There has recently been a veritable outpouring of published works and journal articles on the ‘Movement of the Movements’, also known as the ‘Anti-Globalisation Movement’, the ‘Global Justice and Solidarity Movement’, or the ‘Movement for Globalisation from Below’. Yet has all this writing and theorising bridged the gap, identified by David Graeber in 2002, between intellectuals' and activists' understandings of what is happening in the field of social movements?1 The Movement of the Movements is still widely viewed as either a romantic reaction to the harsh realities of economic restructuring, or as a chaotic Babel of groups with no clear common agenda or common purpose. In this review article, I suggest that the movement is neither a mess, nor a coherent whole; rather it is an entity in constant circulation, mutation, and proliferation, composed of highly varied and organised forms of what Albert Hirschman termed ‘social energy’ (Hirschman 1983). If that sounds vague, it is deliberately so.
Activist sites proliferate on the Internet, and there are now regular global and regional Social Forums in which to express the movements' priorities. At the global level, knowledge about how people are constructing alternative visions and practices to replace the dominant world order is expanding rapidly.2 It remains a mystery why such movements are thriving in the present hostile environment, with an international war on terror and a political climate ever more intolerant of dissent (Chomsky 2003). Arguably, the key resources that the movement has managed to mobilise and harness for collective advantage are information and stories of human imagination. ‘We have our own channels of communication…and those who wish to find us can do so without [the mainstream media's] help’, comments Monbiot. In more messianic mode, he adds: ‘They can pronounce us dead as often as they like, and we shall, as many times, be resurrected’ (Monbiot 2003: 361–2). And so it does appear.
There has recently been a veritable outpouring of published works and journal articles on the ‘Movement of the Movements’, also known as the ‘Anti-Globalisation Movement’, the ‘Global Justice and Solidarity Movement’, or the ‘Movement for Globalisation from Below’. Yet has all this writing and theorising bridged the gap, identified by David Graeber in 2002, between intellectuals' and activists' understandings of what is happening in the field of social movements?1 The Movement of the Movements is still widely viewed as either a romantic reaction to the harsh realities of economic restructuring, or as a chaotic Babel of groups with no clear common agenda or common purpose. In this review article, I suggest that the movement is neither a mess, nor a coherent whole; rather it is an entity in constant circulation, mutation, and proliferation, composed of highly varied and organised forms of what Albert Hirschman termed ‘social energy’ (Hirschman 1983). If that sounds vague, it is deliberately so.
Activist sites proliferate on the Internet, and there are now regular global and regional Social Forums in which to express the movements' priorities. At the global level, knowledge about how people are constructing alternative visions and practices to replace the dominant world order is expanding rapidly.2 It remains a mystery why such movements are thriving in the present hostile environment, with an international war on terror and a political climate ever more intolerant of dissent (Chomsky 2003). Arguably, the key resources that the movement has managed to mobilise and harness for collective advantage are information and stories of human imagination. ‘We have our own channels of communication…and those who wish to find us can do so without [the mainstream media's] help’, comments Monbiot. In more messianic mode, he adds: ‘They can pronounce us dead as often as they like, and we shall, as many times, be resurrected’ (Monbiot 2003: 361–2). And so it does appear.
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