Social Movements and the Impossibility of Autonomy

1
Social Movements and the (Im)possibility of
Autonomy

• Steffen Böhm
• Ana C. Dinerstein
• André Spicer
• ESRC NGPA Programme - Theory Workshop - 7-8 May
  2008
• London School of Economics and Political Science

2
Autonomy Movements

• Latin America
• Caracoles (Mexico)
• Unemployed workers (Argentina)
• Neighbourhood councils (Boliva)
• Europe
• Disobedienti (Italy)
• Autonomen (Germany)
• des Papiers pour Tous (France)

3
What is Autonomy

• Auto-Nomos
• Self determination or creating ones own laws
• Core components
• Autonomous rule governed by self-established
  rules, self-determination, self-management and
  self-regulating practices particularly vis-à-vis
  the state
• Autonomous practices attempts to create
  alternative to economic, cultural, social and/or
  political capitalist practices and relations
• Mutual aid driven by sense of hardship
• Collective a shared project

4
Autonomy as Self-valorisation

• Antonio Negri
• a process of valorisation which is autonomous
  from capitalist valorisation a self-defining,
  self-determining process which goes beyond the
  mere resistance to capitalist valorisation to a
  positive project of self-constitution (Cleaver
  1992 129)
• Activity of social movements produces value
  autonomously of capital
• Labour has a constitutive power
• Happens through micro resistances
• Thus Autonomy involves independent constitutive
  power from capital

5
Autonomy as Negation

• John Holloway
• Autonomy as movement of negation
• Target of negation is disciplinary categories
• Not through taking state power, but
  deconstruction state power
• Involves building a de-institutionalised politics
• Thus autonomy involves negation of the state

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Autonomy as Alternative Spaces

• to think in terms of commons and communities is
  the only way we have to avoid the dangers of
  cooptation, helping instead consolidate a social
  force that begins to constitute spaces of life
  beyond capital (De Angelis 2004 331)
• Movement from hegemonic politics to affinity
  based politics (Day)
• Focus on development of networks of local
  alternatives
• Thus, autonomy involves creation of local
  alternatives to globalization

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Autonomous of capital?

• Autonomy as self valorisation process which is
  autonomous of capital
• But the capitalist economy seems to encourage
  autonomy
• No collar workers (Ross, 2004)
• Neo-normative control (Fleming and Sturdy, 2005)
• The New Spirit of Capital (Boltanski and
  Chiapellio, 2006)
• Thus, autonomy appears to be bound up with the
  changing nature of contemporary capital

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Autonomous of the State?

• Autonomy as negation process that deconstructs
  state categories
• How contemporary states appear to harness
  autonomy
• Development language
• Local economic development
• Public service delivery strategies
• Thus, autonomy appears to a logic which is quite
  acceptable to (some) states

9
Autonomous of Globalisation?

• Autonomy as the process of developing local
  alternatives to globalization
• Autonomy may be functional processes of
  globalisation
• Autonomous activity as a distraction (Marxist
  critiques of NGOs)
• Autonomy constructing glocal action
• Autonomy as a globally shared imaginary
• Thus, autonomy actually seems to facilitate a
  particular form of globalization

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Illustrative Examples
11
Illustrative Examples
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Autonomy as fissure

• Autonomy is
• Bound to capital
• Bound to the state
• Bound to globalization
• But it does not simply bolster these structures
• Rather it involves a struggle with these
  structures
• Which takes place through
• Moments of de positioning
• Moments of re positioning
• Thus autonomy is an important new terrain of
  struggles, which is linked to neo-liberalism, but
  creates important opportunities from where to
  dispute and contest it (and move beyond it)