[WSF-Discuss] [Fwd: Networking Futures Interview/Americas Social Forum]

[Madhuresh]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Networking Futures Interview/Americas Social Forum
Date: 	Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:38:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: 	Jeff Juris <jeffjuris at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: 	jeffjuris at yahoo.com
To: 	jai.sen at cacim.net, madhuresh at cacim.net, p.waterman at inter.nl.net



Hi all,

Just back from the Americas Social Forum. Here's a report we did for Free Speech Radio: http://www.fsrn.org/content/report-americas-social-forum/3513

Also, not sure if you saw this interview, but feel free to circulate and post... best, Jeff

(Originally posted on nettime-l at kein.org)

Inside Networked Movements
Interview with Jeffrey Juris
By Geert Lovink

Jeffrey Juris wrote an excellent insiders? story about the ?other 
globalization? movement. Networking Futures is an anthropological 
account that starts with the Seattle protests, late 1999, against the 
WTO and takes the reader to places of protest such as Prague, 
Barcelona and Genoa. The main thesis of Juris is the shift of radical 
movements towards the network method as their main form of 
organization. Juris doesn?t go so far to state that movement as such 
has been replaced by network(ing). What the network metaphor rather 
indicates is a shift, away from the centralized party and a renewed 
emphasis on internationalism. Juris describes networks as an ?emerging 
ideal.? Besides precise descriptions of Barcelona groups, where Jeff 
Juris did his PhD research with Manuel Castells in 2001-2002, the 
World Social Forum and Indymedia, Networking Futures particularly 
looks into a relatively unknown anti-capitalist network, the People?s 
Global Action. The outcome is a very readable book, filled with group 
observations and event descriptions, not heavy on theory or strategic 
discussions or disputes. The email interview below was done while 
Jeffrey Juris was working in Mexico City where studies the 
relationship between grassroots media activism and autonomy. He is an 
Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Social and 
Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University.

GL: One way of describing your book is to see it as a case study of 
Peoples' Global Action. Would it be fair to see this networked 
platform as a 21st century expression of an anarcho-trotskyist avant-
gardist organization? You seem to struggle with the fact that PGA is 
so influential, yet unknown. You write about the history of the World 
Social Forum and its regional variations, but PGA is really what 
concerns you. Can you explain to us something about your fascination 
with PGA? Is this what Ned Rossiter calls a networked organization? Do 
movements these days need such entities in the background?

JJ: I wouldn?t call my book a case study of People?s Global Action 
(PGA) in a strict sense, but you are right to point to my fascination 
with this particular network. In many ways I started out wanting to do 
an ethnographic study of PGA, but as I suggest in my introduction, its 
highly fluid, shifting dynamics made a conventional case study 
impossible. A case study requires a relatively fixed object of 
analysis. With respect to social movement networks this would imply 
stable nodes of participation, clear membership structures, 
organizational representation, etc., all of which are absent from PGA. 
However, this initial methodological conundrum presented two 
opportunities. On the one hand, it seemed to me that PGA was not 
unique, but reflected broader dynamics of transnational political 
activism in an era characterized by new digital technologies, emerging 
network forms, and the political visions that go along with such 
transformations. In this sense, PGA was on the cutting edge; it 
provided a unique opportunity to explore not only the dynamics, but 
also the strengths and weaknesses of new forms of networked 
organization among contemporary social movements.

At the same time, PGA also represented a kind of puzzle: I knew it had 
been at the center of the global days of action that people generally 
associate with the rise of the global justice movement, yet it was 
extremely hard to pin down. Participating individuals, collectives, 
and organizations seemed to come and go, and those who were most 
active in the process often resolutely denied that they were members 
or had any official role. Yet, the PGA network still had this kind of 
power of evocation, and, at least during the early years of my 
research (say 1999 to 2002), it continued to provide formal and 
informal spaces of interaction and convergence. In this sense, it 
seemed to me that figuring out the enigma of PGA could help us better 
understand the logic of contemporary networked movements more 
generally. On the other hand, the difficulty of carrying out a 
traditional ethnographic study of PGA meant I had to shift my focus 
from PGA as a stable network to the specific practices through which 
the PGA process is constituted. In other words, my initial 
methodological dilemma opened up my field of analysis to a whole set 
of networking practices and politics that were particularly visible 
within PGA, but could also be detected to varying degrees within more 
localized networks, such as the Movement for Global Resistance (MRG) 
in Barcelona, alternative transnational networks such as the World 
Social Forum (WSF) process, new forms of tactical and alternative 
media associated with the global justice movement, and within the 
organization of mass direct actions.

In other words, the focus of my book is really these broader 
networking practices and logics, although these were particularly 
visible within the PGA process. Methodologically, then, I situated 
myself within a specific movement node?MRG in Barcelona, and followed 
the network connections outward through various network formations, 
including but not restricted to PGA. However, it is also true that the 
ethnographic stories I present are largely told from the vantage point 
of activists associated with PGA. This is because MRG happened to be a 
co-convener of the PGA network during the time of my research, but 
also because PGA activists were particularly committed to what I refer 
to as a network ideal.

In my book I distinguish between two ideal organizational logics: a 
vertical command logic and a horizontal networking logic, both of 
which are present to varying degrees, and exist in dynamic tension 
with respect to one another, within any particular network. Whereas 
vertical command logics are perhaps more visible within the social 
forums, PGA reflects a particular commitment to new forms of open, 
collaborative, and directly democratic organization, thus coming 
closer to the horizontal networking logics I am most concerned with. 
In this sense, PGA is definitively NOT a 21st century avant-gardist 
organization and has been particularly hostile to traditional top-down 
Marxist/Trotskyist political models and visions. PGA does reflect 
something an anarchist ethic, although this has more to do with the 
confluence between networking logics and anarchist organizing 
principles than any kind of abstract commitment to anarchist politics 
per se.

Rather than a networked organization, which refers to the way 
traditional organizations increasingly take on the network form, PGA 
is closer to an ?organized network? in Ned Rossiter?s terms, a new 
institutional form that is immanent to the logic of the new media 
(although in this case not restricted to the new media). The network 
structure of PGA thus provides a transnational space for communication 
and coordination among activists and collectives. For example, PGA?s 
hallmarks reflect a commitment to decentralized forms of organization, 
while the network has no members and no one can speak in its name. 
Rather than a traditional organization (however networked) with clear 
membership and vertical chains of command, PGA provides the kind of 
communicational infrastructure necessary for the rise of contemporary 
networked social movements. The challenge for PGA and similar 
networks, given their radical commitment to a horizontal networking 
logic, has always been sustainability. This is where the social 
forums, with their greater openness to vertical forms, have been more 
effective. In this sense, I find PGA much more exciting and 
politically innovative, but it may be the hybrid institutional forms 
represented by the social forums that have a more lasting impact.

GL: We're 3 or 4 years further now. What has changed since you 
undertook your research? The post 9-11 effect has somewhat leveled 
off, I guess, but the anti-war movement is also weaker. Is it fair to 
say that the worldwide ?Seattle movement' has weakened, or rather, 
exhausted itself? Please update us.

JJ: If you mean the visible expressions of movement activity, 
particularly those associated with confrontational direct actions, 
then I think it is fair to say the worldwide anti-corporate 
globalization/anti-capitalist/global justice movement has weakened. 
But it is not entirely exhausted. As I argue in my book, mass 
mobilizations are critical tools for generating the visibility and 
affective solidarity (e.g. emotional energy) required for sustained 
networking and movement building. However, activists eventually tire 
and public interest inevitably wanes. In this sense, movements are 
cyclical and the public moments of visibility necessarily ebb and 
flow. In terms of the global justice movement, events such as 9-11, or 
the repression in Genoa, certainly put a damper on the movement, but 
it would have slowed anyway. That said, mass actions have continued 
throughout the post- 9-11 period, while the anti-war and global 
justice movements have largely converged, although more so outside the 
United States. What we have seen is a shift toward the increasing 
institutionalization of movement activity combined with a return to 
?submerged? networking, to borrow a term from Melucci.

If we think about social movements in terms of these less visible, 
spectacular forms of action, then in many ways, the global justice 
movement has proven remarkably sustainable. In this sense, global 
justice activists have continued to organize mass actions, but at 
regularized intervals (every two years against the G8 Summit, for 
example, or every four years during the Democratic and Republic 
National Conventions in the U.S.). The massive 2007 anti-G8 
mobilization in Heiligendamm, Germany, which I was able to attend, was 
a particularly empowering experience for many younger activists. At 
the same time, the global social forum process has continued to 
provide a more institutionalized arena for networking and interaction. 
Although the WSF itself has attracted declining media coverage, tens 
of thousands people continue to attend the periodic centralized global 
events (every two years or so), while local and regional forums have 
expanded in many parts of the world.

For example, the first U.S. Social Forum was held in Atlanta last 
summer, representing a key moment of convergence for a movement that 
was particularly weakened by the climate of fear and repression after 
9-11. At the same time, countless networks, collectives, and projects 
that arose in the context of the global justice movement continue to 
operate outside public view, including local organizing projects and 
new media-related initiatives such as Indymedia. In sum, if we think 
about movements as those relatively rare periods of increasingly 
visible and confrontational direct action, then the global justice 
movement has perhaps run its course, at least for now. However, if we 
take into account the submerged, localized, routinized, and 
increasingly institutionalized (by which I mean the building of new 
movement institutions, not the existing representative democratic 
ones), then the movement remains alive and well, perhaps surprisingly 
vibrant after so many years.

GL: We can't say that many practice "militant ethnography". There is a 
limited interest in media activism but the life inside radical 
movements is not over studied. In the past decade this was, in part, 
also due to rampant anti-intellectualism. What is the intellectual 
life inside social movements like these days? What are the main 
debates and critical concepts?

JJ: The lack of ?militant? ethnographic approaches to life inside 
radical social movements has to be understood not only with respect to 
anti-intellectualism among activists, which varies from region to 
region, but also the dominant academic traditions for studying social 
movements. For the most part, what many refer to as ?social movement 
theory? has been the province of sociologists and political 
scientists, many of whom are committed to positivist theory building, 
using quantitative or qualitative methods, and thus tend to view 
social movements as ?objects? to be studied from the outside. These 
scholars may support the political goals of the movements they study, 
but their theory and methods are directed toward other academics, not 
movements themselves. There has always been a significant counter-
tradition, of course, including anthropologists who have used 
ethnographic methods to study popular movements around the world and a 
few politically engaged scholars who have gone deep inside the heart 
of radical movements, such as Barbara Epstein?s study of the U.S. 
direct action movement during the 1970s and 1980s, ?Political Protest 
and Cultural Revolution,? or George Katsiaficas? book on German 
autonomous movements, ?The Subversion of Politics.?

Meanwhile, critiques of positivist approaches to social movements have 
become more frequent within the academy, while the recent push for a 
more public or activist anthropology and sociology have led to a more 
conducive environment for ?militant? approaches to the study of social 
movements. At the same time, there has also been a noticeable trend 
toward self-analysis and critique among activists themselves. In my 
book I suggest that contemporary social movements are increasingly 
?self-reflexive,? as evidenced by the countless networks of knowledge 
production, debate, and exchange among global justice activists, 
including listserves, Internet forums, radical theory groups, activist 
research networks, etc. There is still a great deal of anti 
intellectualism, although as mentioned above, this varies by region. 
For example, in my experience, activists in the Anglo-speaking world, 
including the UK and the U.S., tend to be more suspicious of 
intellectuals, while those in Southern Europe or the Southern Cone of 
Latin America are more open to abstract theorizing.

There has been a general surge in activist research and radical theory 
projects linked to the global justice movement over the past decade, 
many of which have been associated with the social forum process. In 
this sense, there has been a blurring of the divide between academic 
and movement-based theorizing as evidenced not only in my own work, 
but in many other spheres, including the volume edited by Stephven 
Shukaitis and David Graeber, ?Constituent Imagination,? the on-line 
journal Ephemera, or the newly created movement newspaper Turbulence. 
In terms of the main debates and critical concepts these vary widely 
depending on the particular network, region, or project. Given that we 
are dealing with a ?movement of movements? or a ?network or networks? 
the particular issues and ideas of concern to activists are shaped by 
the specific contexts in which they are embedded. My own work is no 
exception, as I was particularly influenced by the interest in 
networks, digital technologies, and new forms of organization among 
activists in Barcelona. It was through hours of collaborative 
practice, discussion, and debate that I began to see the network as 
not only a technical artifact and organizational form, but also a 
widespread political ideal.

It was fascinating to see how the concept of the network popularized 
by theorists such as Manuel Castells or Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri 
had seeped into activist discourse itself. Indeed, by the end of my 
time in the field the ?network? had emerged as one of the key unifying 
concepts among global justice activists around the world, and many of 
the movement debates surrounded the pros and cons of network 
organizing, the divide between the so called ?horizontals? and 
?verticals,? the struggle against informal hierarchies, the role of 
new technologies, etc. In other words, the theoretical concerns 
addressed in my book reflect the concepts and debates I encountered in 
the movement itself. At the same time, the specific theoretical 
languages and traditions through which these issues have been 
addressed vary greatly. For example, many Italian activists associated 
with the occupied social centers, and those influenced by them 
elsewhere, were particularly influenced by the Italian autonomists and 
concepts such as the multitude, immaterial labor, and precarity found 
in the writing of Hardt & Negri and Paolo Virno, among others. Some of 
the more UK-based radical theory networks have been particularly 
influenced by Gilles Deleuze as well as Deleuze and Guattari?s notion 
of the rhizome.

Although some movement pockets in Barcelona were in line with the 
Italian tradition, many of the Catalan activists I worked with were 
more familiar with Manuel Castells, and there was a general concern 
for emerging forms of participatory democracy. To the extent that 
there have been intellectual debates within the U.S. context, these 
have tended to revolve around direct democracy, on the one hand, and 
issues of race, class, and exclusion, on the other. The other critical 
arena for intellectual discussion and debate within the global justice 
movement has revolved around the social forum process. Here the key 
concept has been ?open space,? which I view as a reflection of a 
horizontal networking logic inscribed within the organizational 
architecture of the forum. Proponents of open space see the forum as a 
new kind of organization, an arena for dialogue and exchange rather 
than a unified political actor. Critics argue the open space concept 
neglects the multiple exclusions generated by any political space, and 
undermines the ability of the movement to engage in the kind of 
coordinated actions needed to achieve tangible victories. The open 
space debate thus incorporates many of the concepts and tensions that 
are important within the movement, including networks, the rise of a 
new politics, participatory democracy, and tension between networking 
and vertical command logics.

Finally, activists have also widely debated alternative models of 
social change, particularly within and around the forums. Although 
traditional sectors of the movement are still committed to state-
centered strategies of reform or revolution, there has been a keen 
interest, particularly among younger and more radical activists, in 
more autonomous forms of transformation based on ?changing the world 
without taking power? to borrow a phrase from John Holloway. These 
emerging political visions involve a complex mix of traditional 
anarchism, autonomous Marxism, Deleuzian post-structuralism, and the 
post-representational logic of organized networks. The intellectual 
life within many (though not all) parts of the movement continues to 
thrive, and in many respects represents a far richer and more complex 
set of ideas and debates than those found within many academic circles.

GL: It is not hard to notice that you left the Italian intellectual 
influences outside of your writings. One could easily state that the 
bible of Seattle movement has been Negri/Hardt's Empire (with Spinoza 
hovering in the background). No traces of Virno or Berardi either, no 
Lazzarato, not even an Pasquinelli or Terranova. How come?

JJ: I do address Hardt & Negri?s work, but not so much the others. 
This is perhaps more of a reflection of my particular approach to 
theory, as well as my anthropological concern for ?staying close to 
practices,? as Chris Kelty puts it in his recent book on free 
software, ?Two Bits,? than a statement of my affinity (or lack 
thereof) for Italian theory. Analytically, I take the emergence of 
distributed networks associated with post-fordist, informational 
capitalism (as analyzed by Hardt & Negri, Castells, and others) as a 
starting point, but I specifically examine how network forms are 
generated in practice and how they relate to network technologies and 
imaginaries. I use ethnography to generate another series of concepts 
that are closer to the networking practices I encountered in the 
field, such as the cultural logic and politics of networking. In this 
sense, I try to descend from the realm of abstract theorizing about 
networks, immaterial labor, capitalism, and so forth, to consider the 
complex micro-political struggles and practices through which concrete 
network norms and forms are generated in specific contexts, as well as 
the links between network norms, forms, and technologies more 
generally. Hardt & Negri are thus in the background, particularly 
their emphasis on the networked form of contemporary resistance, but I 
am concerned with a more concrete level.

At the same time, it is true that I am less convinced by the more 
ontological, Spinozan dimension of Hardt & Negri?s writing, given my 
emphasis on practices, circulations, and connections- the rise of new 
political subjectivities certainly, but I?m not so sure about a new 
historical subject. A second, more contextual reason why the Italian 
theorists are not more prominent in my book has to do with the fact 
that the particular Catalan activists I worked with most closely were 
less influenced by this tradition than theorists such as Manuel 
Castells, general writing on participatory democracy, or ideas 
developed through their own grounded networking practices. In this 
sense, although Empire has indeed been influential within many global 
justice movement circles, and has had an important impact on my own 
thinking and writing; it would be a stretch to call it, or any other 
single book for that matter, the bible of the global justice movement. 
The movement is too diverse and there are too many political and 
regional variations. Finally, to be frank, I was not aware of Berardi, 
Lazzarato, Pasquinelli, or Terranova at the time of writing this book, 
which is partly due to the specific intellectual and political 
currents in which I moved. It would be interesting to go back and 
address some of these theorists now, particularly Terranova?s ?Network 
Culture,? and Ned Rossiter?s recent book, ?Organized Networks,? which 
more deeply engages the Italian tradition.

GL: Do you see the networking practices amongst radical activists as 
something special? I mean, isn't it terribly mainstream to use all 
these technologies? I understand that the network paradigm within the 
realm of politics is still something new, but as tools there is 
nothing that creative, or even subversive, about their cultures of use.

JJ: My contention is not that the networking practices I explore in my 
book are unique to radical activists, but they do form part of an 
innovative mode of radical political practice that has to be 
understood in the context of an increasing confluence between network 
norms, forms, and technologies. It is important to point out that, 
when I talk about networking practices, I am not only referring to the 
use of digital technologies, but also to new forms of organizational 
practice. Activist networking practices are both physical and virtual, 
and they are frequently associated with emerging political 
imaginaries. It is precisely the interaction between network 
technologies, network-based organizational forms, and network-based 
political norms that characterizes radical activism.

As I point out in Networking Futures, there is nothing particularly 
liberatory or progressive about networks. As Castells and Hardt & 
Negri show, decentralized networks are characteristic of post-fordist 
modes of capital accumulation generally, while terror, crime, 
military, and police outfits increasingly operate as transnational 
networks as well (see Luis Fernandez? fantastic new book about police 
networks, ?Policing Dissent?). What is unique about radical activist 
networking, however, is not only how such practices are used in the 
context of mass movements for social, economic, and environmental 
justice, but also the way radical activists project their egalitarian 
values- flat hierarchies, horizontal relations, and decentralized 
coordination, etc.- back onto network technologies and forms 
themselves. It is this contingent confluence that makes certain 
activist networking practices radical, not the use of specific kinds 
of technologies per se.

GL: One could easily write a separate study of Indymedia and the 
Independent Media Centres, which were erected during all these protest 
events. You have not gone very deeply into internal Indymedia matters. 
These days, almost ten years later, Indymedia is not playing an active 
role anymore, at least not the international English edition. How did 
it lose its momentum and is there still a need for such news-driven 
sites?

JJ: Although I do address Indymedia and other forms of collaborative 
digital networking, it?s true that the main ethnographic focus of my 
book revolves around broader global justice networks such as MRG in 
Barcelona or PGA and the WSF process on a transnational scale. Largely 
for that reason I was not able to provide more in-depth coverage of 
the fascinating and very important internal debates and dynamics 
within the Indymedia network. Tish Stringer?s dissertation on the 
Houston Indymedia collective called, ?Move! Guerrilla Media, 
Collaborative Modes, and the Tactics of Radical Media Making,? comes 
closest to this kind of analysis. I?m not sure what you mean when you 
say that Indymedia is not playing an active role anymore. If you mean 
that the novelty of the network has worn off, that particular 
collectives are not as active as they once were, or that it is no 
longer on the cutting edge of technological and/or organizational 
innovation, you may be right. But if you mean that Indymedia has a 
lower profile on the web than it used to or that activists no longer 
read or contribute to the various local and international sites, then 
I?m not so sure. Indymedia is nearly ten years old and certainly much 
of its novelty has worn off. At the same time, it continues to fulfill 
a key role of providing a space for activists to generate and 
circulate their own news and information, facilitating mobilization 
and continuing to challenge the divide between author and consumer. 
There have been heated debates within the network about the need to 
generate more reliable and higher quality posts, and I think this goal 
still remains elusive. In this sense, Indymedia remains very good at 
doing what it was initially set up to do, but it has not advanced much 
further in terms of pushing the bounds of its grassroots collaborative 
production process to generate the kind of deeper and more insightful 
reporting that some might wish for.

For example, there had been a proposal to develop a kind of open 
editing system that would generate more accurate, higher quality posts 
without the need for a more centralized editorial process, but that 
proposal has yet to yield any concrete results, as far as I know. If 
this is what you mean by losing momentum, then I suppose it is true. 
However, this might be expecting too much. In my experience networks 
are often good at achieving the specific goals they were established 
for, but efforts to reprogram them midstream are often extremely 
difficult. It is generally much easier to simply create a new project 
or network than try to retool an existing one. In this sense, I would 
expect that further innovation with respect to alternative, 
decentralized news production is happening elsewhere. Indymedia thus 
continues to play a critical role for grassroots activists in many 
parts of the world, and, in fact, I think it is one of the most 
important and enduring institutions the global justice movement has 
left behind. At the same time, I think the desire to see Indymedia 
become something else, resolve all of its internal tensions, or 
forever remain at the vanguard of innovation is misplaced. Indymedia 
will continue to fulfill a key role in terms of creating alternative, 
self-produced activist news and information, but I think it is 
important to look elsewhere for new innovations, practices, and 
strategies.

In my own case, I have recently become fascinated with the burgeoning 
free media scene in Mexico, which includes not only online news sites, 
but also a rapidly expanding network of Internet/FM radio stations, 
web-based forums and zines, digital video collectives, free software 
initiatives, etc. (my current research focuses on the relationship 
between alternative media, autonomy, and repression in Mexico). Some 
of the most exciting developments are happening within the free 
radios, many of which combine FM and Internet broadcasts to reach out 
to activists on a global scale, while at the same time more deeply 
engaging local populations outside typical activist circles. Many of 
these projects combine an open publishing component on the web with 
live streaming as well as more focused and directed reporting about 
local issues and wider national and international campaigns.

GL: Your research clearly shows that there is a direct and positive 
relation between autonomous social movement and network paradigms. 
However, on the Internet level this is no longer the case as of about 
five years ago or so. Activists worldwide have lost touch with the 
whole Web 2.0 wave and they tend to have neither a positive nor a 
critical attitude toward social networking applications, for example. 
There does seem to be a productive engagement with free software and 
perhaps wikis, but not even blogs have been appropriated. How come?

JJ: As I understand the question, you seem to be suggesting that the 
Internet has progressed over the past few years, but that activists 
from autonomous-oriented movements are not keeping up. They were once 
at the forefront of technological innovation, but this is no longer 
the case. Perhaps, but I?m not sure this is the most productive 
framework for looking at this, although the more specific question of 
why or why not certain groups of activists appropriate particular 
Internet tools is a fascinating one. This is a big question, though, 
and is also somewhat counter-factual. I can offer a few speculative 
thoughts based on my research and activist experience, but I suppose 
the best way to get at this would be to simply ask people why they do 
or do not use certain web tools. In general, though, if the argument 
in my book is right that contemporary activism involves an increasing 
confluence between network norms, forms, and technologies, I would 
expect that activists would be more likely to use those Internet tools 
that most closely reflect their political values and most effectively 
enhance their preferred forms of organization. In this sense, Internet 
listserves and collaborative on-line forums such as Indymedia 
facilitate decentralized movement organization and reflect values 
related to bottom-up organization, grassroots coordination, direct 
democracy, and the like. These sorts of early Internet tools 
facilitated movement organization and reflected the values of the 
movement.

The question is whether more recent Internet tools, including social 
networking and video sharing sites, blogs, and/or wikis also enhance 
mobilization and reflect activists? values. If they don?t, I wouldn?t 
expect activists to appropriate them, and thus would not be worried if 
activists are somehow not keeping up. In terms of free software and 
wikis, I think this is one area where, as you rightly point out, 
radical or autonomous-oriented activists have been deeply engaged. 
Both free software and wikis precisely reflect the kind of 
collaborative networking ethic that I explore in my book, and it 
should come as no surprise that so many radical or autonomous 
activists see their own struggles reflected in the struggle for free 
software or that so many contemporary activist collectives and 
projects use wikis- and the decentralized, collaborative editing 
process these tools allow. In my view, social networking sites are 
completely different. While non-governmental organizations, policy 
reform initiatives (such as those lil? green mask requests to stop 
global warming on Facebook), political campaigns (look how many 
friends Obama has!) have arguably begun to make effective use of sites 
such as Facebook or MySpace, in my experience this has been less true 
of more radical movements. My book does have a MySpace site, which is 
linked to other books, projects, and organizations, and I do belong to 
an anarchist group on Facebook, but I don?t find much ongoing 
interaction and coordination on these sites.

Many radicals I know use social networking sites in much the same way 
as other individuals do- to keep up with their friends and maintain 
interpersonal communication, but (and I might be behind the ball 
here), they are not as frequently used for collaborative kinds of 
organizing. It seems to me that not only are social networking sites 
extremely corporate, they don?t necessarily facilitate the kind of 
collaborative, directly democratic forms of organization and 
coordination that tools such as wikis or old-school listserves do. 
They do a good job of allowing radicals to keep in touch with their 
friends and broadcast what they are up to, but I don?t think they 
facilitate networked forms of organization or particularly reflect 
directly democratic ideals. I would say the same for blogs, which, 
with perhaps a few exceptions, are generally a personalized, broadcast 
medium, and thus not necessarily conducive to more collective, 
distributed norms and forms of organization. On the contrary, I would 
say video sharing sites such as YouTube (and similar non-commercial 
endeavors), do enhance decentralized, networked organization and do 
reflect radical activist values by facilitating the autonomous 
production and circulation of movement-related images, videos, and 
documentaries. Consequently, I have found, in my experience, that 
radical activists have made significant use of video sharing sites. 
The videos posted on YouTube from the No Borders camp last November in 
Mexicali/Calexico provide one concrete example. Rather than asking 
whether activists are keeping up with the latest Internet trends, a 
more useful question is perhaps whether the latest Internet tools 
facilitate distributed forms of networked organization and whether 
they reflect activists? political ideals. To the extent they do, I 
would expect activists to enthusiastically take them up. To the extent 
they don?t, I would expect there to be limited interest beyond the 
individual level.

GL: The 'distributed' form of organization could also be read as just 
another expression of more individualism, and less commitment. There 
is a debate right now about 'organized networks' and how organization 
can be strengthened in the age of networks. Do you think this is 
possible or should we drop the 'network' in the first place?

JJ: I would say the distributed network form of organization reflects 
a particular strategy for balancing individual and collective needs, 
interests, and desires. Rather than less commitment, it reflects a 
broader shift toward what the Sociologist Paul Lichterman, in his book 
?The Search for Political Commitment,? calls ?personalized 
commitment.? That said, it is true that diffuse, flexible activist 
networks have generally proven more effective at organizing short-term 
mobilizations and events than the kind of sustainable organizations 
needed to generate lasting social transformation. There is often a 
false debate between ?movement? or ?flexible networks? and 
?institutionalization,? as if there were only one way to 
institutionalize. Institutions are generally associated with the kind 
of centralized, top-down bureaucratic organizations inherited from the 
industrial age. However, if we see institutions more broadly as simply 
sustainable networks of social relations along with the organizational 
and technological infrastructure that makes such relations possible 
then there are many ways to institutionalize. In this sense, there is 
no necessary contradiction between sustainable organization and 
networks.

The key is to create new kinds of sustainable institutions that 
reflect and incorporate the networking logics I explore in my book. 
For example, what would a political institution look like that is 
sustainable over time and able to generate more effective coordinated 
action, yet is still based on directly democratic forms of decision-
making, bottom-up participation, decentralized collaboration, etc.? As 
I understand it this is the crux of what you, Ned Rossiter and others 
are talking about when you argue for the need to move toward organized 
networks, at least in the realm of new media. I agree that something 
similar is needed in the realm of political activism. I think there 
will always be a role for more flexible, diffuse networks to plan and 
coordinate specific actions. And there is nothing wrong with letting 
these networks fizzle out when they are no longer needed (in my 
experience old networks rarely die, they simply cease to provide a 
forum for active communication). However, I do think it is important 
that we build new kinds of networked institutions (contra 
institutional networks) that reflect the best of what distributed 
networks have to offer, but are more sustainable over time. At 
present, I think the social forums, with all their problems, are the 
best example we have of this new kind of organized network in the 
realm of political action.

Forums are hybrid organizations, combining vertical and horizontal 
organizing logics. Many radicals have criticized the social forums 
precisely because of the participation and influence of traditional 
reformist institutional actors. However, in my view, it is precisely 
at the intersection of these different sorts of political and 
organizational logics, and in the context of the associated conflicts 
and debates, that new kinds of sustainable hybrid networked 
institutions will emerge. This is why I have consistently argued over 
the years that more radical activists should engage the forum, even if 
from the margins, creating autonomous spaces to interact with the 
forum process while promoting their more innovative horizontal 
networking practices. Again, it is through this kind of ongoing 
interaction and conflict between different organizational logics and 
practices that new kinds of organized networks will emerge in the 
political realm. It is no accident that of all the projects, networks, 
and institutions that have been created by the global justice movement 
the social forums remain the most active and vibrant, despite, or 
perhaps precisely because of, the continued critiques. To go back to 
your first question, PGA remains closest to my heart, but the social 
forums may ultimately turn out to be a more lasting and influential 
organized network. One of the more interesting projects I have taken 
part in over the past few years, the Networked Politics initiative
(http://www.networked-politics.info/ ), has been an effort on the part of
activists and engaged scholars to  think more deeply about how to develop
new forms of politics and  institutions that are sustainable yet reflect the
kinds of networking  logics and practices that were particularly visible in
the context of  the global justice movement.

GL: You got involved at the right time, and got out to write down your 
findings at the moment when the 'other globalization movement' had 
somehow lost steam. Do you agree? There is a certain nostalgia for Big 
Event days, which makes Networking Futures such a fascinating read. 
Where do you see the movements heading? We can all see that they are 
not dead, but the urge to continue as if it still were 2001-2002 isn't 
there anymore. Is the network form making it more bearable to see 
movements disappear? You seem to have no problem admitting that 
"social movements are cyclical phenomena." What topics and social 
formation do you see emerging? Would it, for instance, make sense to 
come up with a radical movement inside the larger context of climate 
change?

JJ: Yes, I think that?s right. I was extremely fortunate to have 
gotten involved in the movement when it was becoming publicly visible 
in Seattle, and then lived through what we might call its peak years 
from a unique position in Barcelona. I think the movement lost some 
steam, or at least some of its confrontational spirit, after the 
repression in Genoa, and then 9-11 obviously had a huge impact, 
although more so in the United States then elsewhere. Somewhere 
between 2002 and 2003 I think the social forums began to replace mass 
actions as the main focus of the movement, which reflected a shift, in 
my view, toward a more sustainable form of movement activity. At the 
same time, there was also a move toward more local forms of organizing 
rooted in specific communities. To some extent I think the turn away 
from mass actions and the change in emphasis toward local organizing 
resulted from the critique of summit hopping that had been around 
since Seattle (if not before) but became increasingly widespread as 
the novelty of mass actions began to wear off. At the same time, 
regardless of any internal movement debates, it is increasingly 
difficult to pull off successful mass direct actions over time.

The sociologist Randal Collins hypothesizes that movements can only 
maintain their peak levels for about two years, which isn?t too far 
off in the case of the global justice movement (say late 1999 to 
mid-2001 or so). In this sense, the shift of emphasis toward the 
forums and local organizing, although not necessarily conceived in 
this way, was a strategic response to the cyclical nature of social 
movements. Mass actions continue of course, but as I pointed out 
above, even these have become more regularized and routine. The 
movement has thus traded some of its emotional intensity for greater 
sustainability. Given this strategic shift, I would say the movement 
remains surprisingly vibrant. In contrast, as Barbara Epstein has 
argued, the anti-nuclear energy movement petered out when activists 
failed to make the shift from mass actions, which began attracting 
fewer and fewer people and eliciting decreasing media attention, to an 
alternative strategy. In many ways, the global justice movement is 
well placed to pick up steam again if and when the next cycle of 
increasing confrontation comes around again.

The global justice/alternative globalization/anti-capitalist frame is 
a good one in that it encompasses an array of movements and struggles, 
while maintaining a focus on systemic interconnections. I think it 
would be an error to revert back to single issue politics and 
struggles at this point, as such connections would be obscured and the 
social, political, and cultural capital of the global justice movement 
would be squandered. In this sense, rather than organize a radical 
movement around climate change, for example, it would make more sense 
to organize around this issue in the context of a global justice 
frame. This was done to great effect by the European anti-war 
movement, which was a really a fusion between the anti-war and global 
justice movements. This connection was never really made in the U.S., 
partly due to the absence of a national level forum process, and both 
movements were worse off as a result. In terms of what specific issues 
I see emerging, that is always a tough call, but I think you are right 
that global climate change will constitute a key site of struggle over 
the next few years, as will alternative energy, particularly given the 
spike in oil prices. At the same time, in light of the current global 
financial and economic crisis, a broad anti-capitalist critique 
remains as relevant and important as ever. Moreover, if the history of 
previous crises provides any indication, we may well see the rise of a 
global democracy movement to challenge the increasing repression and 
authoritarian trends in many parts of the world. Whatever new forms of 
struggle emerge, I think they will be stronger to the extent that they 
can link themselves to a broader anti-systemic critique such as that 
represented by the global justice movement.

--

Jeffrey S. Juris, Networking Futures, The Movements Against Corporate 
Globalization, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2008.

Promotional website of the book: http://networkingfutures.com/home.html.

ASU page of Jeffrey Juris: https://sec.was.asu.edu/directory/person/863914.


-- 

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