of its potentialities of resistance and vanishing points.

Keywords:social networks; Deleuze; Guattari; occupation; education

Resumen: En  este  articulo  presentamos  una posible lectura  de  los  usos  delos  medios socialesy  las fotografíasproducidas  o  encontradas en  líneaporestudiantessecundaristas  durante  el  movimento  de  las  escuelas  ocupadas  en  São  Paulo  ocurrido desde  noviembre  de  2015  hasta  enero  de  2016.  Por  lo  tanto  hemos  observado  a  la página que corresponde a la Escuela Estatal Fernão Dias Paes “Escola de luta Fernão Dias Paes”en el Facebook. Nosostros hemos utilizado los conceptos de  liso y estriado de Deleuze con el fin de reflejaracerca dela dinámica de aquella ocupación  y algunas de sus potencialidadesde resistência y puntos de fuga.

Palabras-clave:redes sociales;Deleuze; Guattari;ocupación;educación

This practice note discusses why movements have a need to learn and the kinds of problems that present them with this need, both in identifying the need for movement and when movement institutions fail to have the effects intended. It discusses who owns the means of intellectual production that movements rely on and the differing capacities movements have around learning. It asks how we can place movement logics rather than media or academic ones at the centre of our learning, and concludes with three brief examples.

The article explores the critical, performative, and everyday spatial practices of commoning vis-à-vis the normalising order of the metropolis, capitalist-state governance, and urban development patterns. Through this broader lens, drawing on my participatory action research with Prinzessinnengarten Kreuzberg and the corresponding Commons Evening School, I explore the struggle to secure the future of the urban garden in, against, and beyond the instrumentalisation of temporary-use. Commoning, as a verb, places emphasis on the relational and everyday practices of sharing and negotiation, however, in an urban context, these practices take place in and against the space and time of the metropolis; confronted with the constraints, the opportunities, and the contradictions it presents. Particularly critical at this juncture is the vulnerable tension these spaces embody within the logics of the city: the logics of property, of accumulation, of dispossession. How can we enact such spatial practices in, against, and beyond capitalism, rather than becoming fodder for co-option in processes of accumulation by dispossession? This critical positioning of urban commoning within but also beyond the notion of sharing, both material and immaterial, situates it as an often agonistic process of negotiation.

Laurence Cox presents his recent book Why Social Movements Matter, written at the Collège in the framework of Geoffrey Pleyer's initiative "Mouvements sociaux à l'âge global". The 21 st century sees social movements written large on the map of the world, while journalists, intellectuals, novelists, celebrities and politicians invoke specific movements as current events or for dramatic effect. Yet the significance of widespread popular mobilisation as such is barely a subject of public reflection other than in dismissive and misdirected comments on "populism".

Why should the wider public care about social movements in general, and how can they grasp them? How can party-political militants understand their workings? What should scholars and students in other fields know, and how have movements shaped our intellectual world? Too often scholars of social movements-in the English-speaking world at least-allow the accidents of university processes and cultural trends to decide the future (if any) of the field. But can we justify our work to these wider audiences and position the study of movements as a central intellectual tool to understanding the world we live in? This talk presents some of the issues raised by trying to convince others that social movements matter.

Delivered in English by Professor Steven Hartman on October 11, 2019 at the Nobel Prize Teacher Summit in Stockholm, Sweden, this 12-min lecture was filmed by UR (Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company), which is part of the Swedish public service broadcasting group that includes Swedish Radio (SR) and Swedish Television (SVT). UR’s mandate is to produce and broadcast educational and general knowledge programmes which strengthen, broaden and complement the work of others active in education.

The theme of the 2019 Nobel Prize Teacher Summit was "Climate Change Changes Everything."

The lecture showcases several poignant examples of how stories not only help to shape sustainable values and create communities of purpose, but how they also have truly revolutionary, transformative potential for building sustainable societies. The powerful role of stories and storytelling is illustrated in several different contexts, drawing on literature, art, science, and social movements. The lecture highlights how stories can serve as crucial touchstones (sources of power, inspiration and agency) throughout people’s lives, both in formal and informal contexts of knowledge production, learning and action, with a special emphasis on the iconic youth climate activist Greta Thunberg of Sweden and the global movement "Fridays for Future" inspired by her example.

Steven Hartman is Guest Professor of English at Mälardalen University in Sweden, Adjunct Professor at the Human Ecodynamics Research Center, City University of New York Graduate Center, and Affiliate Senior Scientist at the Stefansson Arctic Institute (SAI) in Iceland. He leads the Humanities for the Environment Circumpolar Observatory group anchored at SAI.

Dalam penelitian tentang artikulasi identitas saminisme (masyarakat adat Samin atau Sikep) terhadap proses gerakan sosial menolak pembangunan pabrik semen di Pegunungan Kendeng, saya memiliki temuan yang berbeda dengan kedua pandangan di atas. Pertama, artikulasi identitas saminisme telah mampu menguatkan jejaring solidaritas dan membentuk blok aliansi yang begitu kuat dalam menentang ekspansi pabrik semen. Namun, kesimpulan kedua bahwa penggunaan identitas saminisme ini dalam konteks gerakan sosial di Pati sangat rentan perpecahan dan itu terjadi pada tahun 2012 (Novianto, 2016). Artinya artikulasi identitas tersebut menjadi berhasil dalam konteks masyarakat sipil diluar basis gerakan, akan tetapi cenderung menyulut konflik di dalam gerakan masyarakat yang masuk ring 1 rencana ekspansi pabrik semen. Keadaan itu yang seringkali dimanfaatkan oleh aliansi pro pabrik semen untuk menyerang balik strategi perjuangan masyarakat kontra. Salah satunya dengan menghantam identitas saminisme sebagai sesuatu yang statis sebagaimana ketika awal kemunculannya pada awal abad ke-20 saat Samin Surosentiko bersama pengikutnya menentang pemerintahan kolonial Hindia-Belanda.

In considering the enigmatic relationships between philosophy, politics, and pedagogy, this essay attempts to map some of the currents in educational scholarship, particularly those running between reproduction theories and resistance theories. While these two theoretical frameworks have been at odds with one another, I suggest that both share orthodox commitments that prevent them from appreciating the constituent dimensions of revolutionary subjectivity. In seeking an alternative orientation, I propose an autonomist biopolitics of education. This framework inverts the traditional circuits of resistance and suggests that schools follow behind and resist the constituent life forms (constituent bíos) of students. If resistance theory only attempts to identify the ways in which students resist school practices, it risks obscuring the potentiality of constituent bíos as a social ontology that is primary, always already present, and already subject to the resistant practices of the school. Therefore, a key contribution of this essay is its development of an autonomist biopolitics of education. Within this framework, constituent bíos is recognized as the foundational and constitutive motor to which schools are constantly reacting. The adoption of this perspective, alongside more conventional understandings of resistance, offers a more nuanced conception of the relation between forms of life and schools.

This essay considers a potential paradigm shift in the struggle against well-honed logics of racialization in the United States. My argument contends that the critical factor sparking sustained protest in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson was not the fact Brown was young, black, or unarmed. It was not where his hands were at the time Wilson fired his gun. Nor was it Brown’s contested identity as common thug or aspiring college student. The critical factor was not even that the leadership of Ferguson had long been practicing and defending a form of racially determined policing-for-profit on the backs of its Black citizens. The spectral flesh of Michael Brown’s body, which critically represented the historical disciplining of blackness and death of black bodies, linked spectral violence and trauma across space and time. As a result, protesters claimed the spectrality of 'flesh in the street,' pushing critiques beyond police-involved shootings and centering blackness--as a construction maintained for exploitation and as a practice of freedom.

This article offers a comparative and transnational analysis of the Yellow counter- internationalist movement. Created in France at the turn of the twentieth century, this movement rapidly expanded beyond the national framework, particularly in Germany in the years preceding the First World War. The comparative approach reveals how this movement developed on both sides of the Rhine in keeping with different political contexts – variations underscored by the movement’s transnational connections.

This article reconstructs the life trajectories of Portuguese radical left activists who mobilized against the Estado Novo authoritarian regime between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s. It analyses the consequences of political engagement on the political and life trajectories of the activists across three different institutional settings: an authoritarian regime (until 1974), a revolutionary process (1974–1975) and a democracy (from 1976 onwards). The aim is to understand how the engagement and its consequences changed according to the changes at a political level. The underlying question is ‘what became of the radical activists who mobilized against the Portuguese dictatorship in the late 1960s’? To address this question, I adopt a longitudinal perspective, which contextualizes the present life of the former activists in a longer process, composed of different phases of engagement, activism, prison, disengagement, reconversion and life as former activists. I understand these phases as strictly interconnected to the organizational dynamics (groups and networks) and the political processes.

This article engages the argument that the 2008–2009 Great Recession forced a revisiting of the period of transitions in Spain, Greece, and Portugal as “political masterpieces,” especially among a younger generation of activists. It argues that this radical reevaluation turned the conflicting generational recollections of the past into pivotal components of present political contestation. Moreover, it shows how the redeeming power of the transitions animates the political, cultural, and public discourse of young politicized people who, although (or precisely because) they have not experienced these events directly, keep returning to them to make sense of contemporary politics. The complex relations between past and present are analyzed using oral histories with the so-called Generation 2 of the transitions, namely people who have only “projective memories” of these events during the 1970. Especially relevant is the effects of their participation in the 2011 indignados movements.

We examine the social resistance against large dams as environmental justice movements in four case studies - the Sardar Sarovar Project from India, the Hidrosogamoso from Colombia, the ‘‘new water culture’ movement in Spain, and the Lesotho Highlands Project from Lesotho - with diverse social, political and environmental contexts. We discuss three broad issues. First, the nature of the involvement of civil society and metropolitan intelligentsia in leadership roles. Second, how cross-class and multi-sectoral alliances have been forged between the local and the global. And third, how the notion of environmental justice in
relation to social justice is adopted in these movements.