How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist?The North American Anti-Globalization Movement

Abstract

The anti-globalization movement is resolutely anti-imperialist, and increasingly says so. It works on issues of economic, political, and cultural justice and autonomy of indigenous people and the Global South, as well as workers and oppressed people in the Global North. Despite this good work, the North American segment of the movement has been harshly criticized by anti-racists within and outside the movement. This paper examines the anti-racist discourse about the movement. It begins with a comprehensive survey of the data available on these issues. The following analysis pursues a number of dimensions, ?nding that movement “framing” by activists as well as outsiders has played a powerful role in alienating anti-racists from the anti-globalization movement, thatanti-racists are not satis?ed by the way in which the anti-globalization movement connects the global and the local, that it is organizing strategy (neither goals nor tactics) that is often a source of con?ict, that this strategic di?erence re?ects assumptions of how empowerment happens and of subjectivities of proto-activists, that the anti-globalization movement’s assumptions are rooted in a white cultural individualism, and that this individualism also explains why countercultural politics are often experienced as exclusionary by activists of colour. The paper concludes by suggesting the use of Massimo deAngelis’ re-articulation of the meanings and practices of responsibility and solidarity in the anti-globalization movement.