Social Movements and the Politics of Place: Transnational and Local Change Sarah Prindle
aegis 2007
In Gibson-Graham’s conceptualisation, this politics of place- often favoured by women, environmentalist and those struggling for alternative forms of livelihood- is a lucid response to the type of ‘politics of empire’ which is also common on the Left and which requires that empire be confronted at the same level of totality, thereby devaluing all forms of localised action, reducing it to accommodation or reformism. As Gibson-Graham does not cease to remind us, ‘places always fail to be fully capitalist, and herein lie their potential to become something other.’ -Arturo Escobar, “Beyond the Third World”
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The importance of globalized resistance to neoliberal globalization and capitalism has been emphasized by theorists and social movements alike, particularly since the relative success of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999. In some ways resistance to neoliberal globalization is new, dealing with a new set of regimes of capital, and working against a system that is global and in no way democratic. Reactions to the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, often beginning as localized movements, have had to organize on a global scale to even begin to meet the widespread dominance of international trade organizations. Social movements often seek the assistance of, or incorporate into, NGOs and civil society, where there are opportunities like the World Social Forum to discuss the needs of individual places or global needs of many places. It is important to recognize the increasingly global scale of social movements, as they respond to the global scale of the influences on localized places. However, the importance of place and movements rooted in a place should not be overshadowed by the globalization of social movements. Some have called this idea globalization from below, but it is more than that. Change must begin in a place, recognizing the knowledge derived from living in that place. This knowledge becomes the social capital of community, interacting internally, ecologically, and internationally, and this knowledge is attached to a particular place. The understanding of place is not replaceable by overarching theories of social being. It is from this importance of place that global social movements must be derived, or any change that is effectively made by these movements will not address the needs of individual communities and life-worlds, leading to the same problems that overarching theories like socialism have failed to address. I will provide a framework for place-based politics through the work of Arturo Escobar. Escobar has written extensively about place and its role in global social movements as well as in the field of anthropology. Jurgen Habermas’ concept of the ‘life-world’ is similar to Escobar’s ‘place’ and addresses the context of social movements, so I will include a discussion of Habermas’ life-world in my exploration of place. It is important to note that these terms are not interchangeable; but in using and discussing both, it is possible to understand
