Global Protest Research Articles

Activism after Seattle: Dilemmas of the Anti-globalisation Movement

The fact that countless people around the globe see street protests against the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank as the only means to voice their opinions indicates a systemic and alarming crisis of legitimacy, one that has to do with the lack of democratic accountability of the major multilateral institutions that shape the world economy. To understand the ensuing dynamics, it is necessary to portray globalisation as a multiple and at times contradictory process: not only as a disempowering encroachment of large and unaccountable economic structures, but also as an evolution that has opened up new possibilities for popular participation in the struggle over global governance. But an increase in political influence also calls for additional moral responsibility, or so at least it should. Among the many political dilemmas that the new breed of diverse global activists face, and that this essay discusses, are the choice between violent and nonviolent means of protest and the struggle over voice and representation, the question of who can legitimately speak for whom. Not all of these dilemmas can be solved. But the global protest movement, problematic as it is at times, plays an important role in fostering a new international democratic ethos. The very process of challenging established norms and institutions generates important public discussion about the nature and direction of global governance.

Globalization, Inequality and Global Protest

Taken from The Alfred Deakin Lectures on 15 May 2001, broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) National Radio, Amartya Sen looks critically at the anti-globalization protestors in his discussion of global doubts as global solutions.

Transnationalizing Aztlan: Rudolfo Anaya's Heart of Aztlan and US Proletarian Literature

Despite the recent interest in the intertextual dimension of Rudolfo Anaya's Heart of Aztlan in relation to US literary traditions (Gish) and classical European literature (Taylor), Anaya's intricate referencing of US proletarian fiction remains surprisingly unexamined. Indeed, the discursive strategies of proletarian literary production abound in this text: work hazards, unemployment, the indictment of capitalism and other power structures, sadistic bosses, corrupt union leaders, mentor characters, strikes, and conversion narratives. But above all, Anaya's second novel satisfies the major criteria in the definition of proletarian literature: social realism and the expectation that literature must prefigure optimism (Murphy; Aaron; Foley). Contrary to the critics who contend that Anaya's rewriting of pre-Cortesian millennial prophecy is incompatible with his vision of radical politics, (1) I maintain that the tension between form, content, and overallmeaning (2) in Heart can be productively analyzed and its radical politics be discerned only when examined in the context of the thematic and structural strategies that typify US proletarian discourse and its global links to leftist, socialist, and Marxist literary movements. (3) In his novel, Anaya de-couples Aztlan from its nationalist and racial subtext in the Chicano Movement, proposing instead to interpret cultural memory through a class analysis. I argue here that by embedding Aztlan within the structures of global capitalism, not the history of ethnic oppression in the US, by intertwining myth and the international division of labor, Jung and Marx so to speak, Anaya manages to turn the mythic into a transnational topos that decenters ethnocentric narratives of identity and envisions a politics of love and solidarity which will lead towards a radical affirmation of the human will. US proletarian literary production, however, constitutes an immense body of texts. I have chosen, therefore, to juxtapose Anaya's Heart (1976) with Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974) for three main reasons. First, both texts were completed and published in the same historical context of the social and intellectual struggles for civil fights in the US among Chicanos (the Chicano Movement) and women (the second wave of feminism). This period in US history witnessed the rise of radical politics; the affirmation of identities, be they racial, sexual, or ethnic; the struggle for civil fights, equality, and justice among diverse marginalized constituencies; as well as the student, anti-American and anti-war global protest movements. Second, these novels utilize the cultural memory of the First Nations of the Americas to represent the voices of the dispossessed proletariat. And finally, Heart and Yonnondio share astonishing similarities in form and content because of their grounding in proletarian realism. (4) In their introduction to the influential anthology, Aztlan: Essays on the Chicano Homeland, Anaya and Francisco Lomeli posit that Through Aztlan we come to better understand psychological time (identity), regional make-up (place), and evolution (historical time), without which Chicano/as would be contemporary displaced nomads, suffering the diaspora in our homeland (iv). Heart, however, further shows that through Aztlan, Chicano/as come also to appreciate an ideology (international socialist and Marxist politics and aesthetics) that connects the Chicano struggle for civil rights with other revolutionary movements at home and abroad. Heart was conceived in the context of the popular spread of Chicano/a cultural nationalism and the Chicano/a struggle for civil rights in the late 1960s, which is usually referred to as E1 Movimiento, or the Chicano Movement (Meier and Ribera; Fox). This national social movement protested and fought against Anglo-American racism, oppression, and exploitation of la raza. …

New media, new movements? The role of the internet in shaping the ‘anti‐globalization’ movement

Collective action and social movement protest has become commonplace in our ‘demonstration‐democracy’ and no longer surprises the media or the public. However, as will be shown, this was not the case with the recent anti‐globalization protests that attracted demonstrators from countries all over the world. The battles of Seattle, Washington, Prague and Genoa, with an unforeseen mixture of nationalities and movements, became world news. Interestingly, the new media seemed to play a crucial role in the organization of these global protests. This article maps this movement‐in‐progress via an analysis of the websites of anti‐globalization, or more specifically anti‐neo‐liberal globalization organizations. It examines the contribution of these sites to three different conditions that establish movement formation; collective identity; actual mobilization and a network of organizations. This ongoing, explorative research indicates signs of an integration of different organizations involved and attributes an important role to the Internet. However, whilst both our methodology and subject are evolving rapidly, conclusions, as our initial results show, must be tempered.

The Power of a Few: Bureaucratic Decision-Making in the Okavango Delta

Water is scarce yet vital in Botswana's desert climate. As one of only two perennial surface sources, the Okavango Delta has often been seen by the Government and international donors as under-utilised and ripe for development. Hence the major project proposed in the early 1980s by the Department of Water Affairs (DWA), albeit suspended, nearly a decade later, after both local and global protests. This article examines how a small group of state bureaucrats was able to control the decision-making process, and discusses the implications of this hegemony. It is based on research undertaken in Botswana during 1991–3 that included over 150 interviews with the members of a wide range of organisations in the public, parastatal, and private sectors.