Abstract
In this paper, we explore how French Free Software activism can help to understand the dynamics of globalization from below. First, we explore the global context within which French Free Software activists built their community. They applied the approach of the global Free Software Foundation (FSF), which grounded its work in what we call the “freedom discourse.” Through this discourse, FSF leaders articulated their goals and activities to emphasize the importance of software users and developers having access to source code. Equally important, they established Free Software as a new form of property that provided an alternative to the proprietary form. Second, we explore the development of the Free Software community in France. Since 1996, activists applied the freedom discourse to promote and defend Free Software as a new form of property. For the first five years they focused on public education work; however, after 2001 they mobilized to oppose two legislative initiatives that threatened Free Software by imposing digital rights management provisions. Finally, we reflect on how the case of French activists illuminates the dynamics of globalization from below. We highlight the contradictory ways that these activists forged links between local and global communities to create transboundary publics.
Highlights
In the last few decades, neoliberalism arose as the dominant form of globalization
We argue that the contradictory combination of the local and the global constitutes a central dynamic involved with creating a transboundary public in the French case
5 CONCLUSION: FREE SOFTWARE AND GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW The French free software case poses lessons to understand the prospects for developing alternative forms of globalization from below
Summary
In the last few decades, neoliberalism arose as the dominant form of globalization. This “gradual spread of the liberal economic model over the world” (BOUQUET, 2007, p. 201) took place in parallel with the development of the digital economy, leading scholars to build the notion of informational capitalism (CASTELLS, 1996). We argue that the contradictory combination of the local and the global (or better yet, the political spatiality of the state and the economical spatiality of the market) constitutes a central dynamic involved with creating a transboundary public in the French case. This dynamic poses lessons for understanding the process of developing alternative forms of globality from below. We highlight the contradictory ways that these activists forged links between local and global communities to create transboundary publics
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