Friends%20of%20the%20Earth%20International:%20Research%20Access%20and%20Global%20Order%20in%20Globalising%20SMOs

1
Friends of the Earth InternationalResearch
Access and Global Order in Globalising SMOs

• Brian Doherty and Timothy Doyle
• Keele University
• ESRC Non-Governmental Public Action Programme
  2006-2008

2

• 1971 USA, Sweden, UK and France
• 2006 70 Countries, 1,200 staff 1.5 m members
  strong Southern representation more than half
  the groups
• A federation Secretariat in Amsterdam
• One country, one vote
• Part NGO part action network contrasts with
  Greenpeace, WWF

3
FoEI Overall Strategic Plan agreed in Abuja,
October 2006
4
(No Transcript)
5
Methodologies for SMOsResearch Access in
Multi-Modal Structures

• Using Northern/Southern dichotomy in
  methodological terms.
• North wanting to own story. Controlling
  academic access. Organisational hierarchy based
  in Amsterdam. Centralised. Non-democratic/bureaucr
  atic.

6
Methodologies of Power The South

• Power in more grassroots democratic terms
• Concept of Regions challenging Centre
• Concerns for researchers as activists not just
  academics
• Access through regional, democratic nodes
• Participant Observation access to Australian
  and Malaysian nodes. Funding opportunities.

7
Geocentric Metanarratives

• Construction of Order into Geopolitical regions.
• Western Liberal democracy Nation-state, Region
  as Four Corners
• Concepts of Pluralist Democracy
• Geocentrism of the North (Centre versus Periphery)

8
Public Sphere Constructed in Post-Structural
Manner

• NSM frame may be more appropriate in
  post-industrial societies. Questions of
  appropriateness of NSM models outside of Europe
  (challenge to Chester et al).
• In other words, emerging world order is not as
  placeless as those who are fascinated by the
  time-space compression of globalization would
  like to imagine (Chaturvedi and Painter 2007
  388).

9
(No Transcript)